This chapter critically examines the ways in which 24-hour telephones were used by radical activist groups from the 1960s and 1970s to connect people in a timely fashion with the experiential expertise they needed to “fare well” whilst navigating a state that was all too often hostile. The telephone lines run by Defence and Release offered immediate help to Black people and those involved with the counterculture who found themselves in trouble with the police or landlords, or otherwise struggling to access the services they needed. Run by the community for the community, these lines offered a model of how expertise acquired from dealing with the police and other state services could be mobilised and shared with others. The hotline concept moved from the counterculture to the mainstream during the 1970s and 1980s, showing how the telephone was a vital tool by which citizens could assert their right to “fare well” within the Welfare State.