Wired for Change

Stories of change from KALX: cyberbullying moves online, California goes green, and an incarcerated artist starts a new life. Plus, you’ll hear about a team of Berkeley students helping shield nonprofits from cyberattacks and a research scientist exploring the impact of sonar on dolphins.

This is a recording of North Gate Radio that was broadcast live on KALX radio station, 90.7FM.

 

Wired for Change full transcript 

 

Julia: Good Morning and welcome to North Gate Radio, I’m Julia Haney.

 

Aisha: And I’m Aisha Natalia Wallace-Palomares…

 

Aisha: It’s Thursday, April 25. On today’s show: Berkeley students are providing free cybersecurity services to nonprofits.

 

TEASE: “We weren’t charged anything by Berkeley. It was fantastic.” 

 

Julia: Then we’ll go to El Cerrito to ask who’s responsible when students are bullied online.

 

TEASE: “We’re not flagging it just because we don’t like that, we’re flagging     it because it’s bullying, it’s harassing, they need to take it down.” 

 

Aisha: We’ll take a deep dive into sonar effects on dolphins.

 

TEASE: “So imagine the alarm in your school going off, and then the five second afterwards, everybody screams, and then it stops.”

 

Julia: Plus, who’s gonna pay for California’s Green electricity future?

 

TEASE: “A lot of people are struggling–especially senior citizens, to keep the lights on” 

 

Aisha: And finally we’ll hear from a formerly incarcerated artist whose recent mural can be seen at a South Bay Museum. 

 

TEASE: “Receiving a life sentence, doing all the solitary time it made me who I am“ 

 

Julia: But first, Simmerdeep Kaur with the news.

 

NEWSCAST

 

Simmerdeep: Live from Northgate News, I’m Simmerdeep Kaur.

 

It’s day four since UC Berkeley Students set up tents in front of Sproul Plaza to protest the war in Gaza. 

 

The UC Berkeley Divestment Coalition is leading this protest. They are planning to stay  in their tents until UC Berkeley divests from weapons manufacturers profiting  from the war in Gaza.

 

Assistant Vice Chancellor has sent a response to the  protesters

 

That’s according to the Daily Cal. 

 

In the message, the University said it has no plans to change its investment policies and practices, and will take necessary steps to ensure the protest does not disrupt university operations. 

 

California is one step closer to providing unemployment benefits to striking workers. 

 

Yesterday, the State Senate’s “Labor, Public Employment and Retirement Committee” passed through a bill that would allow workers to receive unemployment insurance benefits. 

 

Workers are eligible if they have been on strike for more than 2 weeks … California saw dozens of strikes involving thousands of workers last year. 

 

State Senator Anthony J. Portantino co-authored the bill. He represents portions of the San Fernando and San Gabriel Valleys. In a press release he said – quote –

 

“Workers do not go on strike because they want to – they generally do it as a last resort. SB 1116 helps California’s workers keep food on their table and provides financial security for their families.”  –end of quote–

 

California is not the first state to take this step. Right now, New York and New Jersey allow striking workers to collect unemployment insurance and recently expanded their eligibility. 

 

I’m Simmerdeep Kaur, for NorthGate Radio!

 

MUSIC 

 

Julia: Live from KALX. This is North Gate Radio. I’m Julia Haney 

 

Aisha: And I’m Aisha Natalia Wallace-Palomares

 

Julia: Today: cyberbullying, cyber attacks, and….dolphins? And then we’ll paint the town. 

 

Aisha:  But first, we’ve all heard about banks and corporations getting hacked. Well they’ve been spending a lot of money to protect themselves. 

 

But what if you’re a nonprofit that barely has enough money to operate? 

 

Reporter Simmerdeep Kaur tells us how some Berkeley students are trying to help…

 

Simmer: Austin Shamlin is the CEO of the Traverse Project. It’s a non-profit that tries to fight human sex trafficking. 

 

AUSTIN: We started in January of 2023 and we wanted to do something different. 

 

Simmer: That something different is using data and technology to create a map of people who are possibly being trafficked.

 

AUSTIN: as an example, if you looked at Texas, right. And a group of massage parlors that are involved in illicit massage business. If they have Latino women or Asian women that are working in these places, we want to find how did those women get there and who’s profiting from them actually being there.

 

Simmer: Shamlin says because so much of their work is done through computing, the Traverse Project has become a target for organized powerful crime rings. 

 

AUSTIN: A lot of these actors that have involvement with government corruption have intelligence products that they can use against our folks as well. 

 

Simmer: But keeping Traverse’s staff and volunteers safe from these cyber threats was just too expensive for the non-profit.

 

AUSTIN: We are in the tech space because everything we do is tech related. But because we’re not selling our services.

 

Simmer: …unlike for-profit companies, they don’t make enough money to pay for cybersecurity. And they’re not alone. 

 

According to Harvard Business Review, the amount of ransoms companies paid to hackers grew by 300% in 2020. Attacks are expected to keep increasing and cost $10.5 trillion in damages annually by next year.

 

But Shamlin found an alternative, a solution to protect his team without spending a dime – he learned about Berkeley’s Cybersecurity Clinic. 

 

Simmer: The clinic started in 2018 and it’s run by student volunteers and supervised by lecturers

 

Simmer: And before students start working with clients like Traverse, they have to learn how to deal with malware attacks and craft cybersecurity policies to keep non-profits safe. 

 

Simmer: Elijah Baucom is an instructor of one of the classes. He also works in cybersecurity.

 

ELIJAH: Before the students ever engage with a client, I want to make sure that they have a general understanding of these topics and that they can effectively apply them in their own lives as well.

 

Simmer: Baucom says students spend the first quarter researching a variety of cyberthreats, and how they affect groups differently. 

 

ELIJAH: They span across personal, social sector, and corporate tech or cybersecurity…and making sure that the students have a general understanding.

 

Simmer: Once students have mastered that, in the second quarter Baucom pairs them with clients. 

 

He says the class isn’t only geared towards computer science students. It’s open to any UC Berkeley student who wants to learn about cybersecurity. He wouldn’t tell me exactly what the clinic teaches because he doesn’t want to give away their methods to criminal hackers. 

 

But Catherine Tong gives us a hint. Tong is a junior majoring in Comparative Literature. They took the class, in part, to help keep their mom safe online in addition to helping non profits. 

 

TONG: My mom is a really careless digital citizen because she actually has been hacked before I have gotten emails from her that I was like, what is this?

 

Simmer: Tong found out their mom was using the same password for all retailers like Walmart, Target and Sephora. 

 

TONG: and then I was like, okay, this is kind of a problem, 

 

Simmer: Tong helped their mom secure her accounts afterwards

 

So far the clinic has trained more than 125 students. And they’ve worked with non-profits ranging from women’s health clinics to refugee organizations and journalists investigating war-crimes. 

 

Back at Traverse, Shamlin says he met with students once a week. Among other projects, they helped him create a cybersecurity policy for his staff. 

 

SHAMLIN: We weren’t charged anything by Berkeley. It was fantastic. 

 

Simmer: Shamlin says if he paid a cybersecurity consultant to do the same work, it would have cost him up to $150-thousand dollars. 

 

SHAMLIN: So it was really a big relief to have some cybersecurity experts with some fresh, young ideas to come in and start putting policies in effect that would protect our staff. 

 

Simmer: And it’s not just non-profits that are taking note of UC Berkeley’s Citizen Clinic. Last year the clinic received a $500,000 grant from Google to expand its work. 

 

I’m Simmerdeep Kaur, for NorthGate Radio. 

 

Julia: Some of us were bullied in middle school hallways — but what happens when your bully is an anonymous instagram account? 

 

CSPAN: USA Today writing that the hearing comes amid growing concerns that social media is harming America’s youth. 

 

Julia: School districts across the country are grappling with how to manage students’ social media use. I went to El Cerrito where middle-school principal has been sounding the alarm

 

SCHOOL BELL RINGING SOUND PLAYS

 

Julia: That’s the 1 p.m. bell and Matt Burnham has just finished subbing in on a class. 

 

But he’s not a teacher, he’s the principal of Korematsu middle school. 

 

MATT BURNHAM: I’ve been the principal now for…this is my 12th year. 

 

Julia: When he first started, very few kids had cell phones. Now most of them do. The phones create easy access to social media sites. And Burnham says some students are making accounts designed to bully or harass their peers. 

 

MATT: it’s just not uncommon for students to create anonymous social media accounts affiliated with their schools. 

 

Julia: He says he actually just got a call earlier in the day from another middle school principal dealing with the same issue. 

 

The students who manage these  accounts will typically open their DMs or post a google form, then their peers will respond with gossip or tidbits about other students at school. And the account owners will share it with their followers. 

 

JULIA: And how many accounts would you estimate are currently operating?

 

MATT: I have no way to answer that question because they hide this stuff under different names.

 

Julia: Usually, the account has the school name … 

 

MATT: And then some kind of tag that kids are familiar with like confessions is a common one. Tea is another one. To get the gossip. Things like that.

  

Julia: A lot of the bullying is happening on Instagram. Instagram users have to be 13 years old to open and manage their own account. But some Korematsu students aren’t 13 yet. 

 

JULIA: Have you reported these accounts to Instagram or Meta? 

 

MATT: Yes. We report every single account that’s brought to our attention. 

 

JULIA: And what has happened when you’ve done that?

 

MATT: In my experience, nothing. 

 

Julia: Burnham says what he’s flagging isn’t trivial. 

 

MATT: We’re not flagging it just because we don’t like that, like we’re flagging because it’s bullying. It’s harassing. They need to take it down. 

 

Kim Karr: We literally just got an email today from a school. We do help them take them down. 

 

Julia: That’s Kim Karr. She left her job as a teacher to start a nonprofit called Digital4good.

 

We are pretty successful at that, but the big thing we tell schools is it’s going to keep going until you teach the students how to be digital first responders. You’ve gotta educate them.

 

Julia: She says the accounts students are making at Korematsu are common. She tells me that half of middle school students who are bullied online don’t go to adults for help. The number one reason is because they’re afraid their devices or accounts will get taken away.  

 

But here’s someone who did tell her parents. 

 

RIA: My name is Ria Rajesh and I’m from the state of Maryland and I’m a freshman in highschool.

 

Julia: Ria is also an intern at Digitial4good. She knows what it feels like to be bullied. 

 

RIA: I was mentioned in one of those online pages. I think it was on tiktok. I know how it feels when someone anonymously is talking about you. 

 

Julia: And Ria says there’s something particularly painful about being bullied online. 

 

RIA:  It’s the worst feeling honestly, just not knowing who it is because it could be one of your closest people. You like, you lose that sense of trust. 

 

Julia: Digital4good partners with tech companies to improve their reporting channels, still Karr says…

 

KIM: I think that the tech companies need to be held responsible and I’m starting to see it with the lawsuits happening right now. They’re all in court right now.  

 

Julia: She’s talking about the hundreds of school districts across the country suing social media companies over their negative impact on students’ mental health. 

 

Back at Korematsu, parents have been getting the principals’ emails about online bullying. 

 

TED: He looks like he’s a little bit like the messenger that keeps saying the same message and not a lot of people are paying attention. 

 

Julia: That’s Ted Lam, President of the Parent Teacher Student Association at Korematsu. He says the school sends out social media resources to parents all the time. But parents don’t always know how to monitor their kids’ accounts.

 

TED:  As a parent myself, I have to ask my son how do I do this on a computer? What is this app about? And I imagine a lot of kids are really good at it too and I think that’s an advantage to them and a disadvantage to us parents. 

 

Julia: Plus, Matt Burnham, the principal at Korematsu, says there’s only so much a school can do.
 

MATT: I really do think that the companies need to take more responsibility 

 

Julia: He says he talks to students about the consequences of cyberbullying, but he’s spending his limited time dealing with fallout from social media … at the expense of other parts of his job. 

 

MATT: We’re here trying to educate children in many different ways. But ultimately we’re trying to help them become college and career successful. I don’t really want to spend all my time dealing with social media. 

 

Julia: We asked Meta for a comment but they didn’t respond. 

 

MUSIC BUMPER: School Days, Chuck Berry

 

Aisha: We’re going to turn to dolphins now … and how the sonar from US Navy ships affects them.

 

Not a lot is known about this. But there’s a new study coming out from UC Santa Cruz that takes a look. Caroline Casey is a research scientist at the “Long Run Laboratory” there … and she says researchers started by recording how dolphins talk – they call them “whistles” – when there’s no sonar. 

 

Then, they played the sonar and recorded their whistles to see if there were changes.

 

But I wondered, why focus on the whistles? 

 

CAROLINE CASEY: so for us, the whistles were really important because they’re a social signal. So they’re a sound that animals make, you know, a lot of species of dolphins have what are called signature whistles, which are basically representative sounds for their identity and also the identity of other dolphins and their social groups. So sort of like names. 

 

Aisha:  Why is sound production so important to marine mammals? And is it more important to dolphins than other fellow sea creatures?

 

CAROLINE: So if you can imagine that you’re a dolphin, and you spend most of your time submerged underwater, you know, light attenuates very quickly with depth. So once you get down to about 10 meters, you can’t see anything, it’s relatively dark. And so sound, the speed of sound travels much faster under water than it does in air. And so sound is incredibly important for most marine mammals in terms of communication, navigation, the ability to find and detect food, and also for breeding opportunities and for staying in close contact with their calves. 

 

Aisha:  So I want to get to know how the sonar affects the dolphins but many of us haven’t heard it before, so before we get to that, what would exposure to sonar be like for us? 

 

CAROLINE: it’s really loud, if you’re close to it. And oftentimes, it repeats over and over again. So imagine you’re at school, and you’re sitting and you’re having lunch with your friends, and a fire alarm goes off. And it doesn’t just go off once, but it goes off, you know, maybe every 25 seconds or every minute for 30 minutes, up to an hour, you know, so if you’re right where the bell is, it’s going to be really loud and disturbing and potentially scary. 

 

Aisha: yeah, so it Sounds like it would be a little annoying, or at least disruptive. So you deployed the sonar what did you guys find? 

 

CAROLINE: what we found was, first of all, common dolphins, are very soniferous, meaning that they produce lots of sound. In comparison to control experiments, dolphins appear to be most reactive to the sonar signal just in the five seconds immediately following the signal. So imagine the alarm in your school going off, you know, and then, and then the five seconds afterwards, everybody screams, and then it stops. And then everybody waits. And then you hear it again, and everybody screams, and so on. And sometimes this vocal response is sustained throughout the entire duration of the experiment, which for us was 10 minutes, but you can imagine, you know, in realistic hearing scenarios for these animals, that sometimes these Navy training exercises are going on for much longer.

 

Aisha: Wow. So So what does that mean? 

 

CAROLINE: Um so we’re still trying to learn what it means. But what we do know is that these animals, even though they live in areas that are regularly ensonified  by sound, they’re still reactive to these types of signals. And this is really important information when assessing the potential impacts of sound on on marine animals. 

 

Aisha: right, and let’s talk about physiological responses. So you mentioned that cortisone levels were gonna be measured?

 

CAROLINE: We are working on a paper looking at whether or not dolphins exhibit a change in cortisol levels and we’ve seen, although the results are finalized, there does seem to be an effect physiologically of exposure to sound, especially in the 30 minutes immediately following sound exposure. But stay tuned for that study that should be published within the next year.

 

Aisha: So cortisol levels are important why? 

 

CAROLINE: Animals that are, are potentially stressed cortisol, you know, can potentially have a negative effect on just overall health.

 

Aisha: can’t wait to see what other research you have to do and what the implications are. 

 

Aisha: That was Caroline Casey, research scientist at UC Santa Cruz.

 

Julia: We’ve been hearing a lot about California’s plans to become carbon neutral by 2045, but how much will it cost?

Kele Ogu reports that lawmakers and regulators have put forward a controversial plan to pay for this energy transition. 

Kele: It’s become a common occurrence in hilly parts of the Bay Area that when it’s abnormally windy, the utilities shut down the electricity. 

That’s because intense winds have brought down electric poles and cables and started deadly wildfires. 

                 NEWS CLIP: “This is the aftermath of California’s deadliest and most     destructive wildfire 85 people died here in a fire that PG&E the country’s largest utility is suspected of starting…”

Kele: To keep electricity flowing for consumers in wildfire prone areas, Investor Owned Utilities need more money to bury cables underground. 

At the same time, these utilities are also confronting the cost of making California’s dream of going fully electric by 2045 a reality. And so, the utilities just have to keep the grid expanding. 

But who is paying for all this? Well right now, the burden is falling on low income earners. 

To spread the extra costs more equitably, state lawmakers passed a bill called AB205 in June of 2022. Instead of lumping the overheads into consumption, this new bill will… 

SYLVIE ASHFORD: Modify the Public Utilities Code to say that any fixed charge that private utilities implement on electricity bills has to be graduated or constructed in tiers by income. Three or more income tiers. And, that whatever this fixed charge is it has to deliver on average bill savings for low-income customers.

Kele: That’s Sylvie Ashford she’s an analyst with the utility reform network or TURN, an electricity consumer advocacy group based in San Francisco.

This is how it will work. Everyone will pay a fixed charge for wildfire mitigation and decarbonization.  

 ASHFORD: The per kilowatt hour electricity rate will go down for everybody. 

Kele: Because instead of wrapping up the costs in kilowatt usage, every customer will see a fixed charge on their bill based on income. 

The law gives guidance to the California Public Utilities Commission, the regulatory body that sets electricity rates. 

But Republican lawmakers have come against the plan. Emily Watson is a legislative aid for Republican congressman Joe Patterson.  

WATSON: PG&E rates and electricity rates as a whole in California but especially in our district have gone through the roof and we have been receiving a lot of calls to our office complaining about these rates . So honestly, we are really just trying to address this issue,, because we’ve had constituents calling. There have been multiple articles about the fact that a lot people are struggling, especially senior citizens, to keep the lights on.

Kele: With electricity rates still rising, some Democrats have been echoing this complaint. 

Despite this, the CPUC is set to vote on a draft proposal that follows AB205’s guidelines. The plan creates three tiers of customers based on income. To verify income, the utilities will rely on existing programs like CARE and FERA, which already help low income residents. Here’s TURN’s Sylvie Ashford again. 

 ASHFORD:: The first tier is CARE customers or low-income, they will pay $6 a month.

Kele: Residents enrolled in FERA will pay twelve dollars a month. 

ASHFORD: And, all others will pay about $24 a month in line with the charge currently offered by SMUD the Sacramento utility

Kele: The CPUC is expected to vote on this proposal on May 9th. 

If it’s approved, San Diego Gas and Southern California Edison customers will see the fixed rate show up on their bills in the last quarter of 2025. 

And for PG&E customers, it will be in early 2026. 

I am Kelechukwu Ogu, for North Gate Radio. 

 

MUSIC BUMPER 

 

Aisha: The city of Los Gatos is just southeast of San Jose and if you’ve ever wondered how the city got its name, well, there’s a big mural at the New Museum of Los Gatos that answers the question.

 

The exhibit called “Paint the Town: A Mural in Action,” can be seen through July 21.

 

As part of the exhibit, artist Tomas Talamantes created the mural, in real time. 

 

Reporter Royvi Hernandez was at the museum during a live session and says Talamantes journey of becoming an artist is one of pain, repentance and rebirth. 

 

NAT SOUND PLAYS FROM THE SCENE 

 

Royvi: On a recent Friday, Tomas Talamantes is standing in front of five huge canvases that are pinned to a wall. It’s a little past 10 o’clock in the morning and he’s setting up his paints. 

 

NAT SOUND FROM SCENE

 

ROYVI: What was your thought process this morning when you woke up?

WISPER: Not nervous anxious just excited anxious

ROYVI: So you woke up early this morning?

WISPER: Yeah I went to the gym 

 

Royvi: Talamantes goes by the name Wisper as an artist.  – that’s without an “h” –

 

He’s muscular and stands about 5’5. His head is shaven and he’s nervous because this is the first time a museum commissioned him to paint.

 

Before the crowd starts rolling in, he shows me the sketch of the mural he drew on his iPad.

 

WISPER: The first is to pay homage to Mexico. It was being settled by two Mexicans and they got a land grant and then they held land here in Los Gatos all the way to San Jose, Santa Clara, Campbell.

 

Royvi: The hacienda is where the city got its name, La Rinconada de Los Gatos. In Spanish that means cat’s corner.

 

WISPER: Because there’s two mountain ridges in between where the hacienda was settled and then there was a bunch of mountain lions. 

 

Royvi: So the gatos aren’t house cats but mountain lions and bobcats. 

 

WISPER: The Chinese railway workers, I lodged that in there too.

 

Royvi: On the other canvases there are Ohlone Native Americans, who were the first inhabitants of the area, a woman inside an Hacienda, a great horned owl and the city’s downtown scenery. 

 

NAT SOUND 

 

Royvi: Before he gets to work, Wisper turns up some music on his phone. Then he starts sketching out the mural in chalk and he’ll color it in with acrylic.

 

NAT SOUND

SCENE FADES OUT

 

Royvi: Wisper’s 54-years old and says the story of how he became an artist starts with pain. He grew up in San Jose and listened to a lot of hip-hop growing up, that got him into graffiti. 

 

WISPER: My older brother was a gang member, my older cousins. I liked the way people respected or I shouldn’t say respected because it’s not respect it’s feared. I admired how people feared them. 

 

Royvi: Wisper’s mother and father divorced when he was very young. And his dad told him, their mother left them. When he was 10, his father died, he and his brother moved to live with his mother but she was remarried. And Wisper felt she always took her husband’s side, never sticking up for her sons. 

 

WISPER: I grew up with the belief that she didn’t really love me and so if my own mother didn’t love me then who could?

 

Royvi: Wisper says he found acceptance and love in the streets, but eventually that lifestyle caught up to him. And to make a long story short, he was charged for murder and robbery and got sentenced to 26 years to life. 

 

WISPER: I immediately accepted responsibility for my actions. 

 

Royvi: While spending time in prison, Wisper said he started doodling and drawing to pass the time. 

 

WISPER: So the higher maximum security they still allow you to order art supplies.

 

Royvi: Yet, it was limited, mostly colored pencils and chalk but not a lot of paints, but many of the inmates including him got creative. 

 

WISPER: What a lot of people used to do was they would use candy, like m&m’s. You can wet them, you can get the color.

 

Royvi: The prison allowed some inmates to paint the visiting room and Wisper’s friend was chosen, that friend asked Wisper if he could help him paint. 

 

WISPER: I told him ‘I don’t know how to paint’ cause I never painted with a brush I just painted with spray paint before and he’s all ‘but you know how to draw really good’ and I was like ‘okay I’ll come and help you.’ 

 

Royvi: He helped paint the mural which was Bay Area themed, this included the Golden Gate Bridge and a few other sceneries – and that experience showed him, he could really draw and to continue to pursue it. There weren’t really any art classes in his prison, but Wisper remember watching this show growing up … 

 

BOB ROSS SHOW AUDIO

Royvi: It was a show on PBS that taught people to paint and that along with his Christian faith, gave him a road to repentance.

 

WISPER: It’s not joyous, it’s not painless but there’s good that can come out of it, if we decide to utilize it in a positive manner.

 

NAT SOUND 

*Lady speaking introducing him*

 

Royvi: Back at the museum a docent brings around a group to see Wisper at work. 

 

NAT SOUND 

*Lady speaking introducing him*

 

Royvi: After Wisper was released in 2013, he started Together We Create. The group is made up of four artists including Wisper. They go around to schools in San Jose and teach students to paint.

 

Through this work, Wisper got onto the radar of a non profit called Local Color San Jose, a group that tries to connect emerging artists from the South Bay with art organizations. 

 

JESSICA PUNZULAN: Seeing the work that he’s done with live painting and Together We Create and being an artist at like all these different skills it’s kind of hard not to miss him. 

 

Royvi: That’s Jessica Punzulan, the creative service program manager at Local Color San Jose. And so when the museum called her non-profit looking for an artist to paint a mural, she suggested Wisper.

 

WISPER: The bad decisions that I made in taking someone’s life and receiving a life sentence, doing all the solitary time and being involved in the gangs and everything else, it made me who I am.

 

Royvi: For Northgate Radio, I’m Royvi Hernandez.

 

MUSIC 

 

Aisha: That’s it for NorthGate Radio … today’s show was produced by Hussain Khan and Royvi Hernandez

 

Julia: Simmerdeep Kaur was our Executive Producer…

 

Aisha: Rick Johnson was our engineer…

 

Julia: Queena Sook Kim and Shereen Marisol Meraji were our faculty advisors…

 

MUSIC: She’s a Rainbow, by The Rolling Stones

 

Aisha: North Gate Radio is a production of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, I’m Aisha Natalia Wallace-Palomares

 

Julia: … and I’m Julia Haney …

 

Aisha: Join us next Thursday for our final show!