Juan Gonzalez

'9/11’s unsettled dust': Bush’s EPA hid health risks from toxic dust at ground zero — and  thousands died

As this week marks the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, we look at an enraging new documentary, "9/11's Unsettled Dust," on the impact of the toxic, cancer-causing smoke and dust that hung over ground zero and how the Environmental Protection Agency put Wall Street's interests before public health and told people the air was safe to breathe. One of the key figures in the film is Democracy Now! co-host Juan González, who was among the first to expose the public health and environmental crisis at ground zero in a series of reports for the New York Daily News. He says the intense backlash from the mayor's office and federal officials "cowed" the newspaper, but he has no regrets.

"My only mistake was believing that it would take 20 years for people to get sick," González says. "It took about five years for the deaths and the severe illnesses to really become apparent." Director Lisa Katzman says she made the film because she was a resident of Lower Manhattan who saw the attack and its aftermath up close and wanted "to address the lack of accountability" from city and federal officials. "The same people that were always touting 'Never forget! Never forget!' and constantly reminding us of the heroism of these responders were unwilling to do anything to actually help them," notes Katzman.

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: We're going to start with a warning to our listeners and viewers: Today's show includes graphic images and descriptions, some that you may certainly have heard and seen before.

Yes, this week marks the 20th anniversary of the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center towers in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., that killed nearly 3,000 people. We'll never know exactly how many people, because those who go uncounted in life go uncounted in death, perhaps the undocumented workers around the area.

But we begin our coverage looking at the impact of the toxic, cancer-causing smoke and dust that hung over ground zero in Manhattan as the fire burned for 100 more days. At the time, the Environmental Protection Agency told people who worked at the site and lived and went to school near it that the air was safe to breathe. In the years that followed, more than 13,200 first responders and survivors have been diagnosed with a variety of cancers and chronic respiratory and gastrointestinal illnesses. At least — well, close to 1,900 first responders, survivors and workers who recovered bodies and cleaned up the wreckage have since died from illnesses, many of them linked to their time at ground zero.

For the whole hour, we're looking at an enraging new documentary that exposes the massive environmental and public health crisis caused by the 9/11 attack and how politicians and the EPA head, Christine Todd Whitman, the former governor of New Jersey, put Wall Street's interests before public health in the aftermath. It also shows how 9/11 responders and survivors had to fight for healthcare justice while they were sick and dying, going to Washington scores of times, in wheelchairs, on crutches, with oxygen. Yes, tons of toxic dust fell on New York City 9/11. While concentrated in the 16-acre disaster site, wind carried the chemical contaminants throughout the city, in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens. This is the trailer for the new documentary, 9/11's Unsettled Dust.

ONLOOKER 1: Yeah, it seemed like it just sort of —
ONLOOKER 2: Oh my god! Oh my god!
DISPATCHER: Yo, the North Tower is coming down. All units, be advised that the North Tower is coming down.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Once we saw the actual initial reports, we started realizing there was benzene. There was lead in the air. I was already getting warnings that there were many more potential toxic exposures.
UNIDENTIFIED: When we heard Christine Todd Whitman get on TV and say the air quality is safe, we were horrified.
CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN: The concentrations are such that they don't pose a health hazard. We're going to make sure everybody is safe.
JOHN FEAL: You know, not only did we inhale and breathe in the air, we were drinking it and eating it. And I bitched and moaned to anybody who would listen to me.
REP. CAROLYN MALONEY: My husband and I and other people who were engineers went down to the site. And there was no question that it was an unhealthy site.
UNIDENTIFIED: They didn't have a mask in the beginning, because some people were using Home Depot masks, even the guys at ground zero.
JOHN McNAMARA: On 9/11, responded, the World Trade Center, breathing in all the toxic air, and they said it was safe to breathe.
JOHN FEAL: We're talking about human life. We're talking about men that couldn't be here, that had traveled with me, the 80 trips that I made to D.C., that are laying in ICU or at home with IVs in them.
JON STEWART: The first responders were told the Zadroga Act would be included — they were told this last week — it would be included in the transportation bill passed last week.
SEN. KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND: Not one of the first responders standing with me here today should have to be here today. Not one of them should have to take another trip to Washington.
JOHN FEAL: This is about Washington, D.C., helping out people from 431 congressional districts that went to ground zero. New York wasn't attacked; this country was attacked.

AMY GOODMAN: That's the trailer for the new documentary, 9/11's Unsettled Dust, which premieres later this week on PBS stations in New York, New Jersey and Long Island.

For more, we're joined by Lisa Katzman, the film's director and producer. One of the key figures in the film is Democracy Now!'s Juan González, who is not only co-host today, but his critical work at the beginning of the time after 9/11 just changed the landscape of how people understood what was happening near and around the pile. He and Joel Kupferman of the Environmental Law & Justice Project were among the first to expose the public health and environmental crisis at ground zero in a series of reports for the New York Daily News. Juan González is also the author of the 2002 book, Fallout: The Environmental Consequences of the World Trade Center Collapse.

So, Juan, we're beginning with you. I mean, that New York Daily News cover that caused so much outrage and response and attack on you, it was in October. It said "exclusive." And we're going to show it right here. "Toxic Zone" was the headline, "Levels of benzene, dioxin, PCBs and other dangerous chemicals at Ground Zero exceed federal standards." That may not surprise people now, Juan, but you're the one who had it on the cover at a time when the EPA head was telling the country all was well in Lower Manhattan in terms of safety for people returning to work. Talk about how you came to understand how toxic ground zero was.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Amy, I actually had started — I did an article about less than three weeks after the attack on the World Trade Center, on September 28th, which began to talk about the high levels of asbestos that Joel Kupferman had discovered in his own independent testing that he had done around ground zero, even as far down as Battery Park, and very high levels of asbestos and of fiberglass, which ended up being actually responsible for much of the scarring of lungs that many of the first responders and other people downtown had. And so, I had actually done two articles before, before that big front-page story. But then, of course, as Joel was able to get even more public records requests on health testing that had been hidden from the public, that big October 26 article, as I recall, was the one that laid out those findings.

And the response was unbelievable, the backlash against it from the mayor's office, from the EPA to the Daily News, to the point that, actually, my editors pulled back. They began, after that, beginning to hold my columns. And at one point, I actually had to go to the editor-in-chief at the time, a guy by the name of Ed Kosner, and I said, "Ed, why are you holding up my follow-ups on this?" And he says, "Well, you know, City Hall says this, and EPA says you're overstating the problem, you're sensationalizing. And The New York Times is not following our stories, and none of the other press are agreeing with us." And I said to him, "Well, since when do we depend on other media to tell us how to report what we find?" So, it became clear that the paper had been cowed by the federal and the city government.

So I said to Kosner at the time — I said, "Ed, you don't really know me. You just got here about a year ago. And I don't know you. So this is what I'm going to do. You run the paper. You're in charge of the paper. And I'm in charge of my column. So, I'm going to keep writing about this issue, because I don't want it on my conscience that 20 years later people are going to start getting sick and dying because we didn't warn them of the potential health effects here. And so, I'm not going to stop writing about this." And the paper did end up killing some of my columns, but they ran most of them at the back of the page — at the back of the paper.

My only mistake was believing that it would take 20 years for people to get sick. It actually took far less, took about five years for the deaths and the severe illnesses to really become apparent. And by then, the paper had a new management, a new editor. And then the paper embarked — the editorial board embarked on a campaign to reveal the deaths and the illnesses that were occurring. And eventually it won the Pulitzer Prize. The Daily News won the Pulitzer Prize, the editorial board, for its coverage of the health effects, the very health effects that five years earlier it had tried to squash. You know, so, history has a strange way of evolving on issues like this. And I think that it's a lesson that most media are very good at exposing problems far away. The closer the problems get to home, the more difficult it becomes to expose them.

AMY GOODMAN: You should have won the Pulitzer Prize for your series of prophetic reports. I wanted to go to David Newman with NYCOSH. That's the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health. He's speaking in the documentary, 9/11's Unsettled Dust.

DAVID NEWMAN: There was substantial data available prior to the event that would indicate issues of concern with the collapse of the Twin Towers. One of those was the widely known and widely documented and widely advertised heavy use of asbestos during the construction of the World Trade Center project. So, the figure that is in widespread circulation and uncontested is that there were 400 tons of asbestos used in sprayed-on fireproofing material in the Trade Center construction. That figure excludes probable additional asbestos used in pipe insulation and other applications. So there's a huge amount. I think it's safe to say that whatever was in the World Trade Center was released into the general environment. Nothing disappeared.

AMY GOODMAN: "Nothing disappeared." Whatever was inside the World Trade Towers became what we breathed. That's David Newman with the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health. And, Juan, you talked about the New York Daily News winning the Pulitzer, but you didn't, and you should have. You were the one who led the way in exposing this.

I wanted to bring in the director, Lisa Katzman, director and producer of this utterly devastating documentary, 9/11's Unsettled Deaths [sic], 9/11's Unsettled Dust. It could be "unsettled deaths." And we're going to be talking about that in a minute.

But talk about why you chose to make this film, and the significance of a crusading reporter, like Juan González, and others who were putting out this information going against the financial establishment. Let's remember who the "country's mayor" was at the time: Rudy Giuliani. The Environmental Protection Agency administrator, who now says, OK, maybe she made a mistake — she dreads the 9/11 anniversary because of this — Christine Todd Whitman, saying, "Everyone, back to work."

LISA KATZMAN: Well, it's an honor to be on the show. And hello to both of you. Hi, Juan. It was good to hear you report on those first stories that you did, again.

Yes, the reason that I was drawn to make the film is I'm a member of — I live downtown. I live four blocks from the World Trade Centers, and then what became ground zero. And I witnessed the recovery, the rescue and recovery effort, through looking through my living room windows at it over a number of months. And it was very evident — fortunately, at the time, I had a teaching job upstate, so I was not in my apartment on a full-time basis. But to anybody that lived here, who spent any time here or near downtown Manhattan, it defied one's senses and common sense to imagine that this wasn't a horrendously, I mean, off-the-charts environmental disaster. And so, the statement that the air is safe, the denials that were made were utterly absurd. I mean, the level of disconnect from reality is almost legendary, I would say at this point. It's really hard to fathom that those things were said.

And the reason that I felt that I needed to make the film was to address that and to address the lack of accountability at the time. And then, what ensued, you know, in the years afterward, is that that lack of accountability traveled through the courts. It traveled through the way that Republicans in Congress thought about what should be done to help first responders. And the same people that were always touting "Never forget! Never forget!" and constantly reminding us of the heroism of these responders were unwilling to do anything to actually help them. And so, the hypocrisy of that, the rage that I felt over that as time went on, led me to want to make this film, which I began doing in 2010, when the first responders were making very — they had been making trips to D.C. to pass the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act for some time, but there was an intensification of those efforts in 2010, and that's when I began filming.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go to another part of the film. I mean, every three minutes, your jaw drops. This is the EPA's Hugh Kaufman and Kimberly Flynn, founder of 9/11 Environmental Action, speaking about the EPA's failure to warn people of the dangerous conditions at ground zero, and perhaps why.

HUGH KAUFMAN: People told us, "I'm not allowed to wear a respirator, because there are cameras around, and they don't the optics of me wearing a respirator down here cleaning up."
KIMBERLY FLYNN: Everyone came. Everyone who was affected came. There were responders. There were area workers. There were many, many residents and tenants' association leaders. And there were scientists also who were bringing their information.
HUGH KAUFMAN: Christine Todd Whitman, the head of EPA, who was telling the people the air is safe to breathe, owned a quarter of a million dollars in stock from Citigroup, and her husband worked for Citigroup. Travelers insurance company had insurance policies such that if the air wasn't safe to breathe, it could cost Travelers insurance half a billion, a billion dollars in claims. Well, guess who owns Travelers insurance: Citigroup. And that's how the insurance companies saved billions of dollars by Christine Todd Whitman's lie.

AMY GOODMAN: Juan, talk about the significance of this, the personal financial connections, what this meant for so many people, and continues to mean for the sick and the dying today.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Amy, I think people should remember that Christine Todd Whitman did not act alone. She basically was acting under orders. And it was later revealed, I think by the treasury secretary under the Bush administration, that George Bush had — the president at the time had directly ordered that Wall Street be reopened within a week of the attacks, because there was a fear in the administration that the continued closing of the financial markets was going to have a disastrous effect on world capitalism.

So, basically, once Bush ordered that Wall Street be reopened — and that meant thousands and thousands of financial industry workers had to come back to downtown Manhattan — then the health officials, including Christine Todd Whitman, had to justify, had to justify the orders. And rather than do the science first and then figure out what the policy, the policy was established, and the science was made to fit the facts.

It was later revealed by the EPA's inspector general report that the White House — the head of the environmental policy at the White House, a guy by the name James Connaughton, had actually rewritten the press releases that the EPA was putting out, to downplay the health impacts. So this was a direct order from the White House to get Wall Street back up and running, and the rest of the population of Lower Manhattan basically, in essence, were collateral damage to that policy.

AMY GOODMAN: This is President George W. Bush's EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman testifying at a 2007 congressional hearing on whether the federal government's actions at the 9/11 attack sites, at the pile, violated the rights of first responders and local residents.

CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN: I got a call from the White House a day after, from the Office of the Economic Adviser, which is not surprising — they're concerned about the economy of the country — saying — reminding me of the importance of Wall Street, of opening the stock market. I indicated that until that building was cleaned, until it was safe, it would be inappropriate. And that's the last I heard of that. It was cleaned. It was safe, as you have heard from Mr. Henshaw, for them to go back in. And they were allowed back in. Was it wrong to try to get the city back on its feet as quickly as possible, in the safest way possible? Absolutely not. Safety was first and foremost, but we weren't going to let the terrorists win.

AMY GOODMAN: "We weren't going to let the terrorists win." During the hearing, Whitman was questioned by Florida Democratic Congressmember Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

REP. DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: The EPA does have the — did have the ability to take over the site at the point that they felt that — and that is under Presidential Decision Directive 62, Emergency Support Function 10, and the National Contingency Plan under CERCLA. The EPA could have taken over control of the site from the city as the lead agency, if they felt that the city was not properly protecting their workers. So they certainly had the ability to do it, and you chose not to. So, if you are saying that the law wasn't structured in New York to allow you to do that, then why didn't EPA step in and take over?
CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN: Congresswoman, under — as you know, EPA would have, under certain circumstances, had the authority to take over the site. What had to be proven in order to invoke the CERCLA, or the Superfund Act, substantive, substantial and imminent danger. And the readings that we were getting, relative — and this was relative to the overall air; I'm talking more about outside of the pile — were not indicating that. And we were working in a collegial fashion with the city of New York. Again, as far as the workers on the pile, what our — we were tasked by OSHA to do the — I mean, excuse me, by FEMA to do the health and safety monitoring, to monitor the air. And we did that, and then we provided as many respirators —
REP. DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: But, you know, when it comes to —
CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN: We were not tasked with —
REP. DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: — to imminent — substantial and imminent danger, are you talking about immediate death, horrible sickness within weeks? Because mesothelioma, the cancer that is —
CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN: Right.
REP. DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: — that is the result of exposure to asbestos, does not manifest itself substantially or immediately. It could be years. But it's almost certain. So, how is it that you didn't step in and exercise your authority, given that knowledge, which has been known for years?
REP. JERROLD NADLER: The gentleman — the gentlelady's time is expired. The witness may answer the question.
CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN: Congresswoman, that was based on what the interpretation of what our legal ability was to act by — in consultation with counsel at the time.

AMY GOODMAN: And that was Jerry Nadler, New York congressmember, who represented the ground zero area, chairing the meeting, Christine Todd Whitman being questioned by Florida Democratic Congressmember Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Before we go to break and then hear the story of Joe Zadroga — you may think you know it, because his name is on the law, but I don't think you know the details. Juan, your comment on what Christine Todd Whitman was saying and the information that was being suppressed from the highest levels? Nadler would go on to say that she and "America's mayor," Mayor Giuliani, should be tried for criminally negligent — for criminal negligence.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, I think it's important to recall the role of Rudy Giuliani, as well, because, you see, the EPA was a monitoring agency. The federal agency that should have assured the protection of all the people at ground zero was OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. And OSHA deliberately did not enforce its standards for working on a dangerous site like that, because Giuliani insisted that he was in charge. He was the incident commander on the pile, and he kept — he maintained his control of all information and all activity at the pile long after what should have been just a rescue operation. So, therefore, OSHA was not allowed by Mayor Giuliani to actually conduct its legally required business. And as a result, many, many people ended up being exposed and getting sick and not having proper protection. And we should never forget the role of Rudy Giuliani in allowing that situation to go on for so long.

AMY GOODMAN: And that was very different at the Pentagon, which was also attacked, where they had the proper attire. We're going to talk with Joe Zadroga in a minute. The bill is the James Zadroga Act, his son, who has since died. Stay with us.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: "A Hunting We Will Go," performed by The O'Neill Brothers. It was sung by Michael Williams in The Wire, well known for that, Michael Williams who has died at the age of 54 in Brooklyn.

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'Bernie Sanders Is Right': Robert Reich Sums up Why Sanders Is Surging

Robert Reich, who served as labor secretary under President Clinton, discusses the economic plans of Democratic front-runners Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, as well as his new book, "Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few." The book looks at why the United States is now experiencing the greatest income inequality and wealth disparity in 80 years.

TRANSCRIPT

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: So, let’s turn to the Democrats, because it hasn’t only been the Republicans who have been in power, and that sucking sound from the bottom to the top has been quite as loud. In July, Hillary Clinton outlined her economic vision in a speech at The New School here in New York City.

HILLARY CLINTON: First, hard-working families need and deserve tax relief and simplification. Second, those at the top have to pay their fair share. That’s why I support the Buffett rule, which makes sure that millionaires don’t pay lower rates than their secretaries. I’ve also called for closing the carried interest loophole, which lets wealthy financiers pay an artificially low rate. And let’s agree that hugely successful companies, that benefit from everything America has to offer, should not be able to game the system and avoid paying their fair share, especially while companies who can’t afford high-priced lawyers and lobbyists end up paying more.

AMY GOODMAN: Your response to what Hillary Clinton has said, someone you know well?

ROBERT REICH: Well, it’s a step in the right direction, Amy, but it’s not far enough. I mean, we do have to substantially increase taxes at the top, if we’re going to have enough money to do everything that needs to be done with regard to investing in education, infrastructure, do a lot of things that, despite President Obama’s efforts, have still not been done. But I think we even have to go beyond that and really change the way the market is organized. I mean, if you look at antitrust law, for example, you’ve got huge combinations now in health insurance, in airlines, in banking, in food. That means Americans are spending much more than otherwise for all of these basic necessities—airlines may not be a necessity, but certainly the others are necessities—and that’s a redistribution upward.

JUAN GONZÃ�LEZ: And you recently, in an op-ed piece in The New York Times, talked about the digital monopolies and the need to break up some of these companies now that have such enormous influence over our lives—the Googles and the Amazons and the Facebooks. Could you talk about that?

ROBERT REICH: Well, up until quite recently, we had antitrust scrutiny, very careful antitrust scrutiny of some of these big high-tech firms. They are creating larger and larger entry barriers. It’s harder for other companies to get into the business, because they have platforms that are basically network monopolies over whether it’s search or shopping or whatever you want. And those huge—that huge market power, those network monopolies end up giving them the power to keep competitors out—ultimately charge higher prices, but also deter innovation. We need to apply antitrust law. I don’t mean we necessarily have to bust them up, but we’ve got to make sure that we don’t stifle innovation, and we’ve got to make absolutely sure that consumers down the line are not ending up paying too much.

JUAN GONZÃ�LEZ: And you mention in your book—I thought it was a fascinating nugget—that Google and Apple are spending more money acquiring the patents of others than they are—and fighting over these patents in court cases, than they are in actually new research and development.

ROBERT REICH: And also on litigation and on lobbying. I mean, Google is now the number one lobbyist in Washington. It’s simply kind of a consequence of having more and more market power. And it’s not—I’m not saying Google is a bad company. I’m not saying Apple is bad. I’m not saying that anybody—people—companies are not bad—people are not companies, companies are not people, despite what the Supreme Court says. But what you’ve got to be careful of in an economy is the aggregation of market power that turns into political power, inevitably. And we’ve seen that again and again. And that’s what antitrust laws were created for in 1890, the Sherman Act. And yet antitrust scrutiny has waned over time.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to go to Bernie Sanders. Your book is called Saving Capitalism: For the Many, [Not] the Few. He is a socialist. He is a Democratic presidential candidate. In July, he was interviewed at an event hosted by the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce at the Newseum in Washington, D.C., and was asked about his position on financial institutions and his support for reinstating the Glass-Steagall Act, which separated commercial from investment banking and was repealed in 1999. This is a part of what he said.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: We have six of the largest financial institutions in this country who have assets equivalent—assets of about $10 trillion, which is equivalent to about 60 percent of the GDP of the United States. So, point number one, you have a handful of huge financial institutions that have enormous economic clout. They issue a significant amount of the mortgages in this country and the credit cards in this country. So the first issue is, for a vibrant economy, do we think it is a good idea for a handful of financial institutions to have that much economic clout? ...

What Wall Street has done is create a business model which says, "We really don’t care about small and medium-sized businesses. What we care is about being an island unto ourselves," coming up with the most esoteric financial tools imaginable, that nobody in the world knows, but enables Wall Street to make huge, huge amounts of money in highly dangerous and speculative activities. That led us to the Wall Street crash of 2008, which created the worst economic downturn since the Great Recession. I personally believe that the business model of Wall Street is fraud. ...

When I was in the House, I was a member of the House Financial Services Committee, that dealt with deregulation. And we had the Clinton people, and we had the Republicans coming before us. And remember what they said? They said, "It’s a great idea if we merge investor banks—investment banks with commercial banks, with large insurance companies. It will be great for us internationally." I never believed it for one second, fought against it. So, to my mind, what we have to do is, A, re-establish Glass-Steagall, maintain those separate entities, but second of all, more importantly, we have got to break them up.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Bernie Sanders. Actually, Glass-Steagall was repealed under the Clinton administration in 1999, Robert Reich.

ROBERT REICH: Bernie Sanders is right: We’ve got to re-establish Glass-Steagall. Repealing it—

AMY GOODMAN: And explain why it’s so important.

ROBERT REICH: Well, because after the crash of 1929, the United States set out to prevent that kind of crazy risk taking by the banking sector that led to the crash of 1929—we’re not talking about 2008, we’re talking about 1929. One thing we did was separate commercial banking from investment banking, so that people’s deposits, the ordinary savings of ordinary people, would not be used for gambling operations by the investment banks. We ought to maintain that. I mean, that’s one of the reasons that we got into trouble again.

We also need to bust up the biggest banks. Bernie Sanders actually understated the reality. I mean, the five biggest banks, they used to have 10 percent of total banking assets back in 1990, now have 44 percent of total banking assets in this country. I mean, they are far too big to fail. I mean, they are so large that they are—just because of their political clout and their scale, they are gaining more and more market share of the entire banking industry. That’s dangerous. It’s dangerous for the economy. It’s dangerous for our political culture, because those banks have a great deal of political power.

AMY GOODMAN: You’ve also talked about welfare reform. You were the labor secretary when President Clinton signed off on this. And your experience that day, as he was signing off in the White House, you were his guy, but you weren’t standing next to him.

ROBERT REICH: No, I was very disappointed that he signed that bill that came over from the Republicans to basically get rid of welfare and substitute a five-year maximum lifetime public help for people, because five years in somebody’s lifetime is—it may not be enough. In fact, we discovered in the Great Recession it was not enough. But look, if you’re in a president’s Cabinet, you’re not going to agree with the president on everything, and there are certain things that you have to ask yourself, "Is it worth resigning over, or can I do more good inside?" There’s no easy answer to that, Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: And Hillary’s stance at the time?

ROBERT REICH: I don’t know what her stance at the time was. I do not think that she ought to be blamed or credited for what her husband did as president. I don’t think that’s fair to her. I think she has to stand as a candidate separately. But she needs to be, as every candidate needs to be, including Bernie Sanders, pushed to be bolder on issues that are really critically important to America at this time.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to talk about that in a minute. We’re talking to Robert Reich, former labor secretary in the first term of President Clinton, now a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. His latest book is called Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few. He’s also chair of Common Cause. Stay with us.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González. Our guest is Robert Reich, former labor secretary under President Clinton, now professor at the University of California, Berkeley. His newest book, Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few. Juan?

JUAN GONZÃ�LEZ: Robert Reich, the title of your book, Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few, I’m sure there are a lot of people out here in our audience who would say, "Why save capitalism?"

ROBERT REICH: You know, it’s interesting, Juan.

JUAN GONZÃ�LEZ: Why not contain capitalism or control capitalism for the many, not the few, or upend capitalism?

ROBERT REICH: I’ve been out on a book tour now just a couple of days, and there are two groups of people: one who says, "Why are you criticizing capitalism? Saving Capitalism sounds like there’s something to be saved, and it’s perfectly fine as it is," and then the other group says, "Why do you want to save it? Let’s get rid of it." So, the title is actually doing what I had hoped, and that is, riling everybody up.

But the most important point is to recognize that even Denmark and Sweden and so-called social democracies are still capitalist fundamentally. That is, they’re based on private property and voluntary exchange. Even China is becoming a capitalist nation.

JUAN GONZÃ�LEZ: A capitalist—

ROBERT REICH: Forgetting the ism, the real issue is: Is the system working for most people, or is it working for a very small group, becoming smaller and smaller, at the top, who are gaining more and more economic power that is being transformed into political power? And the answer is, in the United States, particularly, yes, unfortunately. The system is not working for most people, and the beneficiaries are really getting smaller and smaller and richer and richer and richer. That’s not sustainable. I mean, you know, we talk about inequality. We talk about insecure work. We talk about the engulfing of our democracy in money. These are all connected. And the reason, I believe, that so many Americans are so angry, whether their anger is transferred into a Donald Trump-like scapegoating or whether it has become a kind of Bernie Sanders’ fundamental reform, it is still populist anger of a kind that, hopefully, will fuel reform. That’s what we had in 1900.

JUAN GONZÃ�LEZ: Well, one of the refreshing aspects of your book, I found, was that your—your main idea that the free market is a myth, that, in essence, what is occurring constantly is a battle in terms of the different groups in society to get government to better regulate the existing system, and that there are many decisions made, not only the big ones, but small ones, regulatory decisions, that have major impact on what kind of economy we have.

ROBERT REICH: Exactly. There is no free market. And I want to state that again: There is no free market. And the kind of battle that we’ve had between liberals and conservatives for the past 40 years or 50 years, between do you trust the market or do you trust government, is a fatuous and silly battle, because you can’t have a market without government creating the rules of that market. And it’s in those rules, exactly as you said, Juan—and this is what the point of the book is—it’s inside those rules that you find the most important issues that ought to be debated. I mean, for example, look at Wall Street. One of the reasons that you have so many people on Wall Street making so much money off of everybody else is that we have in this country the weakest laws against insider trading of any advanced country. We also have high pharmaceutical prices. Why? Partly because we’re the only country that allows pharmaceutical companies to pay off generic companies, of generic pharmaceuticals, to delay the introduction of generic pharmaceuticals. And go on down the line. I mean, there are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of examples of ways in which the deck has been stacked, the dice have been loaded, the game has been rigged, in favor of very wealthy, very powerful people and companies and banks.

AMY GOODMAN: Let’s go for a minute—you talked about the different groups critiquing your title. Let’s go outside the system, to Pope Francis. Earlier this year, he spoke at the World Meeting of Popular Movements in Santa Cruz, in Bolivia, where he focused on the damage done to the Earth by capitalism.

POPE FRANCIS: [translated] Time, my brothers and sisters, seems to be running out. We are not yet tearing one another apart, but we are tearing apart our common home. Today, the scientific community realizes what the poor have long told us: Harm, perhaps irreversible harm, is being done to the ecosystem. The Earth, entire peoples and individual persons are being brutally punished. And behind all this pain, death and destruction, there is the stench of what Basil of Caesarea called "the dung of the devil." An unfettered pursuit of money rules. The service of the common good is left behind. Once capital becomes an idol and guides people’s decisions, once greed for money presides over the entire socioeconomic system, it ruins society. It condemns and enslaves men and women. It destroys human fraternity. It sets people against one another. And as we clearly see, it even puts at risk our common home.

AMY GOODMAN: So, basically, you have Pope Francis talking about capitalism as "the dung of the devil." Robert Reich?

ROBERT REICH: There is and should be a moral core to any economy. And whether it’s called capitalism or any other system, if it doesn’t have that moral core, in which we agree on basics, kind of minimum standards of decency—we agree that we’re all in it together, we understand that trust is critical if an economic system is going to be maintained and sustained—then you’re in trouble. I think one of the problems in the United States, and one of the problems with contemporary capitalism as practiced by the American model, is that it celebrates greed as the central principle. But that can’t possibly be the central principle, because if it’s all about greed, then you end up spending more and more of your resources protecting yourself from everybody else’s unvarnished greed. I mean, what’s happening, if you look at the GDP, we are spending more on protection—that is, on lawyers and on accountants and auditors and on security guards and on everybody else, that are protecting us from each other’s greed—than we are on actually producing goods and services and food and everything else we need.

JUAN GONZÃ�LEZ: Well, we only have about 30 seconds, but I’m interested—your critique dovetails very much with a lot of the stuff that Bernie Sanders has been saying on the campaign trail. Your sense of what he’s bringing to the debate that’s going on now in America?

ROBERT REICH: I think he’s telling the truth, and I think people are responding with extraordinary enthusiasm, even many conservatives and Republicans I meet, to a truth teller.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Robert Reich, I want to thank you very much for being with us, former labor secretary under President Clinton, professor at the University of California, Berkeley. His latest book, Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few. He’s also chair of Common Cause.

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New Mayor de Blasio: New York Can't Be "Exclusive Domain of the One Percent"

The following is a transcript of a Democracy Now! segment. 

TRANSCRIPT

JUAN GONZÃ�LEZ: Here in New York, Bill de Blasio has been sworn in as the city’s new mayor, replacing billionaire Mike Bloomberg. Former U.S. President Bill Clinton administered the oath of office on a Bible once used by Franklin Delano Roosevelt. De Blasio is the first Democrat to lead New York in two decades. In his inaugural address, he vowed to fight income inequality.

MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO: I know that there are those who think that what I said during the campaign was just rhetoric, just political talk in the interest of getting elected. And there are some who think that now, as we turn to governing, well, that things will just continue pretty much the way they always have. So let me be clear: When I said I would take dead aim at the tale of two cities, I meant it. And we will do it. I will honor the faith and the trust you have placed in me, and we will give life to the hope of so many in our city. We will succeed as one city.

And we know this won’t be easy. It will require all that we can muster. And it won’t be accomplished only by me. It will be accomplished by all of us, those of us here today and millions of everyday New Yorkers in every corner of our city. You must continue to make your voices heard. You must be at the center of this debate. And our work begins now.

We will expand the paid sick leave law, because no one should be forced to lose a day’s pay or even a week’s pay simply because illness strikes. And by this time next year, fully 300,000 additional New Yorkers will be protected by that law. We won’t wait; we’ll do it now.

We will require big developers to build more affordable housing. We will fight to stem the tide of hospital closures. And we’ll expand community health centers into neighborhoods in need, so that New Yorkers see our city not as the exclusive domain of the 1 percent, but a place where everyday people can afford to live, work and raise a family. We won’t wait; we’ll do it now.

We will reform a broken stop-and-frisk policy, both to protect the dignity and rights of young men of color and to give our brave police officers the partnership they need to continue their success in driving down crime. We won’t wait; we’ll do it now.

And we will ask the very wealthy to pay a little more in taxes, so that we can offer full-day universal pre-K for every child in this city and after-school programs for every middle-school child. When we say "a little more," we can rightly emphasize the "little." Those earning between $500,000 and a million dollars a year, for instance, would see their taxes increase by an average of $973 a year. That’s less than three bucks a day—about the cost of a small soy latte at your local Starbucks. Think about it. A five-year tax on the wealthiest among us with every dollar dedicated to pre-K and after-school. Asking those at the top to help our kids get on the right path and stay there, that’s our mission. And on that, we will not wait; we’ll do it now.

AMY GOODMAN: That was New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio delivering his inaugural address on Wednesday outside City Hall. Well, Juan, you were there covering the inauguration in the bitter cold.

JUAN GONZÃ�LEZ: In the bitter, bitter cold, yes, it was. A numbing cold, it was for hours out there. But it really was an unusual inauguration, and I’ve covered many of these municipal inaugurations over the years. The most interesting thing, obviously, was the more people-oriented nature of the inauguration. The mayor—the new mayor had given out a thousand tickets to ordinary New Yorkers who applied for them. There was disco music to entertain the—a disc jockey to entertain the audience while they waited in the cold.

And I think it’s kind of—it’s hard to underestimate the extraordinary change that is occurring in city government compared to the Bloomberg era. And there was Michael Bloomberg sitting—probably the most morose look on his face that he’s had in his 12 years in office, as he heard one after another speaker essentially criticize his record. And I think that it’s hard to underestimate the enormous change that’s occurring. It’s almost a 180-degree turn in New York City government, not just with Bill de Blasio, but with the new public advocate, Letitia James; the comptroller, Scott Stringer; and next week the City Council is poised to elect a councilwoman from East Harlem and the South Bronx, Melissa Mark-Viverito, to be—and who’s also the co-chair of the Progressive Caucus, to become the speaker, which is the second most powerful post. So you’ve got basically a coalition of the most progressive public officials almost in memory about to—assumed office in this week. And I think it’s going to be a dramatic change from the sort of corporate-oriented, top-down management style of the Bloomberg era to a more bottom-up effort to address the needs of the 99 percent that obviously Occupy Wall Street put on the national map.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, interestingly, one of the biggest cheers came when he talked about taxing wealthier New Yorkers to help pay for pre-K education.

JUAN GONZÃ�LEZ: Well, not only pre-K, but I think people have not noticed that he’s also increasingly emphasizing after-school programs and the need for middle-school children to—for parents, working parents, to feel that their children are in safe hands if they’re in after-school programs while—before they arrive—before their parents arrive home from work. So I think he’s emphasizing preschool and after-school programs, which have seen huge slashes over the last couple of decades in terms of government investment in that time between 3:00 and 5:00 or 6:00, when children, many of them, are unsupervised, unfortunately, especially the older children.

AMY GOODMAN: You also profile—in your piece in the New York Daily News today, you talk about Patrick Gaspard, who was there. You talk about him flying in from South Africa, the new U.S. ambassador there. Talk about his significance and his link to de Blasio.

JUAN GONZÃ�LEZ: Well, most people don’t realize that Bill de Blasio and Patrick Gaspard actually started—they’ve been friends for close to 25 years. They both started, as neophytes, young, political operatives in the Dinkins administration back in the early 1990s and became close friends and have been political allies ever since. Of course, Patrick went on, after being the political director at the powerful hospital workers’ union, 1199, he went on to be—to help organize the two election campaigns of President Obama, then was in the White House as political director, then was head of the DNC or the executive director of the DNC, before he became the ambassador to South Africa earlier this year. So, they’ve been close for years, and he’s still—they’re still very close.

So, many of the people that De Blasio is now looking to, to help in his administration, have also been very close to Patrick Gaspard. He chose as his chief of staff the former top aide to Patrick in all of these different positions, Laura Santucci, who will now become the new City Hall chief of staff. So there’s been a close alliance between them for years. But, of course, now Patrick is an ambassador now; he’s out of politics, per se, but he couldn’t help coming to this inauguration.

AMY GOODMAN: And you talk about the man who trained them both, de Blasio and Gaspard.

JUAN GONZÃ�LEZ: Yes, both were trained by Bill Lynch, the former deputy mayor under David Dinkins and who was a mentor to many young African-American, Latino and progressive political activists over the years. And, of course, Bill Lynch died earlier this year, and both Patrick Gaspard and Bill de Blasio were at his funeral, as were many, many of the progressive political activists of New York over the decades. So, it’s sort of bittersweet that Bill died just before Patrick was installed as the new South African ambassador and just before Bill de Blasio won his race for mayor.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to go to break. When we come back, the charge to Bill de Blasio given in a speech by Harry Belafonte. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. And then we’ll bring you our national broadcast exclusive, as we went to LaGuardia Airport yesterday, right about the same time that Bill de Blasio was being inaugurated, to cover the return of attorney Lynne Stewart. She had been in prison for four years. Stay with us.

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Plea to End Deportations Heard Nationwide as Activist Interrupts Obama's Speech on Immigration

Two days after he interrupted a speech by President Obama, Ju Hong, an immigrant rights activist from South Korea, joins us to talk about how Obama’s immigration policies have impacted him. As Obama continued his campaign for comprehensive immigration reform with a speech in San Francisco, Hong interrupted him to call for an end to deportations. Obama then turned around to address him directly, and Hong continued talking. Those who placed Hong behind Obama during the speech may not have realized he is one of the most outspoken young immigrant activists in California. He has been arrested previously during immigration protests—most recently over the summer when he opposed the confirmation of former Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano as president of the University of California system. Hong is a member of ASPIRE—Asian Students Promoting Immigrant Rights Through Education. "I thought about my family, I thought about my personal struggle as undocumented, and I thought about my friends and my communities who have been deported and who are currently in detention centers," Hong says about why he spoke out. "I felt I was compelled to tell the truth to President Obama that he has the ability stop the deportations for all."

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

JUAN GONZÃ�LEZ: We begin today’s show looking at President Obama’s push for Congress to pass an immigration reform bill before the end of the year. A comprehensive package has passed the Senate but remains stalled in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. On Monday, Obama continued his campaign with a speech in San Francisco, where he was engaged by an audience member who interrupted him to call for an end to deportations. What made this interruption unusual was the young man was one of the people who was chosen to stand behind Obama, so he was almost on mic. Obama then turned around to address him directly, and the young man continued talking, pleading for president Obama to stop separating families. The person was later identified as an undocumented immigrant from South Korea named Ju Hong. In a minute, he will join us to talk about what he did. But first, this is their full exchange.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: If we get immigration reform across the finish line, and it is there just within our grasp, if we can just get folks in Washington to go ahead and do what needs to be done, we are going to grow our economy, make are going to make our country more security, we’ll strengthen our families. And most importantly, we will live a—

JU HONG: Mr. Obama, I need to know—

PRESIDENT OBAMA: —most importantly, we will live—

JU HONG: —our families are separating—Thanksgiving.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: —most importantly, we will live up—

JU HONG: —I have not seen my family [Indiscernible]

PRESIDENT OBAMA: —to our character as a nation—

JU HONG: Our families are separated. I need your help . There are thousand of undocumented immigrants are torn apart—

PRESIDENT OBAMA: That is exactly what we’re talking about here—

JU HONG: —every single day—

PRESIDENT OBAMA:That is why we are here—

JU HONG: Mr. President, please use your executive order to halt deportations for all 11.5 [million] undocumented immigrants right now.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: What we’re—

JU HONG: We agree—

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Obama! Obama! Obama!

JU HONG: ...that we need to pass comprehensive immigration reform at the same time. You have a power to stop deportation for all undocumented [Indiscernible] at this time.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Actually, I don’t. That is why we’re here.

JU HONG: So please, I need your help.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Stop deportation!

JU HONG: Stop deportation! Stop deportation! Stop deportation!

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Don’t worry about it, guys. Let me finish.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Stop deportation! Yes we can! Stop deportation!

PRESIDENT OBAMA: These guys don’t need to go. Let me finish. No, no, no. He can stay there. Let me—[Applause]. Hold on a second. I respect the passion of these young people because they feel deeply about the concerns for their families. Now what you need to know, when I am speaking as president of the United States and I come to this community, is that if in fact I could solve all of these problems without passing laws in Congress, then I would do so. But we’re also a nation of laws. That’s part of our tradition. And so the easy way out is to try to yell and pretend like I can do something by violating our laws. What I’m proposing is the harder path which is to use our Democratic processes to achieve the same goal that you want to achieve, but it won’t be as easy as just shouting. It requires us lobbying and getting it done. So—

AMY GOODMAN: President Obama responding to the young immigrant activist Ju Hong. Those who placed Ju Hong behind President Obama during the speech may not have realized he is one of the California Bay Area’s most outspoken young immigrant activists. Ju Hong has been arrested previously during immigration protests, most recently, over the summer when he opposed the confirmation of former Homeland security Secretary Janet Napolitano as president of the University of California system. Ju Hong is a member of ASPIRE—Asian students promoting immigrant rights or education. He graduated from UC Berkeley in 2012, currently pursuing a master’s degree in public administration at San Francisco State University. He is joining us now from the University of Berkeley. Welcome to Democracy Now! Ju Hong, talk about that moment, first how you came to be right right behind President Obama, part of his backdrop, and then what your message was.

JU HONG: So, I was informally invited by the White House to attend his remarks on immigration reform in San Francisco and my intention was to hear what he had to say, especially about how he is going to address the lives of 11.5 million undocumented people who are living in this country facing fear of deportation on a daily basis, including my family. However, he did not address wrongdoing against undocumented immigrant family members he have done. He did not have any concrete examples to pass comprehensive immigration reform. When he talked about Thanksgiving and spending time with families and Thanksgiving, I thought of my own family. I was concerned about my mom’s safety. I was concerned about my sister safety, because they could get deported at any given period of time because of anti-immigration deportation programs that was implemented by Obama administration. So, I thought about my family. I thought about my personal struggle as undocumented. I thought about my friends in my communities who have been deported and are currently in detention centers. I felt that I was compelled to tell the truth to the President Obama that he has ability to stop the deportations for all 11.5 million undocumented immigrants, but he did not do so. And I think that his response was very disappointing because he is treating me like a child. He did not adequately address my question. In fact, he lied to the public that he doesn’t have power to stop deportations when he does. So I think that—

JUAN GONZÃ�LEZ: Ju Hong, if I can ask you, again, this issue of how you ended up behind the podium? The people who are chosen usually by the White House to be behind the podium are usually—you would assume—are vetted in some way or another to make sure that these kinds of interruptions don’t happen. So, how was it that you ended up being invited to stand behind the president?

JU HONG: Sure. I was actually selected randomly at the day of, and like I said, I was there to, just to hear what President Obama had to say. I did not have any plan to interrupt his speech, but then again, I was very compelled to speak out the truth about what is happening in our community.

AMY GOODMAN: Ju Hong, after you interrupted President Obama at his speech, he continued with his vow to press ahead on immigration reform. I want to go to another clip. This is from the end of President Obama’s speech where he seems to be addressing you directly again.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: And if you are serious about making that happen, then I’m ready to work with you—[Applause] But, it is going to require work. It is not simply a matter of us just saying, we are going to violate the law. That is not our tradition. The great thing about this country is we have this wonderful process of democracy and sometimes it is messy and sometimes it is hard, but ultimately, justice and truth win out.

AMY GOODMAN: Ju Hong, your response?

JU HONG: First of all, he is not violating the law if—because he has the power to stop deportation. He can use his executive order to stop deportation and that is not violating the law. I think that the law itself is wrong and currently inhumane. I think the current law is affecting me and my family in an unjust way. For example, in 2010, my family’s home was burglarized and my door was broken, my windows were completely shattered, and my important belongings were gone. We were terrified. We wanted to contact the police immediately, but my mom said, do not contact police, what if we get deported? This is something that we go through every single day. We have the fear and we have no protection and uncertainty. This is not just me. I know that 11.5 million undocumented immigrants are facing fear of deportation. I am very disappointed the fact that President Obama is supporting comprehensive immigration reform, but behind the door, he is deporting thousands of other undocumented immigrant family members, tearing apart every single day. He deported one point million undocumented immigrant families across the country which is—he deport more people than any other U.S. president in the history. And every single day, 100,000 immigrants are getting deported because of anti-immigration deportation measure under Obama administration.

JUAN GONZ�LEZ: Ju Hong, tell us about your story. How did your family come here? How did you become undocumented? When did you learn you were undocumented?

JU HONG: Sure. I was born and raised in South Korea until I was 11 years old. Our family owned a small Japanese restaurant in South Korea. But, unfortunately, it did not really work out—our business. We gave up the business and we filed bankruptcy and one year after my mom and dad decided to divorce and ever since then, I grew up with my mom and my older sister, barely surviving our home country in South Korea. So, my mom decided to move to the United States in 2001 to seek a better life for me and my older sister. Ever since then I grew up just like many other American students. I went to public school, spoke English, and joined many different student activities. Most importantly, I had a dream to go to college. But during my senior year in high school while I was filling out my college applications, there was a section where it requires citizenship status and Social Security number and I did not know what to put. I asked my mom about it. That’s when she told me everything about our immigration status, that we came here with a tourist visa and she extended it for an additional six months, and within 12 months, she tried to adjust our immigration status but it did not work out, and we became undocumented. When I find out my immigration status, it was definitely depressing because of all of the limitations that I have to go through. I thought that I cannot go to college. All those limitations made me became a different person. At the same time, I think that a lot of nonprofit organizations help me out in terms of how to go to college and educate me about AB540 the Dream Act. There are many different legislations that could help me with a pathway to citizenship. The more I learn about immigration issues, I believe that President Obama and his administration is not doing his job and their job to support our community.

AMY GOODMAN: In September, President Obama ruled out halting the deportation of undocumented immigrant parents of children who were granted a reprieve last year like you, Ju Hong. Under the deferred action program, the White House has suspended the deportations of young immigrants who are brought to the U.S. at an early age and have lived without legal status. But, speaking to Telemundo, Obama said it would be too extreme a measure to grant the same relief to their parents.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: What we can do is then carve out the Dream Act folks, saying young people who have basically grown up here are Americans that we should welcome. We are not going to have them operate under a cloud, under a shadow. But if we start broadening that, then essentially, I would be ignoring the law in a way that I think would be very difficult to defend legally. So, that is not an option.

AMY GOODMAN: That is President Obama. Ju Hong, if you could quickly respond to that, and then we want to ask about your protest that you were arrested for the summer.

JU HONG: Just quickly before I directly answer your question, I just want to mention that because of courageous undocumented immigrant youth throughout the country who spoke out and shared their stories and held rallies and events but even conducting civil disobedience actions and hunger strike, that is why President Obama introduced DACA program which allows certain undocumented students to halt deportations for at least two years and get a work permit, work authorization. And to directly answer your question—

AMY GOODMAN: Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.

JU HONG: That’s correct. I think that he is just using political talking points to not supporting undocumented immigrant family members. The fact of the matter is, DACA recipients have family members who are getting deported and they’re getting separated every single day. So, what he needs to do right now is to expand DACA for all 11.5 million undocumented immigrant people. That is the only way to reunite with the families, and that is the right way to solve our broken immigration system as we continue to pressure Congress to pass a fair and just immigration reform.

JUAN GONZÃ�LEZ: Ju Hong, I wanted to ask you, this is not your first protest that you have been involved in over immigration. Former Department of Homeland Secretary, Janet Napolitano, was recently confirmed as head of the University of California system. Last month following criticism for policies on immigration, she vowed to authorized 5 million dollars in university funds to help undocumented students who cannot get federal financial aid. You were one of six people who were arrested at the University of California Regents meeting as they confirmed Janet Napolitano in July. You were wearing that same blue T-shirt that says "I am undocumented." Why did you choose to take direct action against Janet Napolitano’s nomination or confirmation?

JU HONG: Well, Janet Napolitano does not fit into the president of the UC system because of terrible record of what she has done to our community. Because under her leadership, she deported 1.8 million undocumented immigrant family members across the country. She is proud of the fact that what she has done. She said in the public she supports the Dream Act, but in closed doors she deport people left and right. I think the UC undocumented students are genuinely scared of Janet Napolitano as the next president of the UC system and she doesn’t have any leading position in the education. I think that—she has tried to, recently provided $5 million aid to undocumented immigrants, but I think that is just political will for her to ease out the protesters and try to make her image as a positive figure. But, the fact of the matter is, the $5 million not substitute of how much pain that she caused for our community. She will never substitute the pain and suffering and fear that every single undocumented immigrant face that she has caused in our community. If she really care about immigrant communities, I think she should first publicly apologized to our community, and second, I think she should bring back undocumented immigrant people that she deported, and third, she should respectfully resign as the next president of UC system.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Ju Hong, I thank you for being with us and we will continue to, of course, follow the immigration issue. This is Democracy Now! When we come back, though, we are going talk about Pope Francis and his message to the world. Stay with us.

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Police Worldwide Criminalize Dissent, Assert New Powers in Crackdown on Protests

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"Undocumented and Unafraid": 30 Immigrants Detained Crossing Into U.S. at Border Protest

Earlier this week, more than 30 undocumented youth who lived in the United States as children, as well as three of their parents, were held by authorities after they attempted to re-enter the United States from Mexico at the crossing in Laredo, Texas. It is the second time in three months that undocumented immigrants have attempted to re-enter the United States through an official point of entry in an act of protest. On Monday, the activists marched across a bridge connecting Mexico to the United States wearing graduation caps and gowns, chanting "Undocumented and unafraid." We speak to two of the people released, Javier Cortés and his father, Javier Calderón, who are from Michoacán, Mexico. Cortés has lived in the United States since his family came here when he was three years old. They left the United States to visit an ailing family member in Mexico, knowing re-entering the country would be difficult.

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Decoding Obamacare: A Guide to New Healthcare Marketplaces Designed to Help 48 Million Uninsured

The following content originally appeared on DemocracyNow!: 

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Protest or Piracy? Greenpeace Activists Remain Jailed in Russia After Boarding Arctic Oil Rig

Thirty Greenpeace activists remain jailed in Russia facing possible piracy charges after they attempted to board Russia’s first Arctic offshore oil rig. Many of the activists are appearing in a Russian court today, facing up to 15 years in prison if Russian prosecutors bring threatened piracy charges. We’re joined by Greenpeace Executive Director Kumi Naidoo, who took part in a similar action against oil drilling in the Arctic last year. "This is a disportionate use of state authority to try to silence of every important global conversation that needs to be had," Naidoo says. "We are reaching the tipping point on climate. The Arctic serves as a refrigerator and an air conditioner of the planet. And rather than treating the warming sea ice during the summer months as a warning sign that we need to get serious about climate change, sadly Western oil companies like Exxon, Shell and so on are partnering with Russian-owned companies to go and try to drill for the last drops of oil in this most fragile, remote and risky environment."

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New York City Poised to Elect Its Most Progressive Government in 50 Years

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Glenn Greenwald: Growing Backlash Against NSA Spying Shows Why U.S. Wants to Silence Edward Snowden

The following is a transcript of a Democracy Now! segment. 

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Did U.S. Gov’t Lie about TWA Flight 800 Crash? Ex-Investigators Seek Probe as New Evidence Emerges

Seventeen years ago, TWA Flight 800 crashed off Long Island, killing all 230 people aboard. The official government investigation blamed mechanical failure, but now a group of former investigators are petitioning the National Transportation Safety Board to reopen the probe, saying the original report was falsified. Was the plane accidentally shot down by the U.S. Navy conducting a nearby exercise, or was it a terrorist attack? We speak to the filmmakers behind a new documentary on the crash, "TWA Flight 800," former CBS News producer Kristina Borjesson and Tom Stalcup, a physicist and co-founder of Flight 800 Independent Researchers Organization. 

JUAN GONZÃ�LEZ: We begin with a look at shocking new claims about an airplane crash that happened 17 years ago. More than 200 people were killed when TWAFlight 800 burst into flames just minutes after taking off from New York on July 17th, 1996. The cause of that explosion has been in dispute ever since. Government investigators say it was most likely triggered by a failure in the plane’s electrical system. But many witnesses say they saw a streak a light move toward the plane before the explosion.

Now, six investigators who participated in the original probe of the crash have come forward to request that the case be reopened. They have petitioned the National Transportation Safety Board to reactivate its investigation. Their stories are featured in a new film directed by Kristina Borjesson, a former CBS News producer. 

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

JUAN GONZÃ�LEZ: We continue our coverage over shocking new claims about the crash of TWA Flight 800 that killed 230 people on July 17th, 1996. The plane burst into flames off the coast of New York just minutes after takeoff. A government investigation concluded the cause of the explosion was a mechanical failure. But on Wednesday, a group of investigators who participated in that probe submitted a petition to the National Transportation Safety Board asking them to reopen the case.

The investigators say they have, quote, "reviewed the FAA radar evidence along with new evidence not available to the NTSB during the official investigation and [they] contend that the NTSB’s probable cause determination is erroneous and should be reconsidered." Among those who have come forward is former senior NTSB accident investigator Hank Hughes. He is featured in a new film called TWA Flight 800 that premieres on the premium TV channel EPIX next month.

HANK HUGHES: My report, which was 496 pages in length, or thereabouts, with photographic supplement, was cut and amended without my knowledge. When I did find out about it, I complained. Nothing was done. We were required to provide a factual report, but ordered not to write an analysis.

KRISTINA BORJESSON: What? Could you say that again?

HANK HUGHES: We were directed to write a factual report, but not an analysis.

KRISTINA BORJESSON: What would your analysis have been?

HANK HUGHES: The primary—primary conclusion was the explosive forces came from outside the airplane, not the center fuel tank.

TOM STALCUP: Would that statement have been in your analysis?

HANK HUGHES: If I got the right one.

AMY GOODMAN: That was former NTSB senior accident investigator Hank Hughes from the new documentary, TWA Flight 800, which premieres on EPIX July 17th, exactly 17 years after the crash.

For more, we’re joined here in New York by the film’s director, investigative reporter and former CBS producer Kristina Borjesson. And we’re also joined by Tom Stalcup, the film’s co-producer. He’s also a physicist and co-founder of Flight 800 Independent Researchers Organization.

We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Tom just made it over here from The Today Show, where he was interviewed. Kristina Borjesson, it has been a long haul for you—

KRISTINA BORJESSON: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: —from investigating this for CBS News, where you were ultimately forced out as you tried this investigation. Talk about the significance of the latest information and why the investigators are petitioning to reopen this investigation.

KRISTINA BORJESSON: The significance of it is that it is the hard evidence that has been reviewed and is being presented by the government’s own former, you know, members of the official investigation. And the other thing is, is that for the first time the eyewitnesses are brought in as a credible piece of the investigation. And as you know, in any investigation, it doesn’t matter whether it’s cops or reporters or whatever, the key to those investigations are firsthand sources, evidence and eyewitnesses. And these have been brought together, and that’s why it’s significant. It’s not commentators or...

JUAN GONZÃ�LEZ: And under the NTSB’s own regulations, if there is new evidence that they did not consider previously or direct proof that their conclusion was erroneous, they have the ability to reopen the investigation. So what are the particular—the evidence that they are raising now, these investigators are raising?

KRISTINA BORJESSON: I think that Tom, as our science guy on the film, is...

JUAN GONZÃ�LEZ: Or, Tom, yes, if you could answer that?

TOM STALCUP: Sure. The most significant piece of evidence that we have analyzed, that the NTSB has not analyzed, is the initial detonation that caused the crash. This was recorded by multiple FAA radar sites. And it was consistent and corroborates the eyewitness reports. The eyewitnesses reported something going up, heading out down towards that airplane, a long distance, colliding with it in a perpendicular fashion, detonating near or at the aircraft. Now, once it detonated, it’s just a mess out there, and particles fly along that same trajectory. So you would expect, if that really did happen, you would see evidence of that. And, yes, in fact, the radar evidence—the radar sites along Long Island picked up that exact event—supersonic debris exiting the right side of the—right side of the aircraft, consistent with the trajectory of that object.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to a clip from your new film, TWA Flight 800, featuring Jim Speer, former accident investigator for the Air Line Pilots Association, talking about how he took a piece of the airplane and brought it to the FBI field lab for testing.

JIM SPEER: I knocked on the door and said, "I hear you have a machine to test for nitrates in here." And they said, "Yes, we do." And I said, "Can you show me how it works?" And they said, "Sure. We’ll run a test sample for you." And I said, "Well, how about you running my test sample? Swab this piece, and check that for me." And so they did. And, sure enough, it tested positive, which I was sure it would do—positive for residue of high explosions. So, they picked up the phone and called somebody. In 90 seconds, three FBI agents ran in the room in their coats and ties and physically pushed me aside and wouldn’t let me hear the conversation. Then they turned to me and said, "The machine has frequent false positives."

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Jim Speer, former accident investigator for Air Line Pilots Association. Tom Stalcup?

TOM STALCUP: Sure. And what we found throughout this documentary, by interviewing the FBI chemists who were aware of that—that EGIS machine that had those explosive detections, they do not have frequent false positives. The positive detection that Jim Speer found within a week of the crash was a confirmed explosive hit on the right wing. That made The New York Times, but quickly disappeared from the government’s investigation—actually physically disappeared, as well.

JUAN GONZÃ�LEZ: And, of course, the final conclusion of the NTSB was their belief that the cause was an electrical spark that ended up causing an explosion of the fuel tank in the plane?

TOM STALCUP: That’s correct. They believe that it was an actual spark. But again, it’s very important to understand, that’s a low-velocity explosion. They said it was a subsonic deflagration. It’s not even an explosion; it’s more of an eruption. It just kind of went forward. So it was a forward-moving, low-speed eruption. What we have is a sideways-moving, high-speed detonation four times the speed of sound.

AMY GOODMAN: Let’s got to one of the eyewitnesses from your film, from TWAFlight 800, featuring some of the eyewitnesses who say they saw the plane explode.

EYEWITNESS 1: Go outside, turn to the left.

EYEWITNESS 2: Just happened to look up in the sky.

EYEWITNESS 1: And I see something that’s going across, right in my line of sight.

EYEWITNESS 3: I actually see something behind a tree line, more or less like my thumb, go up in the air.

EYEWITNESS 4: I saw what appeared to be cheap fireworks.

EYEWITNESS 5: I noticed a streak of light heading up towards the sky.

EYEWITNESS 6: I saw this white light shoot up in the sky.

EYEWITNESS 7: There’s something going up in the sky.

EYEWITNESS 8: This rocket went up in the air.

EYEWITNESS 2: And I seen this white light, and I said, "Oh, someone shot off a flare."

EYEWITNESS 9: And it looked like a flare going up. And then, the very next day, the FBI came to talk to me. It was almost abusive, in a sense. They took me into the back room. They said, "Well, we heard that you saw something. Tell us what you saw." I told them what I saw, and they looked me straight in the face and said, "You did not see that. You saw nothing."

AMY GOODMAN: And other eyewitnesses talked about that kind of abuse. One of the women who we just saw said, Kristina Borjesson, when they came to her, theFBI, just to take her testimony about what she saw, they—after she said this, what did they tell her?

KRISTINA BORJESSON: They said to her, "Well, you have your papers in to become an American citizen, don’t you?" And she said, "Yes." And they said, "Well, if you want to become an American citizen, you’d best be very quiet about this." And she said, "And so, I kept quiet, and I never spoke about it."

AMY GOODMAN: The CIA later released an animated film about the explosion and investigation of TWA Flight 800.

CIA FILM: Of particular concern to FBI investigators were reports from dozens of eyewitnesses who, on the evening of July 17th, recalled seeing an object, usually described as a flare or firework, ascend and culminate in an explosion. Was it a missile? Did foreign terrorists destroy the aircraft? At the request of the FBI, CIA weapons analysts looked into this possibility.

The CIA’s conclusion? The eyewitnesses did not see a missile. Just after the aircraft exploded, it pitched up abruptly and climbed several thousand feet, from 13,800 feet to about 17,000 feet. Those who said they saw something ascend and culminate in an explosion probably saw the burning aircraft ascend and erupt into a fireball, not a missile. To date, there is no evidence that anyone saw a missile shoot down TWAFlight 800.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, that was a CIA film. Tom Stalcup, that film is what got you involved in this case. Where were you when you saw that?

TOM STALCUP: I was on my couch watching TV. And the FBI came on. I said, "Oh, they’re talking about this plane crash. I’ll watch." And then Jim Kallstrom announced this—this video. "Hey, watch this video." And all of a sudden the big emblem of CIA came on and struck me as a little bit odd. And they kept saying, like you saw, "Not a missile." And so I turned to my girlfriend. I said, "Must have been a missile." So, ever since then, we’ve looked into the crash, and in fact it appears that it really was.

AMY GOODMAN: But, so—

JUAN GONZÃ�LEZ: Well, and also, it’s kind of—it’s extraordinary to have the CIAdoing what is, in essence, a propaganda video on an internal domestic incident here in the United States, that they say has nothing to do with terrorism or any—or any direct attack on this plane.

TOM STALCUP: I agree. And I think it’s actually illegal to do domestic propaganda. I think they’re only allowed to do that internationally.

KRISTINA BORJESSON: Well, then—yeah, that was an interesting—

AMY GOODMAN: And it was Jim Kallstrom that presenting this video when they were closing up their investigation?

KRISTINA BORJESSON: Yeah. I mean, basically, he presented that video as a reason for the FBI backing out. But, you know, speaking of the CIA involvement, I think it’s really important to—that people know that the CIA was involved, from day two?

TOM STALCUP: Yes.

KRISTINA BORJESSON: Of the crash. From day two of the crash, the CIA was involved to handle the eyewitnesses.

JUAN GONZÃ�LEZ: And not the FBI?

KRISTINA BORJESSON: Not the—well, the FBI was going around collecting witness statements, which, by the way, it’s very interesting, because they don’t record the statements when they get them. They just write up notes, and then they write up their notes of the investigations, as opposed—the interviews, as opposed to actually recording the interviews, which is—which the NTSB does do.

AMY GOODMAN: Wouldn’t the CIA be involved if they were looking to see if it was a foreign terrorist?

KRISTINA BORJESSON: Well, yes, but as witness analysts?

AMY GOODMAN: You mean questioning the analysts.

KRISTINA BORJESSON: Yes.

TOM STALCUP: Yeah, well, let me just respond to that.

JUAN GONZÃ�LEZ: Mm-hmm.

TOM STALCUP: In the very beginning, I think they were doing the right thing. They were actually giving advice, like, "Oh, this is what a foreign terrorist missile would do." But soon thereafter, within a couple weeks, their focus changed to providing, you know, technical assistance to the FBI to explaining to the FBI what the eyewitnesses saw. And as I say, actually contrary to what the FBI investigators were determining, they actually were coming out with a report, within two weeks of the crash, saying that it was most likely a missile.

JUAN GONZÃ�LEZ: Well, let’s go to a clip of former FBI Assistant Director James Kallstrom, who led the criminal investigation into TWA Flight 800. Here he is speaking on CNN’s The Lead with Jake Tapper on Wednesday, responding to a question about the claims made by the former investigators in your film.

JAMES KALLSTROM: I think it’s preposterous, quite frankly, Jake. You know, I understand now, just from the little bit I read in the paper, that they’re retired. You know, if they felt that way back then, they could have come to me. I was—you know, I was someone desiring to get to the bottom of this thing, believe me. And I had a reputation for not—you know, not pussyfooting around. Yet, it seems like they’ve comfortably waited 'til they have their pensions before they became whistleblowers. So I think it's a bunch of bull crap. I don’t really understand that, if they felt that strongly. And I don’t—knowing the people at NTSB and the science that they brought to it, you know, for them to disregard something that was important or correct, I just don’t see that that’s possible. I have no idea why they came forward now, other than the fact maybe it’s a good time for, you know, this idea of blowing whistles and making documentaries.

JUAN GONZÃ�LEZ: Could you respond to James Kallstrom’s comments about the investigators in the film, Kristina, and also talk about the claim that they came forward because this is, quote, "a good time for the idea of blowing whistles"?

KRISTINA BORJESSON: I mean, first of all, let me just say this to—if he says that they could have come to him, these guys—Hank Hughes actually testified before a judicial committee about the problems with the FBI’s investigation. He complained—for example, Tom Thurman, who was going around pulling out pieces of—you know, pieces of debris from the seats, without any regard for trajectory, which is very important. Ricky Hahn, part of Mr. Kallstrom’s team, who was banging on pieces of debris, which is, of course, altering evidence. So, why would they want to come to Mr. Kallstrom and his team? They were deeply troubled by what they were doing. And they did try and speak out at that time. So, I mean, he’s wrong on both of those counts.

AMY GOODMAN: I mean, it’s interesting. What he might be right about, he says, what? They wanted to wait to get their pensions before they spoke out. Maybe that’s true, when you see what happens to people today, whistleblowers within agencies, that they were afraid for their livelihoods.

KRISTINA BORJESSON: I think that was only one piece of it, because if you’re trying to blow the whistle and you get smacked while you’re doing it, you’re not inclined to continue doing it, yes, until you retire.

AMY GOODMAN: Let’s go to a clip of Richard Bott of the Naval Air Warfare Center responding to the claim a missile could have caused the explosion. This is also from the film, TWA Flight 800.

RICHARD BOTT: It’s possible that several types of missiles could have been in the vicinity of TWA Flight 800 at the time of the—the mishap. But the possibility that that occurred is—is hard to imagine.

AMY GOODMAN: What about that, Tom Stalcup?

TOM STALCUP: Yes, he actually wrote a report for the NTSB called "The Missile Impact Analysis Report." And in that report, he says, "Well, there’s no evidence, except there is this hole in the left side of the plane, which seems to be—if it was anything, it was a missile coming down from above. And that just seems," like he said here, "hard to imagine." Well, that’s exactly what the eyewitnesses reported, something coming from the left.

JUAN GONZÃ�LEZ: Well, we reached out to the FBI and the NTSB, asking them to join us on this morning’s show. The FBI has not responded. The NTSB declined to join us; however, they did release a statement Wednesday saying they would review the petition asking them to reopen the investigation into the explosion. They wrote, quote, "The TWA Flight 800 investigation lasted four years and remains one of the NTSB’s most detailed investigations. Investigators took great care reviewing, documenting and analyzing facts and data and the NTSB held a five-day hearing to gather additional facts before determining the probable cause of the accident during a two-day Board meeting."

According to the NTSB’s report on the explosion, quote, "the probable cause of theTWA flight 800 accident was an explosion of the center wing fuel tank (CWT), resulting from ignition of the flammable fuel/air mixture in the tank. The source of ignition energy for the explosion could not be determined with certainty, but, of the sources evaluated by the investigation, the most likely was a short circuit outside of the [CWT] that allowed excessive voltage to enter it through electrical wiring associated with the fuel quantity indication system."

Now I want to play a clip from the film TWA Flight 800 of Rocky Miller, accident investigator for the flight attendants’ union, and Jim Speer, accident investigator for the Air Line Pilots Association, responding to that finding.

ROCKY MILLER: We never found any of that. We didn’t find any evidence in the wiring on the aircraft that would have indicated that a spark occurred inside the center wing tank that would blow it up.

KRISTINA BORJESSON: Did anybody in the investigation find this wiring?

ROCKY MILLER: Not to my knowledge, no.

JIM SPEER: The only wiring in the center fuel tank is to the fuel quantity gauge, and that’s a fine wire meant for milliamps is. The main power on the airplane is 115 volts AC, It would have taken 1,200 volts to arc the fuel quantity probe, and there’s no 1,200-volt electricity on the airplane, outside of the engine igniters. And that’s in—it’s individual to each engine. So, the cause of the ignition of the center fuel tank had to be something other than airplane electronics.

JUAN GONZÃ�LEZ: That was Jim Speer of the Air Line Pilots Association. Your response to some of the NTSB’s claims, as well as their rebuttal?

TOM STALCUP: Yes, well, you know, the center wing tank vapors could have exploded, but this isn’t news. I mean, Boeing knew this. They actually design their tanks to always assume that they have explosive vapors in those tanks. What they do is they design it so there’s no way high voltage can get into these tanks. The wires that go to those lines that he was talking about, those low-voltage lines, are protected by a nylon sheet that’s impregnated with varnish. To have any kind of chafe cutting through that nylon and then getting that short circuit, I just can’t see how that’s possible. And, actually, the NTSB, sorry, has never duplicated that spark from airplane electronics.

AMY GOODMAN: And this issue of the naval exercise that was taking place, Kristina?

KRISTINA BORJESSON: Well, I mean, that’s part—we put that in the circumstantial evidence pile. And we don’t discuss it, because it isn’t hard evidence. It isn’t firsthand source. And unless an—and that’s why we are submitting this petition, because it is something that should be examined further. But, you know, we’re—

AMY GOODMAN: What was going on at the time?

KRISTINA BORJESSON: There was a military exercise going on at the time in the area, and they had activated some warning areas, some warning areas there. And there were all kinds of vessels out there. But, again, we don’t—we don’t go there, because there is no—we don’t have—we don’t have any hard evidence.

AMY GOODMAN: So why call to reopen this?

KRISTINA BORJESSON: Because it needs to be looked at, because the actual cause of the crash is an ordnance explosion outside the airplane. So, obviously, that’s not a center wing fuel tank explosion.

JUAN GONZÃ�LEZ: But there is a—you do have factual evidence of the role that the Navy played in the original investigation, don’t you, in terms of what you found out about their role?

KRISTINA BORJESSON: Well, I mean, they were—they were a huge part of the recovery. They recovered the wreckage. It was very interesting that Navy divers went and dove by themselves for a few days before they allowed the NTSB divers—theNYPD divers to go in. The CBS’s law enforcement consultant, Paul Ragonese, who was friendly with those guys, they told him that. So, there were some odd things going on from the very beginning.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, this film is going to air, your film, Kristina Borjesson and Tom Stalcup, on July 17th, 17 years after the explosion of TWA Flight 800. And that’s the name of the film, TWA Flight 800. It will air on EPIX on July 17th. That does it for this segment. We’ll continue to follow this story. Stay with us.

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NSA Whistleblowers: "All U.S. Citizens" Are Targeted by Surveillance Program, Not Just Verizon Customers

The following is a transcript of a Democracy Now! segment.

AMY GOODMAN: According to legal analysts, the Obama administration relied on a controversial provision in the USAPATRIOT Act, Section 215, that authorizes the government to seek secret court orders for the production of, quote, "any tangible thing relevant to a foreign intelligence or terrorism investigation." The disclosure comes just weeks after news broke that the Obama administration had been spying on journalists from the Associated Press and James Rosen, a reporter from Fox News.

We’re now joined by two former employees of the National Security Agency, Thomas Drake and William Binney. In 2010, the Obama administration charged Drake with violating the Espionage Act after he was accused of leaking classified information to the press about waste and mismanagement at the agency. The charges were later dropped. William Binney worked for almost 40 years at the NSA. He resigned shortly after the September 11th attacks over his concern over the increasing surveillance of Americans. We’re also joined in studio here by Shayana Kadidal, senior managing attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights.

First, for your legal opinion, Shayana, can you talk about the significance of what has just been revealed?

SHAYANA KADIDAL: Sure. So I think, you know, we have had stories, including one in USA Todayin May 2006, that have said that the government is collecting basically all the phone records from a number of large telephone companies. What’s significant about yesterday’s disclosure is that it’s the first time that we’ve seen the order, to really appreciate the sort of staggeringly broad scope of what one of the judges on this Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court approved of, and the first time that we can now confirm that this was under Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act, which, you know, has been dubbed the libraries provision, because people were mostly worried about the idea that the government would use it to get library records. Now we know that they’re using it to get phone records. And just to see the immense scope of this warrant order, you know, when most warrants are very narrow, is really shocking as a lawyer.

JUAN GONZÃ�LEZ: Well, some might argue that the Obama administration at least went to the FISA court to get approval for this, unlike the Bush administration in the past.

SHAYANA KADIDAL: Right. Well, we don’t know if the Bush administration was, you know, getting these same orders and if this is just a continuation, a renewal order. It lasted for only—it’s supposed to last for only three months, but they may have been getting one every three months since 2006 or even earlier. You know, when Congress reapproved this authority in 2011, you know, one of the things Congress thought was, well, at least they’ll have to present these things to a judge and get some judicial review, and Congress will get some reporting of the total number of orders. But when one order covers every single phone record for a massive phone company like Verizon, the reporting that gets to Congress is going to be very hollow. And then, similarly, you know, when the judges on the FISA court are handpicked by the chief justice, and the government can go to a judge, as they did here, in North Florida, who was appointed by Ronald Reagan, who’s 73 years old and is known as a draconian kind of hanging judge in his sentencing, and get some order that’s this broad, I think both the judicial review and the congressional oversight checks are very weak.

AMY GOODMAN: And, of course, this is just Verizon, because that’s what Glenn Greenwald of The Guardian got a hold of. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t other orders for the other telephone companies, right?

SHAYANA KADIDAL: Absolutely.

AMY GOODMAN: Like BellSouth, like AT&T, etc.

SHAYANA KADIDAL: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: As there have been in the past.

SHAYANA KADIDAL: Yeah, those were—those were companies mentioned in that USA Todaystory in 2006. Nothing about the breadth of this order indicates that it’s tied to any particular national security investigation, as the statute says it has to be. So, some commentators yesterday said, "Well, this order came out on—you know, it’s dated 10 days after the Boston attacks." But it’s forward-looking. It goes forward for three months. Why would anyone need to get every record from Verizon Business in order to investigate the Boston bombings after they happened?

JUAN GONZÃ�LEZ: And, William Binney, a decades-long veteran of the NSA, your reaction when you heard about this news?

WILLIAM BINNEY: Well, this was just the FBI going after data. That was their request. And they’re doing that because they—if they want to try to get it—they have to have it approved by a court in order to get it as evidence into a courtroom. But NSA has been doing all this stuff all along, and it’s been all the companies, not just one. And I basically looked at that and said, well, if Verizon got one, so did everybody else, which means that, you know, they’re just continuing the collection of this kind of information on all U.S. citizens. That’s one of the main reasons they couldn’t tell Senator Wyden, with his request of how many U.S. citizens are in the NSA databases. There’s just—in my estimate, it was—if you collapse it down to all uniques, it’s a little over 280 million U.S. citizens are in there, each in there several hundred to several thousand times.

AMY GOODMAN: In fact, let’s go to Senator Wyden. A secret court order to obtain the Verizon phone records was sought by the FBI under a section of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that was expanded by the PATRIOT Act. In 2011, Democratic Senator Ron Wyden warned about how the government was interpreting its surveillance powers under Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act.

SEN. RON WYDEN: When the American people find out how their government has secretly interpreted the PATRIOT Act, they are going to be stunned, and they are going to be angry. And they’re going asked senators, "Did you know what this law actually permits? Why didn’t you know before you voted on it?" The fact is, anyone can read the plain text of the PATRIOT Act, and yet many members of Congress have no idea how the law is being secretly interpreted by the executive branch, because that interpretation is classified. It’s almost as if there were two PATRIOT Acts, and many members of Congress have not read the one that matters. Our constituents, of course, are totally in the dark. Members of the public have no access to the secret legal interpretations, so they have no idea what their government believes the law actually means.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Senator Ron Wyden. He and Senator Udall have been raising concerns because they sit on the Senate Intelligence Committee but cannot speak out openly exactly about what they know. William Binney, you left the agency after September 2001, deeply concerned—this is after you’d been there for 40 years—about the amount of surveillance of U.S. citizens. In the end, your house was raided. You were in the shower. You’re a diabetic amputee. The authorities had a gun at your head. Which agency had the gun at your head, by the way?

WILLIAM BINNEY: That was the FBI.

AMY GOODMAN: You were not charged, though you were terrorized. Can you link that to what we’re seeing today?

WILLIAM BINNEY: Well, it’s directly linked, because it has to do with all of the surveillance of the U.S. citizens that’s been going on since 9/11. I mean, that’s—they were getting—from just one company alone, that I knew of, they were getting over 300 million call records a day on U.S. citizens. So, I mean, and when you add the rest of the companies in, my estimate was that there were probably three billion phone records collected every day on U.S. citizens. So, over time, that’s a little over 12 trillion in their databases since 9/11. And that’s just phones; that doesn’t count the emails. And they’re avoiding talking about emails there, because that’s also collecting content of what people are saying. And that’s in the databases that NSA has and that the FBI taps into. It also tells you how closely they’re related. When the FBI asks for data and the court approves it, the data is sent to NSA, because they’ve got all the algorithms to do the diagnostics and community reconstructions and things like that, so that the FBI can—makes it easier for the FBI to interpret what’s in there.

JUAN GONZÃ�LEZ: We’re also joined by Thomas Drake, who was prosecuted by the Obama administration after he blew the whistle on mismanagement and waste and constitutional violations at the NSA. Thomas Drake, your reaction to this latest revelation?

THOMAS DRAKE: My reaction? Where has the mainstream media been? This is routine. These are routine orders. This is nothing new. What’s new is we’re actually seeing an actual order. And people are somehow surprised by it. The fact remains that this program has been in place for quite some time. It was actually started shortly after 9/11. The PATRIOT Act was the enabling mechanism that allowed the United States government in secret to acquire subscriber records of—from any company that exists in the United States.

I think what people are now realizing is that this isn’t just a terrorist issue. This is simply the ability of the government in secret, on a vast scale, to collect any and all phone call records, including domestic to domestic, local, as well as location information. We might—there’s no need now to call this the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Let’s just call it the surveillance court. It’s no longer about foreign intelligence. It’s simply about harvesting millions and millions and millions of phone call records and beyond. And this is only just Verizon. As large as Verizon is, with upwards of 100 million subscribers, what about all the other telecoms? What about all the other Internet service providers? It’s become institutionalized in this country, in the greatest of secrecy, for the government to classify, conceal not only the facts of the surveillance, but also the secret laws that are supporting surveillance.

AMY GOODMAN: Thomas Drake, what can they do with this information, what’s called metadata? I mean, they don’t have the content of the conversation, supposedly—or maybe we just don’t see that, that’s under another request, because, remember, we are just seeing this one, for people who are listening and watching right now, this one request that is specifically to—and I also want to ask you: It’s Verizon Business Services; does that have any significance? But what does it mean to have the length of time and not the names of, but where the call originates and where it is going, the phone numbers back and forth?

THOMAS DRAKE: You get incredible amounts of information about subscribers. It’s basically the ability to forward-profile, as well as look backwards, all activities associated with those phone numbers, and not only just the phone numbers and who you called and who called you, but also the community of interests beyond that, who they were calling. I mean, we’re talking about a phenomenal set of records that is continually being added to, aggregated, year after year and year, on what have now become routine orders. Now, you add the location information, that’s a tracking mechanism, monitoring tracking of all phone calls that are being made by individuals. I mean, this is an extraordinary breach. I’ve said this for years. Our representing attorney, Jesselyn Radack from the Government Accountability Project, we’ve been saying this for years and no—from the wilderness. We’ve had—you’ve been on—you know, you’ve had us on your show in the past, but it’s like, hey, everybody kind of went to sleep, you know, while the government is harvesting all these records on a routine basis.

You’ve got to remember, none of this is probable cause. This is simply the ability to collect. And as I was told shortly after 9/11, "You don’t understand, Mr. Drake. We just want the data." And so, the secret surveillance regime really has a hoarding complex, and they can’t get enough of it. And so, here we’re faced with the reality that a government in secret, in abject violation of the Fourth Amendment, under the cover of enabling act legislation for the past 12 years, is routinely analyzing what is supposed to be private information. But, hey, it doesn’t matter anymore, right? Because we can get to it. We have secret agreements with the telecoms and Internet service providers and beyond. And we can do with the data anything we want.

So, you know, I sit here—I sit here as an American, as I did shortly after 9/11, and it’s all déjà vu for me. And then I was targeted—it’s important to note, I—not just for massive fraud, waste and abuse; I was specifically targeted as the source for The New York Times article that came out in December of 2005. They actually thought that I was the secret source regarding the secret surveillance program. Ultimately, I was charged under the Espionage Act. So that should tell you something. Sends an extraordinarily chilling message. It is probably the deepest, darkest secret of both administrations, greatly expanded under the Obama administration. It’s now routine practice.

JUAN GONZÃ�LEZ: Shayana, I’d like to ask you, specifically that issue of the FISA court also authorizing domestic surveillance. I mean, is there—even with the little laws that we have left, is there any chance for that to be challenged, that the FISA court is now also authorizing domestic records being surveiled?

AMY GOODMAN: FISA being Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

SHAYANA KADIDAL: Right. I mean, you know, two things about that. First, the statute says that there have to be reasonable grounds to think that this information is relevant to an investigation of either foreign terrorist activity or something to do with a foreign power. So, you know, obviously, this perhaps very compliant judge approved this order, but it doesn’t seem like this is what Congress intended these orders would look like. Seems like, on the statute, that Congress intended they would be somewhat narrower than this, right?

But there’s a larger question, which is that, for years, the Supreme Court, since 1979, has said, "We don’t have the same level of protection over, you know, the calling records—the numbers that we dial and how long those calls are and when they happen—as we do over the contents of a phone call, where the government needs a warrant." So everyone assumes the government needs a warrant to get at your phone records and maybe at your emails, but it’s not true. They just basically need a subpoena under existing doctrine. And so, the government uses these kind of subpoenas to get your email records, your web surfing records, you know, cloud—documents in cloud storage, banking records, credit records. For all these things, they can get these extraordinarily broad subpoenas that don’t even need to go through a court.

AMY GOODMAN: Shayana, talk about the significance of President Obama nominating James Comey to be the head of the FBI—

SHAYANA KADIDAL: One of the—

AMY GOODMAN: —and who he was.

SHAYANA KADIDAL: Right. One of the grand ironies is that Obama has nominated a Republican who served in the Bush administration for a long time, a guy with a reputation as being kind of personally incorruptable. I think, in part, he nominated him to be the head of the FBI, the person who would, you know, be responsible for seeking and renewing these kind of orders in the future, for the next 10 years—he named Comey, a Republican, because he wanted to, I think, distract from the phone record scandal, the fact that Holder’s Justice Department has gone after the phone records of the Associated Press and of Fox News reporter James Rosen, right?

And you asked, what can you tell from these numbers? Well, if you see the reporter called, you know, five or six of his favorite sources and then wrote a particular report that divulged some embarrassing government secret, that’s—you know, that’s just as good as hearing what the reporter was saying over the phone line. And so, we had this huge, you know, scandal over the fact that the government went after the phone records of AP, when now we know they’re going after everyone’s phone records, you know. And I think one of the grand ironies is that, you know, he named Comey because he had this reputation as being kind of a stand-up guy, who stood up to Bush in John Ashcroft’s hospital room in 2004 and famously said, "We have to cut back on what the NSA is doing." But what the NSA was doing was probably much broader than what The New York Timesfinally divulged in that story in December ’05.

AMY GOODMAN: Very quickly, will Glenn Greenwald now be investigated, of The Guardian, who got the copy of this, so that they can find his leak, not to mention possibly prosecute him?

SHAYANA KADIDAL: Oh, I think absolutely there will be some sort of effort to go after him punitively. The government rarely tries to prosecute people who are recognized as journalists. And so, Julian Assange maybe is someone they try to portray as not a journalist. Glenn Greenwald, I think, would be harder to do. But there are ways of going after them punitively that don’t involve prosecution, like going after their phone records so their sources dry up.

AMY GOODMAN: I saw an astounding comment by Pete Williams, who used to be the Pentagon spokesperson, who’s now with NBC, this morning, talking—he had talked with Attorney General Eric Holder, who had said, when he goes after the reporters—you know, the AP reporters, the Fox reporter—they’re not so much going after them; not to worry, they’re going after the whistleblowers. They’re trying to get, through them, the people. What about that, that separation of these two?

SHAYANA KADIDAL: Right. I’ll give you an example from the AP. They had a reporter named, I believe, John Solomon. In 2000, he reported a story about the botched investigation into Robert Torricelli. The FBI didn’t like the fact that they had written this—he had written this story about how they dropped the ball on that, so they went after his phone records. And three years later, he talked to some of his sources who had not talked to him since then, and they said, "We’re not going to talk to you, because we know they’re getting your phone records."

AMY GOODMAN: We want to thank you all for being with us. Shayana Kadidal of the Center for Constitutional Rights. William Binney and Thomas Drake both worked for the National Security Agency for years, and both ultimately resigned. Thomas Drake was prosecuted. They were trying to get him under the Espionage Act. All of those charges were dropped. William Binney held at gunpoint by the FBI in his shower, never prosecuted. Both had expressed deep concern about the surveillance of American citizens by the U.S. government. You can go to our website at democracynow.org for our hours of interviews with them, as well.

This is Democracy Now! When we come back, we’re going to be looking at top-secret trade deals the U.S. is involved with, and then we’ll be interviewing the new mayor of Jackson, Mississippi. Stay with us.

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Prosecutors Seek 75-Year Sentence for U.S.-Backed Guatemalan Dictator Ríos Montt in Genocide Trial

Closing arguments have begun in the historic trial against U.S.-backed Guatemalan dictator Efraín Ríos Montt, the first head of state in the Americas to stand trial for genocide. Ríos Montt is charged with overseeing the slaughter of more than 1,700 people in Guatemala’s Ixil region after he seized power in 1982. The trial has been revived after it was suspended due to intervention by Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina and death threats by army associates against judges and prosecutors. On Wednesday, prosecutors asked for Ríos Montt to be sentenced to 75 years in prison. Defense lawyers are expected to give closing arguments today. We’re joined by investigative journalist Allan Nairn in Guatemala City. In the 1980s, Nairn extensively documented broad army responsibility for the massacres.

AMY GOODMAN: We go from Chicago to Guatemala. Juan?

JUAN GONZÃ�LEZ: Well, we end today’s show with an update on the historic trial against U.S.-backed Guatemalan—former Guatemalan dictator Efraín Ríos Montt. He is the first head of state in the Americas to stand trial for genocide. The trial had been suspended but has since been revived. Ríos Montt is charged with overseeing the slaughter of more than 1,700 people in Guatemala’s Ixil region after he seized power in 1982. On Wednesday, prosecutors asked for Ríos Montt to be sentenced to 75 years in prison. Ríos Montt’s defense team is expected to give closing arguments today.

AMY GOODMAN: During the trial, Guatemala’s current president, Otto Pérez Molina, was also directly accused of ordering executions during Guatemala’s decades-long campaign against the Maya indigenous people. A former military mechanic named Hugo Reyes told the court President Pérez Molina, then serving as an army major and using the name Tito Arias, ordered soldiers to burn and pillage a Maya Ixil area in the 1980s.

We’re going now to Guatemala City to Allan Nairn, investigative journalist. In the 1980s, Allan Nairn extensively documented broad army responsibility for the massacres and was prepared to present evidence at the trial, though he didn’t ultimately testify.

Allan, welcome back to Democracy Now! Tell us what’s happening today. You expect a verdict and a sentence?

ALLAN NAIRN: It’s possible. The trial—the trial was killed, essentially, after intervention by Guatemala’s president on April 18th, but now it apparently is on the verge of being revived. There was a fierce backlash against the efforts by the president, General Pérez Molina, to stop the trial, resistance from within Guatemala, also internationally. And yesterday afternoon, the trial got back to business. They began closing statements. The prosecutors presented their request for a 75-year sentence Ríos Montt and also that he be taken from house arrest and placed in jail to prevent him from fleeing the country after the verdict.

It’s possible a verdict could come today, but it’s also possible that it could be—the trial could be shut down at the last minute. There have been repeated death threats against judges and prosecutors. Yesterday, Ríos Montt’s lawyer, in open court, threatened to have the judges thrown in jail. A higher court could be used politically to kill the case at the last moment. So it’s really hanging in the balance. The case could be finished off today, or it could be allowed to reach a verdict.

JUAN GONZÃ�LEZ: And, Allan, the significance of this case? Is Ríos Montt the first former head of state tried within his own country for genocide?

ALLAN NAIRN: Yes, and this is being done within the domestic court system. It’s been a tremendous political struggle. It’s been led by the survivors of the massacres. They’ve been fighting for this for decades. And they’re on the brink of getting a verdict, of actually enforcing the murder laws.

But there are many people in the Guatemalan oligarchy, in the military, who don’t like it. They see this trial as a threat to their way of life, as a threat to their ability to continue to carry on local assassinations, which still happen in the Guatemalan countryside. In fact, as we speak, the president, General Pérez Molina, has imposed a state of siege in four municipalities to try to put down popular resistance against Canadian-U.S. silver mining projects.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you expect this verdict and sentence to actually happen today, and do you think it’s possible, 75 years?

ALLAN NAIRN: It could, if the trial is allowed to proceed without interference. It could—it could be put off until tomorrow. You can’t really predict what the verdict will be, but the prosecution has presented a very powerful, well-documented case, with the testimony of dozens upon dozens of massacre survivors, thousands of pages of documents. And Ríos Montt’s defense has not really put up a factual defense. Ríos Montt has refused to speak. They’ve just used politics, outside intervention, to try to kill the case.

AMY GOODMAN: We want to thank you, Allan, for being with us. Allan Nairn, investigative journalist. If the verdict does come down, we’ll be going to Guatemala City tomorrow to cover the story. He was asked to testify in Guatemala in the landmark trial against the former U.S.-backed dictator, Efraín Ríos Montt, on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity, though he ultimately didn’t testify. The trial could end today with a verdict and sentence. Go to our website at democracynow.org for the latest.

Before we go to credits, Juan, you will be going to Philadelphia tomorrow.

JUAN GONZÃ�LEZ: Yes, for the—tomorrow night is the opening of the last showing, premiering of the Harvest of Empire film, and it will be at the Riverview Plaza Stadium 17 theaters. And I’ll be speaking after the 7:25 showing.

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Robert Greenwald Exposes the War on Whistleblowers and the Rise of Our National Security State

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org,The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

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There Is a Battle Raging Over What America Will Look Like in 21st Century

As tens of thousands rallied on Capitol Hill for humane reform Wednesday, more details emerged on the bipartisan immigration plan being drafted in the Senate. The deal will reportedly require greatly increased surveillance and policing near the U.S.-Mexico border. According to The Wall Street Journal, U.S. immigration officials would have to certify complete monitoring of the southern U.S. border and a 90 percent success rate in blocking unlawful entry in certain areas. Only then could the nation’s estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants apply for permanent residency. The process is expected to take at least 10 years. Juan González, Democracy Now! co-host and New York Daily News columnist, calls the looming congressional debate on immigration "a battle over what will America look like in the 21st century."

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Survivor Zerlina Maxwell Defies Racist Death Threats After Speaking Out on Fox News

Over the past week, political analyst Zerlina Maxwell has received racially fueled death threats for speaking out against rape. Maxwell, who is a rape survivor, appeared on a Fox News segment with Sean Hannity last week about the possibility of arming women to prevent rape. She said the responsibility should lie instead with men. In response to her remarks, Maxwell received a torrent of abuse on social media with commenters saying she deserved to be gang-raped and killed. Zerlina Maxwell joined Democracy Now! to discuss her ordeal and her refusal to be silent in the face of the threats against her.

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The New Pope's Disturbing Past -- Revealing Francis's Ties to Abduction of Priests

JUAN GONZÃ�LEZ: For more on the new pope, we turn now to one of Argentina’s leading investigative journalists, Horacio Verbitsky, who has written extensively about the career of Cardinal Bergoglio and his actions during the military dictatorship that ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983. During that time, up to 30,000 people were kidnapped and killed. A 2005 lawsuit accused Jorge Bergoglio of being connected to the 1976 kidnappings of two Jesuit priests, Orlando Yorio and Francisco Jalics. The lawsuit was filed after the publication of Verbitsky’s book, The Silence: From Paul VI to Bergoglio: The Secret Relations Between the Church and the ESMA. ESMA refers to the former navy school that was turned into a detention center where people were tortured by the military dictatorship. The new pope has denied the charges. He twice invoked his right under Argentine law to refuse to appear in open court to testify about the allegations. When he eventually did testify in 2010, human rights activists characterized his answers as evasive.

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Hugo Chavez, R.I.P. - Leader Broke Venezuela Out of America's Imperial Orbit, Threw Neoliberal 'Economics' in the Trash

JUAN GONZÃ�LEZ: Venezuela has announced seven days of mourning for its president, Hugo Chávez, who has died at the age of 58. Chávez died after a two-year battle with cancer that was first detected in his pelvis in June of 2011. He had suffered multiple complications following his latest operation in Cuba on December 11th and had not been seen in public since then. News of Chávez’s death was delivered Tuesday in an emotional address by Vice President Nicolás Maduro.

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Former Catholic Priest on "The Pope’s War" and Clergy's Child Molestation

JUAN GONZÃ�LEZ: As Pope Benedict formally stepped down on Thursday, speculation mounts over who will become the next pope. On Wednesday, Pope Benedict bid an emotional farewell at his last general audience, saying he understood the gravity of his decision to become the first pontiff to resign in nearly 600 years. The 85-year-old pope cited ill health as the reasons for his departure. Addressing an estimated 150,000 supporters in St. Peter’s Square, Pope Benedict said he is resigning for the good of the church.

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48 Arrested at Keystone Pipeline Protest as Sierra Club Lifts 120-Year Ban on Civil Disobedience

JUAN GONZÃ�LEZ: Forty-eight environmental activists were arrested Wednesday in front of the White House as part of an ongoing protest calling on the Obama administration to reject the Keystone XL pipeline. The proposed 1,700-mile pipeline would deliver tar sands oil from Canada to refineries in Texas. The action came before a rally planned for Sunday on Washington’s National Mall, which organizers have dubbed "the largest climate rally in history."

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Why Obama's 2nd Term Should Be All About Taking on MLK's Anti-Poverty Crusade

JUAN GONZÃ�LEZ: This Monday marks the public inauguration that will usher in President Obama’s second term, and we turn now to the call for him to put more than 50 million Americans living in poverty at the top of his agenda. The issue has garnered attention in part because Obama will take the oath of office with his hand placed on two Bibles—one owned by Abraham Lincoln and the other owned by Martin Luther King Jr., known for his civil rights and anti-poverty activism. The inauguration also comes on January 21st, the federal holiday in honor of the civil rights leader, who delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech 50 years ago at the Lincoln Memorial. Obama will face the memorial as he takes the oath. He has addressed the issue of Martin Luther King and poverty before, in 2011, when he spoke at the dedication of the Martin Luther King Monument at the National Mall.

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Matt Taibbi on Just How Screwed Americans Were By the Bailout

The following is a transcript of a Democracy Now! interview with Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi and former financial regulator William Black. 

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Matt Taibbi & Bill Black: Obama's New Treasury Secretary a 'Failure of Epic Proportions'

JUAN GONZÃ�LEZ: President Obama is facing criticism for nominating another former Wall Street executive to become treasury secretary. On Thursday, Obama tapped his own chief of staff, Jack Lew, to replace Timothy Geithner. Lew was an executive at Citigroup from 2006 to 2008 at the time of the financial crisis. He served as chief operating officer of Citigroup’s Alternative Investments unit, a group that bet on the housing market to collapse.

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The FBI vs. Occupy: Secret Docs Reveal "Counterterrorism" Monitoring of OWS from Its Earliest Days

JUAN GONZÃ�LEZ: We begin with a look at newly revealed documents that show the FBI monitored the Occupy Wall Street movement from its earliest days last year. Internal government records show Occupy was treated as a potential terrorism threat when organizing first began in August of 2011. Counterterrorism agents were used to track Occupy activities despite the internal acknowledgment that the movement opposed violent tactics. The monitoring expanded across the country as Occupy grew into a national movement, with FBI agents sharing information with businesses, local police agencies and universities. One FBImemo warned that Occupy could prove to be an "outlet" through which activists could exploit "general government dissatisfaction." Although the documents provide no clear evidence of government infiltration, they do suggest the FBI used information from local law enforcement agencies gathered by someone observing Occupy activists on the ground.

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Matt Taibbi: You Can Go to Prison for Pot, While Big Banks Get Away With Laundering Drug Cartel Cash

The banking giant HSBC has escaped indictment for laundering billions of dollars for Mexican drug cartels and groups linked to al-Qaeda. Despite evidence of wrongdoing, the U.S. Department of Justice has allowed the bank to avoid prosecution and pay a $1.9 billion fine. No top HSBC officials will face charges, either. We’re joined by Rolling Stone contributing editor Matt Taibbi, author of "Griftopia: A Story of Bankers, Politicians, and the Most Audacious Power Grab in American History." "You can do real time in jail in America for all kinds of ridiculous offenses," Taibbi says. "Here we have a bank that laundered $800 million of drug money, and they can’t find a way to put anybody in jail for that. That sends an incredible message, not just to the financial sector but to everybody. It’s an obvious, clear double standard, where one set of people gets to break the rules as much as they want and another set of people can’t break any rules at all without going to jail."

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Oliver Stone on the Untold U.S. History from the Atomic Age to Vietnam to Obama’s Drone Wars

The following is a transcript of a Democracy Now! segment on Oliver Stone's 10-part Showtime series called "Oliver Stone’s Untold History of the United States."

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Cop in Fatal Shooting of Ex-Marine Kenneth Chamberlain Was Sued in 2008 Racism Case

The following is a transcript of a Democracy Now! program revealing the identity and violent history of the officer who allegedly killed an African-American retired Marine. 

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Racially-Motivated Killing the Media Missed? NY Police Called Out on Medical Alert Shoot Dead 68 Year Old Black Veteran

JUAN GONZALEZ: As the shooting death of Trayvon Martin continues to draw national attention, today we look at another controversial shooting of an African-American male that has received far less scrutiny. On the morning of November 19th, a 68-year-old former marine named Kenneth Chamberlain with a heart condition accidentally pressed the button on his medical alert system while sleeping. Responding to the alert, police officers from the city of White Plains, New York, arrived at Chamberlain’s apartment in a public housing complex shortly after 5 a.m. By the time the police left the apartment, Kenneth Chamberlain was dead, shot twice in the chest by a police officer inside his home. Police gained entry to Chamberlain’s apartment only after they took his front door off its hinges. Officers first shot him with a taser, then a beanbag shotgun, and then with live ammunition.

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Former Senator Bob Graham Urges Obama to Reopen Investigation into Saudi Role in 9/11 Attacks

Former Florida governor and senator Bob Graham is calling on President Obama to reopen the investigation into the Sept. 11 attacks after new information has emerged about the possible role of prominent Saudis in the 9/11 plot. According to recent news reports, a wealthy young Saudi couple fled their home in a gated community in Sarasota, Florida, just a week or so before Sept. 11, 2001, leaving behind three cars and nearly all of their possessions. The FBI was tipped off about the couple but never passed the information on to the 9/11 Commission investigating the attacks, even though phone records showed the couple had ties to Mohamed Atta and at least 10 other al-Qaeda suspects. Graham joins us to discuss the news he’s called "the most important thing about 9/11 to surface in the last seven or eight years." As the former chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, a post he held on September 11, 2001, Graham chaired the Congressional Joint Inquiry into the attacks. He’s just written a novel called "Keys to the Kingdom,” which follows a fictitious former senator and co-chair of the 9/11 congressional inquiry who is murdered near his Florida home after he uncovers an international conspiracy linking the Saudi Kingdom to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. Graham says he chose to write the novel after his 2004 non-fiction book, "Intelligence Matters," was heavily censored 

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Bill Moyers Discusses Independent Media and Fighting Back Against Unbridled Corporate Greed and Power

This is an excerpt of Democracy Now!'s interview with legendary journalist Bill Moyers. You can read the entire transcript on Democracy Now!'s website.

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