And so, I have the pleasure to announce the talk about trackography. You never read alone. And as speakers, we have Maria Zainu, who's a researcher at technically – I'm so sorry, Tactical Tech Collective. And there's Claudio Agosti, who's also with the Tactical Tech Collective. And apparently we're going to have a premiere tonight because they're going to show us trackography, which is a software which will illustrate where all this data is going that the websites are collecting about us. The Zal is yours. Hi, thank you very much for being here today. Claudio and I work with Tactical Tech, as just mentioned. Tactical Tech is an NGO based in Berlin, but we work internationally. And we are super excited today because we're launching one of our new projects, which is called trackography, and it's all about online tracking. So, when we think about surveillance, very often we think about governments, because a lot of it is carried out by them, and rightfully so we do think about governments. However, in most cases, I think that companies, corporations, make a lot of that surveillance possible. A lot of our daily browsing activities, like reading the news online, is what enables governments to have access to this data so they can monitor us to begin with. So, for example, when we think about Prism and a whole bunch of other systems used by the NSA and other intelligence agencies, we can see that a lot of their monitoring is possible because a whole bunch of companies like Google and Facebook collect that data based on their tracking that they do on a daily basis. And this is something we would really like to draw your attention to through this project. Basically, what we understand is that this whole world of data collection is creating new sort of power around the world. And why we created trackography? Because basically we want to cover what is data geopolitics. At the moment, if you know that one country has a large pipe of gas and this gas permits you to be warm in the winter, you understand some geopolitical relationship. But about the data, who is the owner of whom? Which are the countries that are depending more from other?  It's a project intended basically for advocate, lawyer, analyst, researcher, so a person that make analysis about this phenomenon. We are focused on the media website. For the media website, we mean a website providing news media because if someone is able to understand and to study how a population, a region, a country is accessing to the media and what is more interesting, what is most accepted, researched. As in fact, a way to perceive and to study the nation itself, the target itself. We also see by the Facebook experiment that based on what you are reading, you are influenced in your mood to be more positive or negative. And that is why the media are the subject of this test that by theory can be applied to every website. So basically, we develop a software, a script, that emulates the behavior of a user connected to a website. This script performs HTTP connection using Phantom.js. Phantom.js is a browser that runs without the display window. Every time you connect to a media website, you have many third-party content like the video commonly came from a third-party or have a banner that displays advertising or some static picture or some hidden tracker like a JavaScript inclusion that just puts some cookie and reads your behavior. Those third-party is what our script automatically detects. Then we perform a trace route. Trace route for every included third-party. This can lead to a figure out which is the network path needed to reach the server included. And then we perform J-O-I-P, so a resolution from every hop in the path to a geographical location in order to figure it out, which are the infrastructure involved. At the moment, we have collected 30 countries in the computer analysis. We have a media directory on our GitHub repository with the media list, because the media list changed on the time and required a local knowledge to be tuned. So everyone can contribute to putting his own country. And we have more than 3,000 media actually analyzed and some special media that are analyzed from every country. So let's have a look at trackography. As Claudia just mentioned, we collected data for 30 countries. We did this essentially by running the script in these countries based on lists of media websites that we collected for each one of them. If your country is not blue in the map, don't feel discriminated, just that we don't happen to have partners in that country, or we just don't happen to have someone who could run the script there. So as you can see, these blue countries are the ones that we have data for. So if we click on Germany, for example, since we're in Germany, on the side of the panel, you can see that we have lists of media websites. By global media, essentially, we mean media websites which cover the news internationally and which are accessed globally. If we click on the Wall Street Journal, for example, what we can see now is what happens when we access the Wall Street Journal in Germany. As you can see on the map, the green country is Germany. The country we're accessing the Wall Street Journal from. The blue country in this case is the United States, which hosts the server of the Wall Street Journal. The purple countries are the ones which host the network infrastructure required to access the server. And the red countries, which in this case is the UK and the Netherlands, are the countries which are hosting the servers of the companies which can track us when we access the Wall Street Journal. What's noteworthy in this case, essentially, is that the way that these companies track us is because every single website, or at least most media websites, include embedded image and code, which belong to third-party companies. And here we can see that we have a lot of unintended connections above. Yes. So the one intended connection is basically to the media website. The unintended connections, which in this case are 67, are the connections to the servers of third-party companies. That means that while we were planning to connect to the Wall Street Journal, in reality, we are also actually connecting to the servers of third-party companies, which can track us and which can collect data about us in the process. If you select more media, you just sum up the visualization with others. Right, so you can feel free to, when you get access to this map, you can feel free to select the media websites that you access, the media that you read, either from the globalist, or if you scroll down below, you can also click from the national list in your country or the regional list, which covers the regional news. And by clicking on every single one of these media websites, essentially, you can see which third-party companies can track you every time you access them, but not only which companies track you, but also where your data travels to every time you access these websites. Change. Now, the reason why we decided to show you this is because this is one of the very few examples, if not only the only one, where there's a media website where you access it from Germany and no one tracks you. Or at least, according to our results, there are no third-party trackers included. And this is WikiLeaks. So, again, our results show that when you access WikiLeaks, sure, your data does travel to Norway because based on one of our results, the server of WikiLeaks is based there. But as you can see, there are zero unintended connections, which means no third-party trackers, which I think is quite interesting. Change. Beside the study, who is the third-party that is present on your navigation, it's also important to understand what is the network topology. Because every time you are connected to another server, your connection pass through an infrastructure.  If the connection is encrypted, like in HTTPS, the third-party in the middle has no power of modify or dump and collect this traffic. But commonly, this kind of third-party injection is not encrypted. And we saw with this other revelation about Angry Birds, that this was one of the very example, because Angry Birds was just a game with some advertising embedded, but the advertising server was running in the US. Therefore, the infrastructure needed to reach the server was touching the US. And Vanessa has got a good idea to monitor our traffic. That is why the network topology matters. Another reason why the network topology matters is because you never really know who has access to these cables. You never really know who has access to the network infrastructure when you're accessing websites and when your connections travel through them. So this is an example from the Snowden leaks. This document illustrates Rampart program through which the NSA collaborates with a whole bunch of third-party countries which provide them direct access to the fiber-optic cables, which make up the backbone of the internet. And also these third-party countries which include from Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and so forth, they also are hosting US equipment. So this is just one example to illustrate that while you might say, okay, right, okay, so I'm accessing this website, my data goes through, I don't know, Azerbaijan, for example, to reach the server while it's not a big deal. Well, actually it might be a big deal because maybe agencies which you wouldn't want to have access to your data do have access to your data because they're tapping into that particular network infrastructure. And beside the tapping and Pacific collection, we have already saw that exist a lot of attacks that exploit this kind of communication. FieldFly is one kind of the implant that on the fly can just change the download you are performing and put the fanfisher Trojan on your download. But this can also be applied to some exploit. For example, if you're downloading a Macromedia flash content and your browser is vulnerable to some flash exploit, the person in the middle can just start to substitute the content you are receiving in order to exploit your computer. FoxAcid was a similar attacks performed by starting from the same kind of privileged point of view. So one of the reasons why we developed our calligraphy is because we wanted to think about the geopolitics of data. What does it mean today when through the internet your data literally travels to various servers all over the world? Now, if we look at a small comparison between what happens in the so-called global west and the so-called global south, one example here is where you were accessing three national media websites in Italy. And what we can see here is that Italy owns the servers of these media websites. Of course, the red countries, as you can see here, are the ones which are hosting the servers are the tracking companies. But what's important to note here is that there are no blue arcs in the sense that they own the servers of their own media websites. On the other hand, however, if we look at a country in the global south, like Nigeria, for example, what we can see here is that Nigeria does not host the servers of its national media websites. Instead, they're hosted in the USA and the network infrastructure required to access them is based in South Africa. And the blue arcs essentially show where the data has to travel to every time they wanna do something as simple as read their national news online. Now, I think one of the reasons why this is particularly interesting is because how can Nigeria and all the Nigerians in the world kind of protect their citizens' data in practice when they don't even own their own infrastructure? How can they make sure that their citizens' data is actually in practice protected when they do not own, when the kind of control happens to it? I'm not implying that we should have some type of, you know, autonomous system like China or so forth, but I do think this is something which I think about carefully and maybe raise debates about.  For example, the former telephony monopolist in Italy, Telecom Italia, has put out a lot of investment in Brazil. In this case has gone to South America to create some network infrastructure. This means that in a certain case of the test performed, the connection that is traveling from your Brazilian carrier to reach the US was true some Italian infrastructure. This does not mean that the connection actually go down the ocean, go in Rome, and then come back to Washington. It's just because on the field in Brazil is present some Italian infrastructure and VIP address are associated to an Italian company. Therefore, the system recognize the ownership and the entity owning the infrastructure. Now, again, another example. Given the political tension in Ukraine with regards to Russia throughout 2014 and the Korean Revolution in February, we decided to run the script in Ukraine. As you can see in the map, a lot of connections go to Russia. This is because essentially by accessing two of the main media websites in Ukraine, Pravda and Vesti, we can see that one of the main companies which tracks users is Yandex. And Yandex is sort of like the Google equivalent in Russia. Now, this raises a whole bunch of questions, but essentially what I think is quite interesting is regardless of whether Ukrainians are pro-Russian or not, it really comes down to do they really want to have a lot of their data ending in Russia? Do they really want Russia to have access to them? And do they really want a company like Yandex, which likely works hand in hand with Russian intelligence agencies to have access to the type of views they read and all other browsing activities and more or less, a lot of things they do online? When you click on our counter, this is Colored. You can see why is Colored and which are the third party running in there or the connection passing through. Yeah. Wait, I close here. Okay, but the goal here, when we start to collect the data, was not to generate just image and interesting things. We have created an API that has permitted to every researcher to collect this data and make analysis. This is an example of the percentage exposure that is facing every country tested. For percentage exposure, I mean, it's enough that one connection between many that are performed when you are accessing to a media website is passing through a country to assign a presence of that country because if it's running some program that analyzes the traffic of the foray in order to analyze their behavior, it needs to be taken into account. In this map, we see, for example, in Russia, one test running on a certain carrier that answer to the autonomous system with this number because every internet access provider has different contracts with other international carriers that are for different international carriers bring different routes. And so we can see that in Russia, 100% of the connection pass through Russia, 85% touch USA, 77% touch Green Breed, et cetera. And in this way, we can take a look of which are the countries that are most present in our navigation because we are seeing Nigeria, Italy, Philippines, Germany, Austria, et cetera. For example, we have two tests in Italy, different autonomous system, means different provider involved and also different exposure of the user. In this case, Europe, that the idea associated with Europe without a specific meaning are present, France, USA, as always, et cetera. And once we start to collect all the tracker present on the media website, we figured out to declare the Rost media website ever. But this is impossible because we discovered that the amount of tracker injected by a media website changed during the time and maybe also in the same day, they are changing. At the moment, we are just analyzing the home page. But we see in this heat map on the X a certain amount of media and on the epsilon, the test run. In the D3JS, I'm a goat and so if someone can help us to develop a better visualization, is welcome. But almost over the value square, you can see how many tracker are present and when the test has been performed. This heat map was intended to see if some media, dependently on the source of the user, provide different tracker. And the answer is yes. So when we access media websites, we're not only vulnerable because our data travels to various servers all over the world, which we cannot control, but also because a whole bunch of third-party companies which we haven't given our consent to and which we don't know track us in the process. Here we have collected some figures which illustrates which are the primary companies, which track us in every case. So we can see, for example, that in Germany, based on the media websites that we run the script on, in most cases, in 88% of the cases, Google is the dominant company which tracks us. And if we scroll down, we can also see that Google actually is the dominant company in almost all of the countries that we run the test on. Actually, out of the 30 countries that we have analyzed, in 28 of them, Google is the main company which tracks users in almost 90% of all cases, except for two exceptions. The one is South Africa, where effective measure is in the first place. And the second example is Russia, where Yandex does the most tracking, which is sort of like the Google equivalence in Russia as mentioned earlier. But still, there's a very small difference with Google. So what we can see is that Google's the main company. And then again, this raises questions as to whether Google should have this type of monopoly and so forth. But then again, it's not a simple question, of course, because a lot of media organizations use Google Analytics, and that's one of the reasons why Google ends up tracking you. And then the question is, what alternatives are there to Google Analytics and whether we should work with media organizations to help them find alternatives so that all data doesn't end up with Google in the end and can bring some type of end to this Google hegemony. When we run the script, we identified hundreds of not thousands of companies. Of course, in these last four months, we didn't have time to analyze and go through every single one of them. So we decided for starters to look at the so-called globally prevailing tracking companies. By that, we mean the companies which track you the most based on the media websites that we analyze. So basically the companies like Google, which presents the highest percentages as illustrated in the visualization previously. By looking at their websites, we can see that their main business model is based on advertising and profiling. Profiling and Web Analytics kind of feeds into advertising. And a lot of people have said to us, especially over the last months when we've been working on this, is that I don't care if Google or Facebook or any company is tracking me for the sake of advertising. I mean, in the end of the day, they improve my web experience. They provide me services and so forth. What's the big deal? That's a lot of arguments we've been getting over the last months. It's kind of hard supposedly to tackle that. But we think it's a bit more political than that and here's why. So last night, Jake and Laura Portros gave a fantastic talk about reconstructing narratives. I'm guessing most of you attended, right? Yeah? Cool. Okay, so following their talk, how many of you accessed Deschbegel slash International to read the latest revelations about tax on crypto, SSL and targeted killings in Afghanistan? But can lower the hand who has used a Tor? Because... Or actually, okay, so who accessed this while using Tor? Without Tor. Oh, okay, sorry. Who used with Tor? Who accessed this with Tor? Okay, so who accessed the latest revelations on Deschbegel without using Tor? Oh, wow. Okay, so great. Well, not great, but actually what I'm going to show is for most of you. So after the talk, we thought, hmm, what's happening now that everyone's accessing Deschbegel? So we decided to run the script last night to figure out. So as you can see here, we've run the script based on just Deschbegel.de, but also there was this Deschbegel article where we've run the script and collected results for the specific page of the revelations. As you can see there, with regards to tracking companies, more companies tracked us last night when we accessed the specific page with the revelations than when we just accessed Deschbegel in general. And as we can also see, some of these companies include Google, Twitter, and Facebook, and FYI, these companies have kind of been compromised by the NSA through Prism. Prism has been collecting data in bulk by these companies as we know. We also know that the NSA has hacked into the data centers of Google through the muscular program, and so on and so forth. So what we can see basically is that last night when we all accessed Deschbegel to gain access to this very important information, these companies were tracking on us, and these companies also work hands-to-hands with those who probably don't want us to get access to that information. So maybe that's just something we should think about, and especially if we're ever going to argue again that, you know, they just do advertising. How do these trackers even handle our data anyway? What do they even do with our data? It's kind of hard to answer because the real answer is we don't know, and that itself is the actual problem. When we say that they track us and they track our data, essentially what we mean is that they track our IP address, they track our browsing history, our search history, the scrolling movements of our mouse when we access the webpage. So last night, for example, when we were reading Jake and Laura's and Erin's fantastic article, they could literally track the scrolling movements of our mouse if we copy-pasted something and so forth. But in addition to that, these companies collect a whole wide range of data from a whole bunch of other sources, and that's why we thought it might be interesting to look at their privacy policies, not because they necessarily do what they say that they do in their privacy policies, but because unfortunately, that's kind of like our best shot if we want to know what they do with our data, and also if by looking at their privacy policies we can compare it to what they actually do. So for example, if they say in their privacy policies that they do not use, I don't know, whatever cookies or whatever tracking technologies, and then we figure out that they do, then that's where we can actually, you know, raise the discussion with them. So what we have done is that we looked at the privacy policies of some of the globally prevailing tracking companies in order to collect the following fields of data, as included in the slide, like what types of data they collect and so forth. And this data, we have put it in a CSV on our repository on GitHub, which means you can all access it. You can all contribute to it. Please do contribute to it. There are a lot of companies and we cannot do it all of it ourselves. And also it would be fantastic if we could get some lawyers to help us do it and do more accurate research on that. What we want to obtain with that is nobody read the thermal service, nobody read the privacy policy because they are in fact long, complex, maybe they're also language barrier. Maybe you are touching a company with a hidden third-party tracker that you are not aware that exists, LightBeam, the plugin for Firefox, show these things. In this way, we can convert the privacy policy and the thermal services in a machine-readable format and then app or other visualization can use those data in order to provide an easier visualization for the user that can be more aware. So by looking at the privacy policies, and I repeat, I think personally that the... I mean, on the one hand it's great that they have privacy policies. On the other hand, I'm not sure how useful they are because it's not clear if they actually, you know, do what they claim they do. But like I mentioned, it's kind of like the best information we can get right now. From their privacy policies, what was interesting to see is that most of them are based in the US, which kind of again, you know, not based in the privacy policy, but generally we still have most of them based in the US, which again is interesting. It kind of shows again the US hegemony when it comes to everything, even when it comes to infrastructure and collecting data and so forth. But more importantly, we can see that only three of them supporting our track, one of which is Twitter. Thanks, Twitter. And the other one is that basically 11 out of 25 that we looked at do not only 11 out of 25 disclose how long they retain data for. But still, even the ones that do disclose how long they retain data for, that again is kind of negotiable, because while they might say, for example, that they retain data for 730 days, that retain data retention period might potentially be renewed. We do not know who they share data with, who they sell data to, how long they retain data for, and so forth. And it's this endless, like, chain of third-party actors who eventually gain access to our data, and it's such a big mess. So the point is that we do not know what happens at the end of the day, and that itself is a problem. And we think that just by looking at privacy policy, we might get some type of insight. Okay. And that is, basically, the API that is designed. We have a database that is collecting all the trace-out data, all the DNS resolution, and the reverse DNS, all the media visited, and all the third-party that was injected. The privacy policy converted into machine-readable format, and with MaxMind resolution of the GOIP and autonomous system, this kind of resolution. With disconnected.me, there are JSON lists that permit the conversion between the domain name of the third-party and the name of the company. And all this data are integrated in our database. In the future, it will be extended with new data. The goal of this API is permitted to develop a researcher to extract those data and use it for the analysis, et cetera. The whole goal of trackography is to create a global, because we want to cover every country, observatory, because during the time, we want to monitor the change and the modification about the tracking business and the exposure of the user in the network. You can find the link of the restful documentation, and our privacy policy converted into CSV. At the moment, only 26 companies are being converted because it's a quite human-intensive operation, but in a distributed crowd, this can be easier. So how can we block and circumvent online tracking? There's no easy solution, but for starters, we can all start with these. For example, the FF has a better privacy badger, which is pretty awesome. That is one example of how we can block some third-party trackers. In this table, we include other tools which we can use, like NoScript to block third-party scripts and we can use Chrome, which may be best to switch to Firefox, but anyway. Or, for example, go through Disconnect. If you want to visualize third-party trackers and also again block them. So this is just an example of some of the tools which can be used to block some online tracking. Of course, it is important to emphasize that the use of TOR on top of all of this is always great to hide your IP address and so forth, which is something that can be used to block the third-party trackers. This slide is also better explained on myshadow.org website. You can find here, at the hand, the link. In myshadow website are better explained the various approaches for the defense. We just point out that someone can defend himself by using multiple browsers in order to not let cross-website association correlation. Anyway, we are going to finish and the best way to contribute in trackography is contribute to the media list because it is important to have a complete media list about the media access in every nation and eventually also some kind of political sensitive to the test. Run the test when the media list is ready. There are a Python script that run phantom.js and JavaScript and then send the results to our server. It is an open source on GitHub and you can be part of it. In addition to helping us review media lists around the world, if your country is missing from the map and you would like to see what tracking is going on there, you would like to see what is going on there. It would be wonderful if you could meet us and brainstorm of other ways with which we can deal with this issue and improve the project and so forth. It is still a project in progress so any ideas are welcome. I am not sure if we have time for questions. I don't think so. I am so sorry. I am sure there are many of them. I have some myself. Thank you so much for this very, very interesting talk. Sorry. Also you can access the project at trackography.org. Feel free to access it and play with the map. Thank you.


Welcome once again to the breakfast here on plus TV Africa now Let's go to off the press where we have a quick review of the stories making headlines across Nigeria today We're going to be speaking with a demo like King Bala the publisher of the podium media. Thank you for joining us. Good morning, sir Yeah, thanks for joining us. All right, let's start with the punch newspapers should be Flashed on your screen in just a few seconds and the big one that you can see there's talking about a new strike aluminum Yes, it says fresh Vasity strike looms federal government as to resume fight on payment platforms UTS lacks tax deduction. We can't pay without deducting tax declares federal government Education ministry is wrong UTS deducts tax. It encompasses everything says ASU Also, Naira slides to 505 to the dollar as CBN stops Forex sale to BDCs federal government deploys 100 coppers in Northwest gunmen kill 344 abduct 430 in July Buari is UK trip for virtual summit deceptive and appalling says the PDP Also experts blame COVID-19 as states IGRs shrink by 22% in two years Still on the punches bonning plants trees save your houses from storms says I add a Also, Senate drops CCT chairs assaults case as judge goes to court reps probe custom killings of five in all your queues officers and Also, 11 lawyers battle for a booze bill activists faces more charges Unilor inslame female students autopsy points to strangulation says a pathologist and now moving on to the daily Independent see what we can also find here It says here been a Republic slams fresh charges on Sunday, Boho Presidency warned staff against disclosing classified information as ministers oath of secrecy on 42 personnel Also banned on Forex sale to BDCs CBN moving to check around tripping and unify FX rates as analysts apex bank retains benchmark interest rate at 11.5% COVID-19 10 cases of Delta variant detected in Nigeria and five years after switch to digital TV hits brick wall PDP berates Buhari over London trip for virtual meeting while students languishing kidnappers den Also federal government wants Nigerians in diaspora against supporting secessionist groups Nigerian bar admits 880 new lawyers and one other story here It says IGP orders posting and redeployment of 24 AIG's to the nation newspapers now It will hold to banner court. I fled Nigeria to avoid being killed Agitators sent to prison Lawyer says he is charged with illegal entry into Kotonu for the government yet to file paper before court and of course No date yet for next hearing CBN hammers BDCs for aiding graft and money laundering only banks to sell Forex as MPC retains CRR and NPR and LR rates We can also find on the nation newspapers this morning more PDP governors to defect says the presidency Zoning will work against it. It's a PDP next year Only warns and also work for the people some will who tells council chiefs Abductor sick what sick 150 million naira to free monarch and others DPO six gunmen die in emo crossfire I saw a video of that this morning of Some armed men in vehicles and motorcycles somewhere in emo state Really scary on the Guardian newspapers this morning In rare courage CBN weekends BDC operations stops FX funding Facts about Nigeria's food inflation and that's from his survey. It's on the Guardian this morning Senate chickens out Halt's probe of CCT chair for alleged assault and despite ban in Nigeria in Nigeria rather India Twitter records one point one nine billion dollars revenue in second quarter Private sector fuel in illegal financial flows in Africa ICPC alleges and also been a republic files fresh charges against Sunday ball Those are the stories that we can share this morning. Miss. I came a lot. Welcome once again I want us to start with the current travels of Sunday ball in Benna Republic. It doesn't seem to be getting better in any way for him Yeah It's getting more and more complicated by the day against all expectations and against all Assumptions and predictions the tryer is not even focusing on his extradition at all It's not focusing on a request from federal government to have him return to Nigeria at the government of the Republic seems to have a different agenda and the child that has been preferred against him for now is the legal entry and Some offenses I think The government of the Republic is also trying to buy time while diplomatic consultations continue the background this has become Celebrated case That's been a republic has found itself in the quandary. I mean it's like it's done between Satisfying Nigeria's desire and also following its own to process and the rule of law Um Strangly enough the federal government of Nigeria has not filed any statement I don't find any paper before the courts no statement as the issue and we just wondering What is going on? Okay? The citizen of your country has been arrested in a foreign land We assume that you prompted this arrest you should tell us something about it So I'm surprised that government has not said a word DSS ministry of justice nothing has been said Everything we've heard so far everything will know so far has been From the other side from the government of the Republic so that that's that is a bit strange to me to be strange hopefully in the Days to come or the weeks to come we have more information and as it is no data has been fixed for the next quarter parents But between now and then I believe that Consultations will continue in the background Negotiations will continue Hopefully before the end of the week we should hear something from from the federal government But it is quite strange that nothing has been said from a butcher. Yeah, well, I mean What would you expect that they would say at a time like this? What should be the statement from the government should they be trying to you know Protect the Nigerian citizen in Ben Air Republic or should they be fighting for his extradition back to Nigeria to? face any charges, you know that they might think of Yeah against background of the fact that he's been declared wanted by the government of Nigeria and he's now being arrested in another country Naturally, you expect the government of Nigeria to make a statement to the effect that this is want This is what we want to happen. This man is wanted in Nigeria You've arrested him in the Republic wanting back in Nigeria. Nothing of such has been said on the whole and it was a This is the bonafide citizen of the Federal Republic of Nigeria Whatever it is that he has done we're going to stand legal representation We're going to make sure that he's right and we're protected We're going to make sure that he has a right to fair airing that has not been done also So that's what I'm saying is strange. It's I I don't know what government is up to But I very much believe that a lot of consultation a lot of negotiations are going on in the background between the two governments and A compromise should be reached I also want to believe that a court in the Republic is also buying time slowing down to allow these negotiations To to move forward Okay, so either way it's just has to be taken whether you've been returned to Nigeria or we tried in the Republic Something has to be done. Yeah, all right now Let's move down here to Nigeria and talk about the CBN and it's a move against to sell in forex to BDCs It's accusing them of a graft in fraud and mismanagement of a foreign exchange How do you see this? See it as a sign of desperation by the setup of Nigeria The decision symbolizes two things basically one an attempt by the CBN to yield to pressure by the IMF and the World Bank To unify the exchange rates and to an attempt Okay to to manage the foreign resource which has been on down to your pressure, okay and Whichever way you look at it is it is asymptomatic of the bigger problem facing the Niger economy Like I said, it's a sign of desperation by a regime that has found it difficult to manage forex Okay, foreign exchange management has two sides. You have the demand side You have the supply side. Unfortunately, we focus so much on the demands side We're not looking for the supply side and as long as supply will Continues to a strip demand. There's not anybody can do about it So what government has done what's even has done is to move the rent Okay, but you move the beauty generators from the equation and empower banks Not as change really at the end of the day the banks will not be able to meet up with demands. That's the truth And what will happen a steam rate will go up Already we are special in our five narrow within 24 hours of decision Because everybody will now go to the banks. Don't forget that those be this is what created to Directly the foreign exchange market to ensure that almost everybody has Access to foreign exchange that has not worked Because we don't have enough foreign exchange Okay, so if you are saying banks should be the only ones to say foreign exchange, do they have the capacity? So what we find is that the bd separators will retain the teller that they have they will hold those tellers and create Artificial scarcity banks will not be able to meet up with demands People will be forced to go back to period change. So what will happen the rate will go up Yeah, but but do you think that the cbn has something about the country about that? Do you think the cbn has um good enough reasons for you know taking these steps? You know, they're they're saying that the bdcs have been a channel, you know for money laundering and you know and graft So do you think that it had gotten to is it possible rather that had gotten to a stage where the Needed to take action immediately Uh to ensure the a reduction in some of all of this The reason that the cbn has given stands credible, but but the approach and the question is not going to work Okay The fundamental issue is their scarcity of foreign exchange The scarcity and once the scarcity if you like Change your policy 10 times the same thing will remain. Okay Are you telling me that banks now? They have suddenly become nice guys. They've suddenly become decent and there will not be corruption. Will be corruption There won't be corruption. We're going back It this policy has taken us almost 15 or 20 years back to that era Where banks are the monopoly of foreign exchange and I remember briefly when that was the case It was a matter of whom you knew and that's what we're going back to now If the demand is $10,000 and banks have $5,000 they will ration it Okay, and let's look at the bigger picture. Who are the people getting foreign exchange in Nigeria importers? Okay, the manufacturers don't get foreign exchange Industrialists don't get foreign exchange those who really need to produce for us to export and end foreign exchange They don't get allocations Banks will rather give this money to importers who bring container from from from from china and sell Within 60 90 days they want money back So a lot of the day banks are going to make a lot of money They're going to profit from this development at the end space of Nigerian economy Okay, so it's it's it's it's a very simple situation As long as you don't have enough foreign exchange to go around there will be scarcity There will be shortages and that will drive prices up Whether you ban the UD change or not that is not the product that the solution We are we are leaving the root cause we are addressing the symptoms We need to go back to the supply side of foreign exchange We need to deliberately come up with policies that will increase the quantum of foreign exchange that is available to us We need to get the NIDP Nigeria Industrial Development Bank the CBN Commercial banks to focus on giving money to exporters who end foreign exchange. We are not doing that And that is so sad I I have very little confidence in the ability of the current CBN management To take off to the promised land the monetary policy the fiscal policies have not been working Yeah Let's um Let's uh, you know quickly move away from there and talk about asu and the federal government's on the punch this morning It says fresh vassity strike looms as a federal government asu resume fight and payment platforms You know, we're back at it again And you know, there is possibilities that there might be another strike. We Nigeria hasn't you know recovered from the nine month You know strike, um, you know from last year Um, you know, these problems don't don't seem to be going away. We we still don't seem to be getting into an agreement Uh, you know with regards payment platforms for lecturers Yeah Yeah, exactly Whenever and wherever you take decisions without consulting critical stakeholders. This is what you'll find it Okay, uh chief m kabila of black memories that you don't shift someone's head in his absence what extent of input Does asu have In this new policy Okay, you want to put lecturers on the particular payment platform. Did you consult them? Did you bring them on board to discuss? Okay, did you ensure that this is what you want already these guys are not happy that their salary is It is this one's writing about another of these new platform is taking so much tax away From the mega salary that they are earning definitely they will kick My candid advice for government is go back To negotiate in tibu. See that with asu Put all your cuts on the table be sensei be transparent There will be a solution. I do not think asu members are so insensitive I do not that they are they're so recastitrant that they don't want the best for negeria. Okay But this is these are people who are Who don't feel happy naturally about the way things are going if you're going to bring any payment platform You need to cry them along So yes, unfortunately, we are going back And there's not anybody can do If nothing is done, the strike will go on and the students will feel the brunt Sad all right really sad um Of course, it's uh, obviously going to be you know a continued conversation Um, you know here on the breakfast. We hope that we can bring somebody in to talk about this But now let's talk about the president's trip to the uk It says that he's traveling for a virtual summit here summit in education. The pdp has called it deceptive and appalling It's on the top right of your punch in newspapers this morning Deceptive and appalling. That's how it's been described. There's also been criticism With regards to president's investment in education, you know and the reason he's going for a summit when there's not been so much You know interest in education here in nigeria Yeah, absolutely absolutely I I align with that statement by the pdp The trip is wasteful. It's deceptive We all know that the man is not going for any education. He's going for medical checkup fine if We have many self education and things are working very well Why should the president be going for a summit on education at the time? There are so many issues so many critical issues to be attended to back home Why should it be the one going? So the trip is wasteful trip is deceptive It's totally unnecessary. I mean, that's not what we need at this time There's not what we need a minister of education or somebody in the ministry Could have represented the country It is not a summit that requires a president to attend a president who feels that there's so much for him to do Atom a president who who feels the need Okay to address funding issues back at home will not abandon all of those issues and And and and travel abroad to go and attend a virtual summit I would believe that that's not the reason why the president is in the UK And just a reminder there's there's still 83 Bethel Baptist students are still in captivity as we speak. There's you know, a couple of other students who have been kidnapped that are You know in captivity and that really is one of the things damaging the educational system here in Nigeria Besides the poor investment and poor funding Besides the fact that as to continues to go on strike as super's also mentioned strike Sanu might be So so so I wonder what the president will be telling you what when it gets to the summit when they ask him the questions School children have been kidnapped Laterals are trying to go on strike. So what is it that is going to do? I really do not understand So that's why I say that there are more important issues at home for you to attend to Than attending that summit. So the PDP is right that that trip is wishful It is totally unnecessary and it's deceptive Totally deceptive Let's go to the daily independent top right of the daily independent shows Something concerning the presidency warning staff against this closing Classified information and it's one of the things that we spoke about this morning and oath of secrecy been Confirmed on or made of course staff of state house been accessed was an oath of secrecy Is this normal procedure? Mr. Kimbola Yes, I I see nothing wrong in that. Um, as long as they they were not trying to swear I mean Confidential oath of secrecy is a standard procedure in most organizations Where you sign in where you are being engaged you sign the form That's whatever. Um, you get to learn about these characteristics within this organization So I see nothing wrong in that but um, more importantly, it's it's it's it's It goes in a long way to tell exactly the mindsets Of the presidency. There's no trust Which is exactly what was going on. There's no trust and that's that's that's a bit worrisome Because that is the highest hit of government and if in the midst of all of this we are asking the staff to come and swear Out of secrecy, then there's no trust There's no trust at all Which is worrisome As for the oath of secrecy, there's nothing wrong with that. Yeah, you know, I also mentioned earlier You know that this should be regular procedure, you know The only challenge that people have pointed out is why this is coming six years after the government You know has been in office and then also, you know, because of the, you know, trust deficit, you know Between the government and the people there's always going to be conspiracy theories, you know concerning all of this Exactly. What is the government trying to hide? You know, what exactly, you know, is this new information that they're trying to protect and some of all of that So, um, these questions will always come up Yeah, at the same time of this I remember saying that the biggest problem this government will have is in the area of public relations and communication And that has come to us them six years down the line. I said at the beginning that These guys are their behavior as if they know it or from addition and garbage too. They haven't they haven't Very well at all and it's just so unfortunate. It's so unfortunate. They've they've not been through of their game And um, yeah Serious trust deficit in the presidency. All right The guardian this morning bottom left of your guardian newspapers. Uh, you can see something on the ccd chair Um, I think it also made some other paper, but it says that the senate chickens out Pose out or rather halt probe of cct chair for alleged assault Um, is this a problem mr. Kimbola? We need to know what the chicken house We need to have the facts. Why why why did they stop the trial? Okay? Um Don't forget that the cct Has the files or for the senators Okay, just like the icpc So if the senators suddenly realized that oh, we shouldn't be going this direction We need to know why but it should worry you that someone a high-ranking public official Who was accused of Act of public indecency The senate suddenly stopping the investigation. We need to know why We need to know the reason It shouldn't be so Okay, the senate should step on a high moral grant and do what he needs to do They they they need to go ahead and conclude the investigation. We want to know Okay, and if they are Stopping they need to let us know the reason a statement should be issued Isn't this, you know, you know reminder once again of you know, one of the challenges Nigeria has where we have Personality is being bigger than institutions because if we have systems and we have institutions that work smoothly Then There shouldn't be hearing of things like this and people cannot be bigger than the institution You cannot also be bigger than the system. And so this is once again, you know, and another You know Points, you know to make with regards how Nigeria functions and when a big man does something wrong It is expected that he would not be poised. Exactly Last week we we we talked about the NDDC the probe Celebrated probe. Nothing has been heard And it's just in our nature in Nigeria to start a media trial and somewhere along the line. We drop it Okay, everything has been done just to fulfill our righteousness just to satisfy the process of the media Just to make some sure Nothing ever is going to happen Because there's no sincerity of intention right from the beginning. So yes, you are right Nigeria is one of the countries where individuals are more powerful than institutions Look at what happened to the ex-president Donald Trump If not for the strength and the durability of the u.s. institutions the structures and the processes I mean, we we don't know where Have medical have been today But at all times We must invest in building structures and institutions who hand up sustaining our democracy Absolutely That is a lesson in all of this absolutely I'm going to move away from the papers now and just bring your thoughts in on something that You know started yesterday or started trending yesterday and that is Pasotunibakari and his Nigeria for Nigeria Movement he made mention of it. I believe on sunday Way, of course shed his you know frustration with the current administration and you know spoke extensively on you know President Muhammad Ibarri said god is angry With the current administration and there's going to be a Nigeria for Nigeria movement that will change things and will move You know the bad exercise and you know nothing can stop it You know and it was a lot that he was he said So what are your thoughts? It's not the first time we're hearing, you know of such movements It's not the first time that we're hearing people, you know also promote, you know, such movements Um, it's sunday bakari, you know doing, you know the same as we've seen in the past It's all motion and no movement as far as i'm concerned. Remember we said that what will rescue Nigeria is a spontaneous mass movement Okay, spontaneous mass movement like the Arab Spring. That is what will liberate Nigeria What Pasobakari has said? Yeah, hasn't said anything new He has just reminded us everything that we know about this country but How does it translate all of those things into action? He can do it alone Okay, he can't do it alone. You can change nomenclature from safe Nigeria to Nigeria for for for Nigerians That is fine But I want to see us taking action. All right I hate To say it but people outside Nigeria see Nigerians has been docile See us as oh all sandbites no action So Pasobakari has done very well. I have worked the video clip Several times and the question I keep asking myself is so what next? You've done this video it's gone viral. So what next government probably will come after him They are the federal government come and arrest me if you can Government will go after him Probably inviting for questioning And caution him and after that what happens. So we've had enough of these sandbites We need to organize 2023 is around the corner. We need to get organized. We need to raise the power Okay, the masses should realize the power that they have Which is vested in their voting rights And this right must be exercised in the right way So in such a way that the desire change Will take place in Nigeria any the shot of that is just sandbite. Yeah I'm gonna quickly play that video for our viewers who haven't who had not seen it We should have played a yesterday actually, but we'll play that clip for you So, um, you can get to watch it and then when we come back, we have one more question for ms.    Nigeria will prosper in my lifetime Nigeria will be saved. Nigeria will be changed. Nigeria will become great It is a wicked that the land will vomit in the name of jesus Somebody say wow The people said to your tent oh, is We have no portion in the house of jesus Anymore sovereignty is not in your hand. You are commander in chief of nothing I said the people put you there the highest office in the land is the highest The heart is the office of the citizen and the office of the president Nigerians are going to rise.  I'm just empty. I'm just making noise All right. Uh, well, uh, very interesting them second. Well, are you still here? well I I would be surprised if The federal government moves against him Okay We've always said federal government should learn crisis management strategies I mean people, you know, I said last week if you arrest hundreds of sunday bull and americano These agitations will continue Okay, now again, it's to the back area tomorrow. We don't know what's next. How many people are going to arrest? but like I said, let us Aggregate all this opinion Let us harmonize all these views and translate them into a voting power Okay, we need An alternative political party to pdp and apc Right now the structure the two parties have the structures are so massive That is difficult for you to win an election unless you belong to those two parties But if we begin to mobilize In a very meaningful manner 2023 it's not going to be like any other election year But we've got to go beyond radio and tv We've got to go beyond all this that participator is talking about we've got to take action Okay, I've always believed in peaceful and legal change of government It's a lot of work, you know, what you're describing It's a lot of work. It's a lot of work, you know, if you remember also the way the apc came about It was also a combination of these same Political jogger nuts as they're called, you know, who formed the apc and so it's really Hard to imagine that, you know, people from outside these same persons can form another political party that would be big enough But of course, and I'm hearing people and their population and their voting numbers should, you know Expected is expected to be big enough to push away any political party We'll see how it goes. I want to finally just ask you to speak on Stories concerning insecurity.  I saw that video clip also earlier this morning Quickly share your thoughts on that before we go Remember when the service chiefs were replaced I think about three or four months ago We did say that nothing would change really Okay, you can change service chiefs every month The fundamental issues Leading to unrest lead to kidnapping. They've not been addressed. There's anger in the land. There's anger in the land People are not happy with the government Okay Security has broken down even the armed forces the police This the the the the army Everybody is not happy There's no way you can fight insurrection or insurgents for That's where you do not even where you can't even trust the loyalty of those who are fighting the war Yeah, it's it's not going to work Things are broken down That I don't see How we're going to be able to manage insurrection it will continue like this probably till 2023 when the next election will come up Yeah, because This guy they have infiltrated every aspect of Nigerian society If soldiers are being kidnapped if monarchs are being kidnapped Then what is the hope for the common man for the ordinary citizens? These are people are supposed to have some level of personal security So insecurity Eating deep into the fabric of Nigerian society All right All right, let's wrap up here. Thank you very much for your time this morning. I'm interested in hearing your perspective on on these issues We wish you a beautiful day ahead. Thank you, sir Absolutely stay with us here on the breakfast to take a short break when we come back. What happened on this day in history I'm going back to 1984 and 2002 and then right after that our first major conversation for today comes up We'll be back


Hi everyone, Joe for jaspyscasebrakes.com coming at you with 2021 wild card, Matt Black football one box random player break number two from jaspyscasebrakes.com. So there's six mini boxes inside one master box, three autographs in each of those boxes right there and then some numbered base cards as well, six cards per box, three autos per box. Big thanks to this group of people right here for making this happen, I appreciate it. You can get everybody's names on the screen here, there we go. Thanks everybody. And there is the list of players right here as well, very short list of players, so you can see a lot of repeats that hopefully sprinkled in will be some of the bigger names in there as well and train whistle hits maybe out of fives and under. Let's roll it, let's randomize each list one and a three four times. One, two, three and four. After four we got Robert C down to Robert F, one of the three four times for the player names one, two, three and four. After four times we got Eric Stokes down to Travis Etienne, alright here's how it shakes out Robert with Eric Stokes, David with Javanta Williams, Matt Arnold, Kyle Pitts. Robert with Devonta Smith, Michael Parsons, Michael P with JC Horne, David with Kyle Trask and Najee Harris, Robert with Rashad Bateman, Drew with Patrick Sertain, Robert with Caleb Farley, Jeff Dorlak, Trevor Lawrence, Robert with Justin Fields and Zach Wilson a couple of quarterbacks there, Michael with Jalen Waddle, Greg Russo going to Michael, Pat with Trey Lance, Karen with Quitty Pay, David Pinesuil, Michael with Mack Jones, David with Terrence Marshall Jr last bottom mojo and Robert with Travis Etienne, Robert F. Let's sort by player name right here and feel free to trade if you would like, I'm going to flip away from the screen just for a second here, we'll bring it back to that list right here so remember I've marked those boxes with X's so we know that they're going to be from the same case, we only have one of these so now let's select a die, we'll select that flamingo die right there, we'll go one two three four five six on the dice roll, three one two three four so middle box and let's flip back to that list right there so I'm going to pause the video when we come back we're gonna see if there's any trades and then we'll have the break stick around BRB all right welcome back folks no deals are done so that list remains the same here it is hot off the presses good luck next box already in the store on jaskiescasebreaks.com packaging here you can kind of see the wild card black-on-black here it's pretty cool premier edition hobby it says right there and there it is two fireboxes right there we're gonna save those for the very end hide the autos here a little bit here the first there's Bateman to 349 Justin Fields to 50 and Caleb Farley to 349 we got Penae Sewell was our first autograph of break number two 41 out of 50 going to David got trade Lance 14 out of 25 kind of hard to see the number in here but gold ink autograph going to Patrick Cologne hard to see the black-on-black there but it's 14 out of 25 maybe they didn't get the right foil pass to go along the number there but you have to trust me on that 14 out of 25 oh there it is back here it's kind of weird they have it printed up front here too nice and we've got this is pretty unique to this product here that thumbprint and gold ink autograph Travis Etienne 25 out of 40 pretty interesting idea Robert Flores with the Etienne all right next mini box next three autographs and three cards there's Penae Sewell again to 349 Trevor Lawrence to 40 Eric Stokes to 349 Jeff Dorleck with the Trevor Lawrence all right Micah Parsons our first autograph seven out of 30 the numbers in the bottom right hand corner and they'll be for Robert Flores Patrick's here saying really interesting product remember wild card growing up I do not remember wild card but yeah it's definitely definitely cool to see a different look different look on the market I dig it we've got Rashad Bateman gold ink autograph for Robert Flores 34 out of 35 and we've got another thumbprint and autograph Mack Jones one out of 30 thumbprint and gold ink autograph for Michael be really interesting to see I mean I guess we're I guess Trevor Lawrence is kind of considered to be the real deal right but what about the rest I think everyone expects Trevor Lawrence to have a successful career by the time all said and done if not an excellent career who else will be in that boat in this draft class all right there's Rashad Bateman of 49 Patrick Surtain to 50 and Travis Etienne 7 out of 15 your autos we got Caleb Farley one out of five out of five's Nunder get the train whistle the world-famous train whistle Caleb Farley will be for Robert Flores Robert all aboard the Big Hit Express whoo-hoo Kyle Pitts gold ink autograph he's supposed to be incredible right Matt Arnold Kyle Pitts 25 out of 40 and another thumbprint and autograph that's Patrick Surtain second of course there's his thumbprint there's his gold ink autograph 27 out of 30 and that'll be for Drew with the Patrick Surtain only two boxes left the next one box break is in the store right now jaspyscasebreaks.com if you're watching live all right there's Rashad Bateman to 50 Kyle Pitts 7 out of 7 nice low number there oh and a Trey Lance autograph 25 out of 35 another Trey Lance for Patrick apparently people really like Trey Lance's maybe doesn't have the experience but apparently has a high football IQ and that's what can put him on track to be the guy maybe by the end of the season we'll see nice Trey Lance and there's a nice low-numbered 7 out of 7 Kyle Pitts for Matt Arnold next couple we've got oh you've got a base I guess the autograph is a little early there's Travis at the end of 349 and here's Justin Fields gold ink autograph Bears quarterback going to Robert Flores with the Justin Fields I got a buddy who's from Chicago Bears fan seems to be pretty happy with Justin Fields 18 out of 30 so let's see when he gets into action and the last one here is Eric Stokes 71 out of 75 another player who thought they were supposed to sign on the line right there they're actually supposed to sign right here Eric Stokes going to Robert C all right now the firebox whoa hot fireboxes are hot real hot watch out folks watch out no looks kind of nice on the side like yeah it is different Patrick kind of likes it all right there's Travis at the end to 175 there's Justin Fields to 25 and there's Devonta Smith to 175 your autographs we've got a Trevor Lawrence silver ink autograph 31 out of 35 he also went with autographing on the line there kind of Trevor Lawrence going to Jeff Dorlak supposed to be the real deal holy field and you go 6 6 220 pound he's a big dude go be hashtag good for the hobby if he starts the season hot next guy is Terrence Marshall Jr. gold ink autograph for David Collinder last spot mojo strikes again last spot mojo 60% of the time it's a hundred percent of the time five out of 15 we've got three out of five Devonta Smith not a his thumbprint and his gold ink autograph Robert Flores with the Devonta Smith and the train whistle out of fives and under get the world famous all aboard the big head express whoo-hoo are in the final mini box five miles that Trevor Lawrence is pretty sick he's got good penmanship too you gotta like that from your number one overall pick from a highly collectible quarterback there's JC Horne to 175 Zach Wilson nine out of 10 and Eric Stokes 11 out of 15 and your final three autographs we've got Devonta Williams 16 out of 20 gold ink autograph that'll be for David I think I spotted another yeah looks like that's another Trevor Lawrence gold ink autograph you kind of see the the flames kind of appearing behind him right there it's got excellent penmanship that's great and that's 17 out of 20 you can see it right on my the reflection of my chin there 17 out of 20 nice and last one is JC Horne 26 out of 35 maybe they were instructed to sign right there anyway that JC Horne going to Michael P there you go Michael and there you go everybody thanks for watching thanks for breaking with us there's another box in the store and then just one more after that and that's it let's get in let's get some more wildcard going thanks for watching everybody I'll see you next time for the next break on jaskiescasebreaks.com bye bye


The Beltrami County Board has selected its new county attorney. The board voted today three to two in favor of David Hansen. Hansen is currently the Clearwater County Attorney. In 2014, Hansen ran for the position of Beltrami County Attorney and lost a narrow election to Annie Clausen-Huesby. Clausen-Huesby recently vacated the position when she was named a judge. Assistant County Attorney David Frank has been serving as the Interim County Attorney while the county board searched for that new county attorney. If you've enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland Public Television.


Mary Ellen Mendel, welcome. We're so glad to have you. Thank you talking about how You're keeping people informed in services social services Delivered to people but tell me first. How is the remote work? Going is that a did you have to work out some kinks? No, actually, you know, we practice this and drill and exercise with the Department of Health and emergency management all through the year not quite with this scenario, but So we're we've got a continuity of operations plan. Everybody's working from home. They we all have laptops Some folks brought their little cube headphones headsets home Two monitors. So we're we're just we've done this before during bad snowstorms or bad flooding, so It's kind of nice to not have any kinks How how big is the network of people that you're working with directly? In inside 211 Yeah Yep for so for 211. We've got five full-time staff working From 8 a.m. till midnight answering calls We have three full-time staff who are really Our information getters and they're going out and updating our database on the services and programs that we have in there Because a lot of things are changing. This is evolving very quickly, as you know And we're trying to keep up with at least the service providers in our database And then we're also keeping track of some other More community grass rootsy type things that are going on, but that's a lot more challenging to keep up with Our call volumes Increased we're doing anywhere from two to three hundred calls a day. That's that's pretty high for us It's usually around a hundred. So it's at least two to three times higher But you know We use this slack program. I don't know if you're familiar with it So we're all talking to each other and we're having trying to have some fun and be light But yes, we are There's many many demands on our on our time in our service. Do you have a water cooler channel on your slack set up? it's not called water cooler we just do we do but we do have a place where we can go for just random conversation and Along with all the other you know a COVID-19 a contact center. We've got a bunch of them. So but it's fun Yeah, we found slack to be quite efficient It is yeah, and it tracks the conversations So, you know, you can you can keep keep it sorted out exactly and it's fun I mean people are having fun with it, you know, so that's good. So how is this compare with Irene? What kind of questions are you getting from folks? We're we're getting questions Mostly right now about testing, but it's been all all around. I mean we've gotten questions about wearing a mask. We've got questions about I make granola. How do I know if it's safe to sell to people? How do I let how do I ensure them? It's safe if we go into the grocery store What should we be doing should be wearing gloves and using cloth bags or paperback? You know So there's a lot of questions and then of course the questions that we feel like we can answer Which are the ones that are vetted through the Department of Health, so we're getting a lot of calls around who can be tested I want to be tested. Why can't I be tested? Where can I be tested? So a lot of testing calls And we're gonna see this You know surge up as things go on and so on the today's the 23rd of March I believe it's I kind of lose time when you're working seven seven days a week But what is the what is the advice that you're giving to folks on testing? What's the current status? Well, the current status is you know, it's just it's funny because every day feels like Groundhog Day doesn't it you get up You sit in front and you do this all over again For testing not everybody's going to be tested and you can't be tested unless you have some sort of Symptom of the virus and then if that's the case you need to call your primary care physician If you don't have a primary care physician, you can call 211 and we can recommend one of the local clinics Or you can also get in touch with your insurance company if you're insured and they sometimes have a Portal with doctors who are accepting patients. So you can't get tested unless you have a referral from a doctor and and that's how we're You know, that's how we're how we're encouraging people are not encouraging people. That's how we're letting people know how they can go ahead and Find out more and it's basically has to be through your primary care provider now 211 is a statewide service So you're fielding calls from all over We are fielding calls from all over the state around COVID-19. We're also because We have some vulnerable vulnerable adults and children in our in our state. We're also Doing a lot of housing emergency housing. It's been the state has Developed some guidance on folks who might be what they call hyper Vulnerable so if they're over the age of 60, certainly if they're experiencing homelessness And where we were housing a couple weeks ago, we were asked to take people people came out of shelters and went into motels Who might have been hyper vulnerable? And now we're just seeing a real relaxation on rules for Emergency housing and we're housing a lot of people statewide. So I as you may know when the weather gets cold The state advises of an adverse weather condition and that relaxes some of the rules for for obtaining emergency housing This is even more relaxed than that. So Trying to get people You know housed and safe So just talk about how that works from 211's perspective people contact you or who are you working with just how what's that workflow? No, we have the well, certainly. This is a program of the state of Vermont the economic benefits services Economic services division. I'm sorry and we Take on those calls after hours for economic services. So at 430 every day people call us and are looking for Temporary housing usually in a motel at this point We're not even referring to shelters because we don't want to put new people in shelters when they're trying to Social distance and keep that 15-day period But folks call 211 if they're eligible and they're eligible in a few different ways It could be that they're vulnerable Catastrophic eligibility if their house burnt down for an example if they lost a family member recently for an example And then there's a point system that we use to to make to see if people fit into that category And then we could provisionally house them for a night up to one night up to four if it happens Somebody calls on a Friday night. We're gonna house them Friday Saturday Sunday until they can get to the office on Monday And now there is no office At least it's not staffed. So people are having to call do all this by phone now and call the benefit services Center For housing during the day But when it's after 430 and on weekends and holidays 211 is taking that on and has been for many years So we'll get a hotel room for somebody will call the hotel will get the reservation We'll get back to the person let them know where they're gonna be staying How long they're gonna be staying and then they do need to go into economic services in the next business day Of course in this case, they'll be calling and then there's a little bit of a twist on that when the weather drops below 20 degrees Or 32 with the 50% chance precipitation In some places tonight Then they would be able to it's called adverse weather conditions And we would be able to house them for as long as the duration of the the storm or the weather event so you're talking about some of relaxation of Criteria and also how to get things done. Yeah, and and so my main question is do you see a longer term? Change do you do you does this kind of make you think that things might be working differently? Yeah, we're definitely working. I hope we see some change. I think there's some really neat, you know communication going on people are Really at least my experience has been they're communicating really well with each other Doing a lot of follow-up. I mean everybody is pulled in different directions But we're all in this together as you've probably heard the governor say many times We're all in this together and I feel like there might be some changes in Systems after this is done But it's hard to say exactly what that would be Yeah, it's hard. I mean I imagine You've been you've had systems in place It sounds like you had the continuity of operations ready to go so that was thought through so you weren't inventing like a lot of Organizations were last week how to do business. Yes, absolutely And that's the thing. That's the key. You have to practice this this stuff. It just doesn't come naturally to everybody And again, we've just this is what we do. We've been doing this for a long time now Some of the things that we're noticing You know as far as our data goes as again, we're seeing a big increase in the housing But we're also seeing an increase in people looking for food resources You know with schools closed I believe there's some some communities that are trying to get together and make sure that those meals are getting out to students While they're not in school, but we're seeing a big increase in people looking for food resources So, you know, will something come out of that? Hopefully there'll be some sort of a contingency plan if this happens again at schools So that the food can get out to the community because it is their responsibility to continue to feed the children And what are you you mentioned there are some communities coming up with the solutions on the fly? Are there any in particular? Where do you refer people? Well, we're not referring people to communities and some of the grassroots Stuff we're trying to keep track of it, but it's very very difficult to keep track of that and keep our database up to date So we focused as a priority on Getting the COVID updated COVID-19 frequently asked questions from the Department of Health So we can field these calls and also updating the resources in our database. I don't have any examples to give to you right now There's there's many of them that are going around in the community I know the loyal I guess I do have an example the loyal County for example is has a team of people who are volunteering to run errands and pick things up for people and you know drop things off prescriptions or food and That's all you know, they wanted to use 211 for that to call But I felt like that could get really dropped, you know lost in the shuffle But they're doing that they're the loyal County communities got a team of volunteers reaching out to people That's just one example of many that are going on in the in the state around the state So how does this compare with Hurricane Irene? It's a lot a lot of the it's a lot the same in the sense that it's rush rush rush Kind of high anxiety in some circumstances a lot of debriefing a lot of phone conference calls With emergency management and Department of Health and others, but it's not the volume has not quite hit what it did with Irene We received the one day in during Irene post Irene in one day. We had 9,000 calls We've never seen that before and I hope we don't see it again but That's you know Irene it was different because when it's flooding obviously nobody goes anywhere if it's just a snowstorm people Some most people stay home But this is so like nothing we've ever really had to do before right and they call it social distancing But it's more like physical distancing, you know, I mean, it's one thing for us to do this and I love it I think it's great our technology has really, you know enabled us to To have these conversations and to see other people and talk to other people But we really we're a lot of us need that physical to you know to be close to people So in that case, I think it's the same as Irene because people were definitely Distanced from each other and their communities and in some cases the rest of the state volumes not as high yet Information flow is just as challenging. It's coming from everywhere So it's important that we vet everything that we give out to the public So I imagine you're working a lot To hours every day. Yes. Have you had any downtime? I made myself yesterday at three o'clock I shut off the computer and the cell phone and I just stayed off of it for a few hours I haven't had that much, but I'm trying I'd start me starting to get to me So I'm I also by the end of the day Looking at this computer. I get a wicked headache. So I have to now start shutting myself off Yeah, I don't blame you. You know, they have those glasses you can use I have the blue filter I I had a concussion a couple years ago and it rears its ugly head In times like this when I'm too focused on the screen and doing a lot of talking to that usually does it too, but I'm getting there I can imagine. Yeah, it's just making me take a little bit of a break. So Well, thank you Is there anything you think folks you'd like folks to know about two one one and your services? Well, you know, I want folks to know that we're there. We are 24 7365. We're back We lost that for a little while, but we are back and it is a very busy time We are fielding calls for the whole state in very different Areas whether it be housing or food resources or COVID information Please just leave a message if you don't get through to a person and we will make sure to call you back Well, Mary, that's the biggest thing Mary Ellen, you are on the frontline of the United Way service delivery, which is a huge social safety net for our state Mm-hmm, and that's really important and thank you so much for this update And if you feel at any point you want to provide some other update just let us know I will do that and you reach out to thank you so much for doing this. Lauren Glenn. I really appreciate it It's great to see you you too. Hang in there