WAKE UP BABY!

Produced by Peregrine Andrews

Broadcast 6th June 2015
Between the Ears, BBC Radio 3
A Falling Tree Production
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05xj1r5

SFX:

Inside a room, music reverberating through the walls, the sound of a baby
crying being transmitted through a device

Voiceover:

A man watches a baby on a small screen.

SFX:

Baby gurgling

Voiceover:

This man has never met this baby. He's in another country - thousands of
miles away. And each night he watches a different baby.

SFX:

Mouse clicks. A succession of different gurgling, crying babies.

MUSIC
SFX:

Sound of babies rests on the noise of a baby breathing as it sleeps.

Advert:

One of the most frightening experiences for a parent is to lose sight of their
child. This little device will certainly help

News Broadcaster: If you have a baby you probably have a monitor

Advert:

and relieve all of your anxiety

Dakin Hart:

As soon as you start surveilling you make it possible for other people to use
that information.

Advert:

Relieve all of your anxiety

Nancy Grace:

How many hours has he spent watching the baby sleeping?!

Ashley:

This camera was being broadcast to the world

Advert:

Relieve all of your anxiety

News Broadcaster: They woke up in the middle of the night to hear a guy yelling
Distorted voice:

Wake up baby, wake up baby!

Advert:

Relieve all of your anxiety

Distorted voice:

Wake up baby, wake up baby!

Advert:

Relieve all of your anxiety

SFX:

Child crying. Abruptly switches to the sound of a crackling record.

MUSIC

The Teddy Bears Picnic

Advert:

A Radio Nurse now brings the nursery into the living room, kitchen or any
other room desired. When a child is sleeping or playing in a room, where no
older persons are present, every sound within that room can be transmitted
to any spot in the house.

Dakin Hart:

Zenith Corporations Radio Nurse - one of the worlds first baby monitors. I
think they went on sale in 1938

Advert:

The outlet consists of a pick-up unit, placed near the child to be watched,
and a loudspeaker, which can be placed in any convenient location.

Dakin Hart:

My name is Dakin Hart and Im the senior curator at the Noguchi Museum in
Long Island City, New York.

MUSIC
Dakin Hart:

The case was designed by Isamu Noguchi. Its made out of bakelite so its
kind of a walnut-y colour and the whole idea of getting Noguchi to do it was
to produce something elegant enough to fit into any very well-to-do home.
The two things that people normally compare it to are a Kendo mask

SFX:

Gong

Dakin Hart:

a face mask for Japanese sword fighting and then it also looks a little bit
like a nurses hood, an old-fashioned nurses hood. Its not sweet, it is
reserved and elegant. In fact, the ads show men in three-piece suits, women
in beautiful evening gowns playing bridge, eating dinner with one of these
Radio Nurse heads, sort of perched on a table or on a sideboard. So the
whole idea was that they would fit into a very elegant interior. I think the
retail price originally was $29.95, which in 1938 is actually a lot.

SFX:

Siren

Announcer:

Its 10pm - do you know where your children are?

MUSIC
Toy

Ah. Im a sleepy bear

Dad (Spencer):

This is our first baby monitor. It made his crying seem really loud, didnt it?

Mum:

Yes, every time the noise was like

Dad (Spencer)

it was like a demon

Mum:

so youd go in and go, oh hes not actually crying that much!

Dad (Spencer)

Yeah, but this would amplify it and make it sound evil but good sign

Mum:

Lets turn the volume down a bit.

Dad (Spencer)

Youd hear it and youd go running quite quickly.

SFX:

Crying baby

Mum:

From the different cries you can tell different what things are wrong, you
know. You know if theyre just fussing, so you can leave them or you know if
theyre really in pain. You know, if theyve got wind or something, go and sort
them out and then you know you can leave them again.

Dad (via monitor):

Once upon a time there was a robot who had very click-y arms and he didnt
know why they were so click-y and why they made such a noise.

Mum:

Its funny as well listening to Spencer read Sonny stories, sometimes the
monitor would be left on

Dad (via monitor):

and so he asked his friend, the rabbit

Mum:

and Id be sat downstairs listening to this amazing story that Spencers

made up for Sunny

Dad (via monitor):

and the rabbit didnt know either

Mum:

If Id been sat there it would have been a different story. You know, for a
different audience. Because he wasnt actually expecting me to be listening
downstairs.

Dad (via monitor):

and so off they went, the rabbit and the robot to find out what

Announcer:

Its 10pm - do you know where your children are?

MUSIC
Archive:

This airplane view of the Lindbergh house shows its isolated location near
Hopewell New Jersey. The $50,000 mansion stands far back from the public
road. See the end second story window? Thats the very nursery window
against which the kidnappers placed that ladder, under cover of night, and
stole away with baby Lindbergh.

Dakin Hart:

Charles Lindberghs child was kidnapped from his crib.

Archive:

when stolen he was dressed in a white sleeping suit

Dakin Hart:

There was a nurse, a full time nurse, and she had put the baby down to
sleep

Archive:

his hair is fair and curly

Dakin Hart:

and a couple of hours later, she went in to check on him and he wasnt
there.

SFX:

Thunder

Dakin Hart:

And in the meantime, the father Charles Lindbergh who was in his office just
below had heard a little bit of noise but figured that it was just something in
the kitchen. And then he later realised that that probably was this kidnapper
climbing up into the window using a ladder that they later found parts of
outside and spiriting away his son.

SFX:

Rain

Dakin Hart:

supposed intent of the Lindbergh kidnapping was a large ransom but in

the end it didnt matter because something went horribly wrong and the child
was murdered.

SFX:

Rain

Archive:

and this is Bruno Richard Hauptmann, 35, whose arrest as Lindberghs

ransom collector in the kidnapping as aroused America.

Dakin Hart:

The case stayed in the news because of first the search to find the
perpetrator, the kidnapper, the trial of the kidnapper and then ultimately the
execution. He was executed in 1936. It was big news. H. L. Mencken called
it the biggest story since the resurrection.

Frank Furedi:

The disproportionately huge impact the kidnapping made on the public

psyche I think that was quite remarkable. Then, Lindbergh was such a
hero

Archive:

Intelligent, industrious, energetic, dependable

Frank Furedi:

He had this, kind of, iconic, heroic status

Archive:

quick of reaction, serious, deliberate

Frank Furedi:

That the traumatic consequences of the kidnapping was likely to have had
such a big impact. And I think that when you have such a case being
attached to a very major public figure, its not particularly surprising that it
just ran and ran for a long time.

Archive:

Charles A. Lindbergh

SFX:

Applause

Frank Furedi:

Yeah, Im Frank Furedi Im a Professor of Sociology at the University of

Kent, author and social commentator.

MUSIC
Advert:

Protect your child against kidnapping!

Dakin Hart:

Now I dont think Zenith ever created explicit scare advertising but many
retailers created their own advertising.

Advert:

A helpless little child left alone for a few moments. Then, a silent household - left alone forever! A Radio Nurse in your home warns it cant happen
here!

Dakin Hart:

It cant happen here and of course it is a kidnapping, clearly calling to the

Lindbergh kidnapping.

Announcer:

Its 10pm - do you know where your children are?

MUSIC
Dakin Hart:

Comfort and titillation somehow seem to go kind of hand in hand in these

things.

Distorted Voice:

The feeling of panic can be overwhelming.

Thats every parents nightmare.

Dakin Hart:

Say you had a Radio Nurse, say you were one of the very first buyers and
youre like this couple thats entertaining their friends, playing bridge in the
living room and so youre at the same time talking about how beautiful this
head is and what a magnificent object it is and how lustrous the bakelite is
and really being into it as a consumer product but then at the same time
youre explaining what its for. You know, because Im terrified that my child
is going to be kidnapped. Totally irrationally!

Distorted Voice:

Thats every parents nightmare.

Dakin Hart:

And, you know, for the average, random rich person in Westchester County
theres absolutely no reason to believe that your child will be kidnapped. Its
a form of narcissism. Be very, very afraid! But isnt it beautiful? Its a very
strange combination.

MUSIC
SFX

Sirens

Archive advert:

This is my daughter Olivia and, in a couple of weeks, shes going to have the
awesome opportunity to go visit her uncle in New York City. But that scares
me half to death to have my little girl in such a big city.

SFX

Sirens

Archive news:

There are posters like this one all over New York City, all of them asking for
help in locating 6-year-old Etan Patz. On his way to a school bus stop, two
blocks from his home, Etan simply disappearedand his disappearance has
led to the most extensive search for a missing child in New York City in
decades.

Frank Furedi:

Thats one of the few examples where a single child, a single child with a
name, has this kind of recognition factor.

Archive News:

Every year nearly 800,000 kids are reported missing

Frank Furedi:

Imagination becomes re-fracted through these experiences in a way that

youre not even aware of.

Archive News:

More than 58,000 are abducted by a stranger

Frank Furedi:

In the 1980s, you know, what you would have are a kidnapping of a child told
in a lot of detail, you had the name and everything about the child was very
clearly spelled out, that this is a child thats been kidnapped, this is a child
thats been killed or whatever. By the time you got to the late 1990s, all you
had to do was to transmit an image of a child and that was enoughand
everybody assumed there was a problem there. We had developed a
disposition to fear the worst. Its important to understand that our fears for
children being abducted are really a sublimated expression of our own
existential identities.

Child (on monitor): Five, Four, Three, Two, OneBlast Off!

Dad (Oliver):

This one you can just hear themlittle microphone upstairs and the sound
comes out here.

Child (on monitor): Albie!

Dad (Oliver):

Its not a very high tech device. This house is so small we dont actually need
it.

Child (on monitor): Camel! He was too grumpy

Dad (Oliver):

Its lovely sometimes, I mean you hear, particularly in the morning, if Ive had
to get up early and Im coming down here and just having breakfast really
quietly, and theyll wake up, quite a lot before you think theyre waking up,
you normally think they wake up around the same time as us, but actually
they wake up quite a bit before, and you can hear theyre starting to natter

Child (on monitor) Yup

Dad (Oliver)

And cos Tobin, hes only one and a half, he cant really talk and Kai will be
talking to him, hell just be going agh agh agh agh and Kai will be going
thats right Tobin, yeah, absolutely
It does give you an insight into what theyre doing when youre not around,
which is kind of lovely. Its like having a portal into a world that, by your very
presence you would never be allowed access to.

SFX

Coughing (through monitor)

Dakin Hart:

They werent just marketing to parents. Youve also got grandma in her
sickbed.

MUSIC

Stormy Weather

Dakin Hart:

Early life monitoring and end of life monitoring..

Daughter

Unfortunately I lost my dad last year and helped my mum nurse him for the
last three months of his life.

MUSIC
Daughter

Towards the end, he was so frail, he couldnt really talk much. He just lay
there.

MUSIC
FX

snoring

Daughter

When he was snoring, it was actually quiteoh good, hes having a good
sleep. And usually you dont enjoy listening to snoring.almost lulled me to
sleep

MUSIC
Daughter

It was only when it stopped that Id kind of wake up and think ..huh!
Anyway, after a while, I started getting really tired cos I was up every two
hours, so we got a night-carer.

FX

conversation through monitor

Daughter

The only problem is that you need to remember to switch it off in the morning
because, sadly, one morning, my mum said something inappropriate about
the carer and she was still there and she heard. You dont realize that, you
know, you can pick up everything.

MUSIC / FX
Dad (Oliver)

There used to be a couple next door with a baby who was almost exactly the
same age as Kaiand Id be working away and Id hear this really faint baby
cryingand Id go down and look and thered be nothing. It started getting
quite sort of uncannyand then I realised I think theyre astonishingly
sensitive at the precise frequency of babies crying and it was picking up next
doors baby through the wall. I couldnt hear the baby, it was only the
machine could hear it, and I could hear it cos the machine could hear it.

FX

Baby cries

MUSIC
Advert

If you have children you know that they can disappear in a second
abduction, child abuse and kidnapping are what you think about.

Frank Furedi

The singular message that came across was that if youre a responsible
parent, you will purchase one of these things

Advert

Place multiple monitors around your home - for ultimate security

Advert

Protect them with a GPS child tracking device

Frank Furedi

Its the height of irresponsibility not to use these particular devices

Advert

Which makes you no longer worried about your baby

Advert

And relieve all of your anxiety

Frank Furedi

Almost like a form of emotional blackmail where marketing is used to play on

your insecurity

Archive News

New technology that could protect your kids from the grasp of a child
abductor

Dakin Hart

There is an undercurrent with all products for children, whatever the thing is,
that its fundamental to parenting, and that if youre not using it or not doing
it, youre not doing your job, youre not being a good parent

Advert

Dont leave your loved ones without this protection another day

FX

Switch / change channel

Advert

The guardian ear contains a condenser-type microphone, speech amplifier

and modulator-oscillator circuit. The generated single is conducted by means
of the lighting circuit and intercepted by the rad

FX

switch off

Dakin Hart

It plugs inits on AC power

David Hemingway

It was designed to transmit the signal from the babys nursery to wherever
the adults were listening to it over the mains wiring in the house

Dakin Hart

The problem was that the electrical system(s) in houses were not nearly as
well shielded as they are now

David Hemingway

Although frequencies werent very heavily used, where they were used, there
wasnt a lot of control over how pure they were, how much extra noise they
generated.
Im David Hemingway. Im a senior spectrum manager at the BBC.
There would have been the potential for interference from, in those days,
very high power broadcast radio transmitters.

FX

Interference

Dakin Hart

So, there was a lot of interference

FX

Interference

Dakin Hart

which was, I think, you know, very disorienting and upsetting for people

FX

Interference

David Hemingway

someone nearby could plug a device in and listen for it on a similar device
because mains wiring in the house would conduct that signal into
neighbouring houses
But more likely, because this mains wiring radiates, anyone passing with a
radio receiver tuned into more or less the right frequency would have been
able to hear baby sleeping

FX

interference / baby

Dakin Hart

in trying to protect yourself from kidnappers, what youve actually done is

facilitate a kidnapping. A potential kidnapper could be sitting right outside
your house, tuned in

FX
Ashley Stanley

You know, a lot of the wealthier neighbourhoods have the same equipment,
and they would have to switch em to different channels or get a different
brand, or something like that, because they would most frequently like, be
able, you know, to hear your neighbours childIve heard lots of stories like
that

Dad (Oliver)

I mean presumably theres a limited number of frequencies they can

broadcast over, so you know, its not impossible to imagine that someone
could just sit there and, you know, listen to me

FX

sounds through baby monitor

Dad (Oliver)

its pretty weird, isnt it, broadcasting sounds of your house?

FX

sounds through baby monitor

Dakin Hart

as soon as you start surveilling, you make it possible for other people to use
that information

FX

sounds through baby monitor

David Hemingway

until relatively recently, this simple, analogue, radio technology was used in
simple, cheap devices cordless phones, the baby monitors, the mobile
phones. In more recent years, digital technology has taken over and this
makes it much harder to accidentally listen in
The issue now is that people assume that its not interceptable, people
assume that because theyre communicating on a mobile phone or a WiFi
network, its going to be safe, and thats not always the case.

MUSIC / NEWS
MONTAGE

If you have a baby, you probably have a monitor

Almost couldnt live without it
Well this happened to one tri-state couple
Someone else was watching too
Felt like someone broke into our house
A cyberdoor directly into your homeinto your homeinto your home

Renate Samson

More and more, people buy a piece of technology and they just assume that
its all up and running, and that its safe

Archive News

They woke up in the middle of the night to hear a guy yelling

Effected Voice

WAKE UP BABY, WAKE UP BABY!

Renate Samson

they dont read the terms and conditions, they dont read the privacy policy,
and they dont change the password thats given.

MUSIC
Ashley Stanley

My names Ashley Stanley, Im a professional nanny for a 15-month-old.

Currently I live in Houston, Texas. My family uses a surveillance camera.
You can hook it up anywhere and its connected to the familys wi-fi. On the
camera there is a microphone, and its 2-way so you can not only hear the
child but you can also speak to the child.

FX

car slows down and pulls up

Archive News

Just another Monday for nanny, Ashley Stanley

Ashley Stanley

I got to my charges house and we ate breakfast, and were getting cleaned
up and went into her room to change a diaper.
So as Im changing her diaper, I hear out of the room some noises, and Im
thinkingmaybe theres a toy that goes off (cos sometimes toys just go off
by themselves) and, after realizing it was actually a mans voice, I looked
over at the camera and realised thats where the sound was coming from. I
kinda laughed it off, like ha ha, you know, someones playing a trick on me,
its probably my bosses (cos were pretty close). So I just kinda said, you
know thats funny Rick, youre being silly, and a voice from the camera
clearly said
I dont think I am who you think I am

MUSIC

Archive

I didnt even realize its possible to break in and hack a baby monitor!

Ashley Stanley

Archive

I kinda went into shock. So I finished cleaning up the baby and putting her
diaper on, and while Im doing this, the voice says
Thats a really cute baby you have
I didnt realize they could actually take control of the camera

Ashley Stanley

actually, the camera is typically pointed down at the crib

FX

camera servo whirring

Archive

and move the camera around in the room

Ashley Stanley

it came up and was looking where the diaper changing area was.
The voice did sound young. Cos this guy was actually informative. He
helped us realize that this camera was being pretty much just broadcasted to
the world, for anyone to see. And he actually told me that I should probably
password protect my camera. Then said goodbye and I didnt hear him
anymore.
What Im afraid of is likewhos been watching, and not saying anything?

Archive news

Police try to identify households with webcams that could have had their
everyday lives broadcast on the internet by Russian hackers

Renate Samson

we are facing a new set of risks that most of us dont understand. Anything
thats online has the potential to be used by somebody that we dont know

Archive news

webcams, CCTV systems and even baby monitors

Renate Samson

Im Renate Samson, chief executive of Big Brother Watch. Russian hackers

got into, I think it was, something like 73,000 webcams across the world and
put up the footage that they saw on the internet.

Spencer

Its actually, now I know its there, I kinda think I want to have a look now.

Renate Samson

All of us in terms of society have a sense of voyeurism

Spencer

Were nosey, Im not a weirdo.

SFX

mouse clicks
Just clicking through now, on page 4 of 586weve got a driveway, a car
park, this is someones hallway. Theres one here of someones bookshelf.
Theres a lady with her back to me. Shes surfing the internet. I can even see
what shes actually looking at. I could probably tell you shes having a cup of
coffee as well. And if she was turned this way, you could easily see her face.
These people dont know that Im looking at themwhich is kinda weird. This
is someones living room, sofa, tellythats in, United States, in
Massachusettsquite early, theyre probably getting ready for work, theres
a towel on the side there.kinda weird isnt it?

Indoor pan / tilt IP camera, and on the left hand side theres a little panning
controlsee if I can go upoh, yeah, weve just moved up. I clicked up and
now Im looking a little bit more at the ceiling.

MUSIC
California, San Jose. No-ones in at the moment. On the floor are kids toys.
Mum

oh
Looks like, you know, a little train track, some Legogot my finger down on
it now, Im panning full left, full rightI can even see the shelf the cameras
on now. In fact I feel like I wanna move the camera so its facing the other
way, so the people that live there can kinda go whats happened to our
camera? Hopefully theyll realize that now.

SFX

camera servo

MUSIC
Renate Samson

These products will be sold to us as keep your home safe, protect your
family and belongings and yet, the way we may end up using them could do
absolutely the opposite.

Frank Furedi

A lot of this technology simply creates additional insecurities and amplifies

anxieties rather than reassures. The more you use them, the more you
become their prisoner. Its a kind of performance, its a kind of ritual of
security rather than anything else.

Dakin Hart

I have two children. I have a son who is still in a crib and I have a daughter
whos four. All of our neighbours have video monitors, but we didnt do any
baby monitors at all. I didnt want to feel like I was surveilling my baby and I
didnt want to feel like I was relying on this electronic device in my bedroom.
It felt weird.

FX

monitor switched off