At Free Talk Live, we have a bunch of ways to tune in to the show:
As you know, we recently decided to put the full radio show archive back in our normal podcast. We also slashed eight minutes per hour of advertising from our live show.
About two weeks in to the new show format, it’s been a major success. We are able to have deeper conversations with fewer interruptions and the show flows better and goes by faster. Radio and live streaming listeners hear 24 minutes fewer ads and all listeners including podcast listeners benefit from another 24 minutes per show of actual content.
Whether it is due to old media advertising losing its effectiveness or due to advertisers’ fear of advertising on a show being targeted by the federal government, we also happen to have zero paying advertisers. Though our decision to cut the eight mins per hour of ads was made months ago, so the two things just happened to coincide. Unfortunately, with no advertising revenue, we can’t afford to continue paying Riley for his service of producing the Daily Digest, which is something we just started doing in September when we switched the podcast to digest-only. Now that the Digest is no longer our only public offering and we also happen to have no ad revenue to support it, Riley is back to needing donations to sustain his efforts.
If you enjoy the Daily Digest, please contribute directly to Riley to keep him going. Here are his donation options:
Bitcoin: 1MnoYoPirXQHfhknDxbDHhLsF9u7kUggKy
Bitcoin Cash: qpp62s8uupdqkrfew7vgp805pnsh5jk2ncnfkndwrd
Dash: XpApo1jcPzTJyLLB6G8GJ7DoW9CGjcV5xT
Ether: 0xFb1a23163bea743BB79B93849D864ad070597855
Lightcoin: ltc1q6ygsamrkwl0at93datyqfh47z4crg4jkg4fx30
Regarding Free Talk Live, I really don’t care if we never have another advertiser ever again, but it would be nice to have enough direct listener support to continue doing the things we’ve been doing via AMPS, like buying ads with TALKERS Magazine, paying industry veteran Skip Joeckel from Talk Shows USA for his representation, and most importantly being able to continue paying our co-hosts a small stipend for their appearances.
To that end, big thanks to the 112 people contributing just over $1,000 per month to the AMPS Patreon. It would be nice if we could triple that number, as $1,000 does not cover our very modest operating costs. If you’re able to help, we still only ask $5 per month, which sure doesn’t buy what it did just a few years ago. Our revenue is at a point lower than it’s been in the last fifteen years despite having more radio stations than ever. Your help is appreciated. Please join our Patreon here for as little as $5 per month.
Also, if you do want to advertise with us, you can now buy our new hourly sponsorships via our Patreon.
Welcome to all the great radio stations that added Free Talk Live to their lineup in 2022, including KLZN AM/FM in Susanville, CA, WUSX-FM in Seaford, DE, KROF-AM in Lafayette, LA, WSYY AM/FM in Millinocket, ME, KBNN-AM in Lebanon, MO, KICK AM/FM in Springfield, MO, WJNT AM/FM in Jackson, MS, KFOY-AM in Reno, NV, KFLS AM/FM in Klamath Falls, OR, WJFP AM/FM in Chester, PA, WTJZ-AM in Portsmouth, VA, and WIZM AM/FM in Lacrosse, WI. For the full list of over 170 AM & FM radio affiliates, click here.
We’re not happy about it, but the jury has spoken. I was found guilty of all eight non-violent, victimless charges I faced at trial last month. Though we are going to appeal all eight counts, I have to be sentenced before the appeal can be filed. The prosecution is asking for upwards of 20 years, however no charge has a minimum sentence, so in theory I could receive time served for the 69 days I’ve already done and then some amount of probation or home confinement in lieu of prison. It’s all up to the judge.
If I have had a positive effect on your life, perhaps you’d consider writing a letter to judge Laplante to explain why you think I should remain out of prison. What kind of benefit have I brought you and the community as a whole? Why does putting me behind bars cause more harm than leaving me out in productive society? These are some of the things you may want to focus on in your letter.
While you likely have strong feelings about the FBI, the prosecution, or the jury in this case, none of that will be relevant to the sentencing hearing, so leave out your opinions on the process, please. While I have my critiques of the prosecutors, I’ve said along the way that I was surprised at how fair Joseph Laplante was, so I’m optimistic. He’s been thoughtful, is capable of changing his mind, and played things fairly evenly during the process.
Please address your letter to “The Honorable Joseph Laplante” or “Judge Laplante”. You may want to talk a little about yourself and what you do for a living and what you have done, especially with regard to any military or government work.
You are welcome to send a draft to me via email at ian at freetalklive.com or if you are confident in what you’ve written, send a signed original via snail mail to:
Ian Freeman
63 Emerald St. #610
Keene, NH 03431
Please don’t delay as we need these well in advance of the April 14th sentencing date. Thank you.
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A few months ago, we made a big change to our main podcast feed, in the hopes it would help grow our online listenership. The idea was that our two-hour nightly radio show archive was just too long and contained too much radio content to ever be a successful podcast. It was an experiment, and it didn’t work, as our downloads didn’t increase much. So, effective this weekend, you’ll see the full radio show archives have returned to the main FTL podcast RSS feed!
The main FTL RSS feed is back to how it was earlier this year, where it contains all our audio content, including both the full radio archives AND the FTL Digests. For those of you who still only want to receive the FTL Digests, you can subscribe to this filtered RSS feed that only contains Digests. We also have a filtered version of the RSS feed that does not contain the digests, if you’d prefer that.
Further, the AMPS-only RSS feed of the show, which has no recorded commercials, is still exclusively available via our AMPS Patreon here. The main FTL podcast RSS feed is free but does have a limited number of recorded ads. Those are not present in the AMPS feed. So, if you really appreciate the message of liberty, peace, crypto, and freedom that we are spreading seven nights a week on the radio and online, please join AMPS for as little as $5 per month.
Thank you for listening to, sharing, and supporting as we enter 2023. Happy new year!
January 1st is going to be a big day for Free Talk Live. Not only are we officially switching radio syndicates back to our original home of Genesis Communications Network, we’re making the first major change to our live show “clock” in nearly two decades. A clock is an industry term for what happens during a given broadcast hour. I’m happy to announce that starting Jan 1st we are eliminating two breaks per hour from our show!
Put another way, deleting two entire breaks each hour means eight more minutes per hour of talk time. Over a three-hour show, that’s twenty-four more minutes of show content every night. Our talk time per hour will increase from 39:20 to 47:30! That’s 20% more Free Talk Live per hour. We probably should have done this ten years ago, but better late than never.
We hope it makes our radio show more competitive with low-interruption new media competitors as we’ll only have two breaks per hour, one at the bottom-of-hour and one at the top-of-hour. Fewer interruptions means we can have more in-depth conversations and hopefully happier listeners.
I wish we could have started this months ago when I thought of it, but unfortunately we have to break up with our current syndicate and give our radio stations plenty of notice so they can change their station automation programming to reflect it. Luckily nearly all our affiliates saw the change as a good idea, so they are onboard!
Stay tuned for the big change coming Jan 1st. Live listeners on the radio or online streaming will notice the change immediately and listeners to our commercial-free AMPS podcast will notice an extra 24 minutes of content each night! You can help support our mission to spread a message of peace and liberty by joining AMPS for just $5 a month here on our Patreon. Thank you for listening to and supporting Free Talk Live.
Christmas came early! Just days before the start of the Crypto Six trial, federal prosecutors have revealed they will be dropping the supermajority of counts in their ridiculous case against me. Gone are all twelve of the “wire fraud” charges, three “money laundering” charges, “conspiracy to commit bank fraud & wire fraud”, and most importantly the charge with the ten-year mandatory minimum sentence, the “kingpin” charge of “continuing financial crimes enterprise”. All gone!
If you’ve been paying attention to the case for the last twenty months, you may recall the big deal the prosecutors made to try to keep me in jail until trial, claiming I am a “sophisticated cyber criminal” and a “danger to the community”. Prior to the charges being dropped, my bail conditions had loosed to where I am no longer wearing a tracking anklet. Now that those charges are gone, when we recently asked to remove the government spyware from my computer and phone, the prosecutors had no objection. Apparently, I’m no longer the scary things they told the judge and press that I was.
The remaining charges that are slated for trial are:
This morning I had the pleasure to be interviewed again on “Path to State Sovereignty” with Lowell Nelson on KTALK 1640 in Salt Lake City to discuss the Free State Project and secession, as well as alternative currencies. Here’s the archive:
Word is the Crypto Six trial has been moved from November to December, with jury selection starting on December 6th at Federal Court Church in Concord, NH. Recently more of the Six took plea “deals” for victimless “crimes”, and now I am the only one left proceeding to trial. I am facing approximately 420 years in prison if convicted of all counts. No victim, no crime. Bitcoin is not a crime.
There’s also news about the proposed “Ballad of the Crypto Six” documentary film, which has recently switched its fundraiser to Indiegogo and begun offering various benefits for financial support. Depending on your contribution you can score T shirts and caps, to dinner with one of the Crypto 6 and even to co-host one or more episodes of Free Talk Live! If you think this subject deserves its own documentary, please watch the nine-minute trailer and join the Indiegogo:
Here is the trailer:
It was about ten degrees Fahrenheit at around 6am on March 16th, 2021 when dozens of armed agents from the FBI, IRS, USPS, ATF, and Keene Police swarmed onto the duplex containing the Free Talk Live studio. They smashed in windows and a front door, set off explosions, flew in drones, and held multiple peaceful bitcoin activists at gunpoint. Simultaneous raids were being conducted in multiple other locations, with six people arrested in total. They were since dubbed “the Crypto Six” by supporters.
One had her charges dropped and three have taken plea deals despite never harming another human being. Two remain, facing hundreds of years in prison for completely victimless, made-up financial “crimes” regarding bitcoin.
Now, more than a year later, the FBI has returned the surveillance DVRs they took from the property. This is some of the footage taken at the scene of the Free Talk Live studio in Keene, NH:
I had the pleasure of speaking from the main stage at  2022, the biggest, sold-out Porcfest ever. My speech was about the history of Free Talk Live and the FBI’s obsession with the Free State Project, specifically . Thank you to Dennis Pratt and the rest of the Porcfest crew for having me back!
Here’s the full speech and Q&A:
Thank you to Jim Babb for speaking out years ago and Rodger Paxton for laying the groundwork for having me back to Porcfest.