New York, New York, United States - Democracy Now! Daily Digest - A Daily Independent Global News Hour with Amy Goodman & Juan González for Tuesday, March 25, 2014

New York, New York, United States - Democracy Now! Daily Digest - A Daily Independent Global News Hour with Amy Goodman & Juan González for Tuesday, March 25, 2014
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Exclusive: NSA, FBI, DIA Sued over Refusal to Disclose U.S. Role in Imprisonment of Nelson Mandela
In a Democracy Now! exclusive, one of the nation’s most prolific transparency activists, Ryan Shapiro, reveals he is suing the NSA, FBI and Defense Intelligence Agency in an attempt to force them to open their records on one of the country’s greatest secrets: how the U.S. helped apartheid South Africa capture Nelson Mandela in 1962, leading to his 27 years in prison. The U.S. has never confirmed its involvement, but details have leaked out over the years. Shapiro already has a pending suit against the CIA over its role in Mandela’s capture and to find out why it took until 2008 for the former South African president to be removed from the U.S. terrorist watch list. The NSA has already rejected one of Shapiro’s requests for its information on Mandela, citing "national defense."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to a Democracy Now! exclusive involving the National Security Agency and Nelson Mandela. Today, one of the leading transparency activists in the United States has turned his attention to one of this country’s greatest secrets. Ryan Shapiro has just filed a lawsuit this morning against the NSA, the FBI and the Defense Intelligence Agency in an attempt to force the agencies to release documents about the U.S. role in the 1962 capture and imprisonment of Nelson Mandela, the late South African president and anti-apartheid leader.
The United States has never confirmed its involvement, but details have leaked out over the years. In 1990, the Cox News Service quoted a former U.S. official saying, within hours after Mandela’s arrest, a senior CIA operative named Paul Eckel admitted the agency’s involvement. Eckel was reported as having told the official, quote, "We have turned Mandela over to the South African security branch. We gave them every detail, what he would be wearing, the time of day, just where he would be. They have picked him up. It is one of our greatest coups," unquote. Several news outlets have reported the actual source of the tip that led to the arrest of Mandela was a CIA official named Donald Rickard. Mandela was held for 27 years after he was captured.
Ryan Shapiro already has a pending suit against the CIA over its role in Mandela’s capture and to find out why it took until 2008 for Mandela to be removed from the U.S. terrorist watch list. So far, no government agency has opened its secret records on Mandela. The NSA has already rejected one of Shapiro’s requests for its information on Mandela, citing, quote, "national security."
Over the past decade, Ryan Shapiro has become a leading freedom of information activist, unearthing tens of thousands of once-secret documents. His work focuses on how the government infiltrates and monitors political movements, in particular those for animal and environmental rights. Today, he has around 700 Freedom of Information Act requests before the FBI, seeking around 350,000 documents. That tenacity has led the Justice Department to call him the "most prolific" requester there is—in one year, two per day. It has also led the FBI to dub his academic dissertation a threat to national security.
Ryan Shapiro, welcome to Democracy Now!
RYAN SHAPIRO: Thank you so much for having me. It’s a real honor.
AMY GOODMAN: So, let’s start with Nelson Mandela.
RYAN SHAPIRO: All right.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about why you have applied for this information.
RYAN SHAPIRO: Sure. So, I’m pursuing these records mostly because I’m interested in knowing why the U.S. intelligence community viewed Mandela as a threat to American security and what role the U.S. intelligence community played in thwarting Mandela’s struggle for racial justice and democracy in South Africa. As you said, I’m especially interested in records pertaining to the U.S. intelligence community’s role in Mandela’s 1962 arrest and Mandela’s placement on the U.S. terror watch list until 2008, which was years after he had won not only the Nobel Peace Prize, but the U.S. Congressional Gold Medal and U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom.
AMY GOODMAN: Not to mention, he was the president of South Africa.
RYAN SHAPIRO: Yes, yes.
AMY GOODMAN: So all through that period, he was considered a terrorist by the United States.
RYAN SHAPIRO: Yes, he was.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to journalist Andrew Cockburn, who first reported on the CIA link to Nelson Mandela’s arrest in 1986 in The New York Times. He’s now the Washington editor for Harper’s magazine. We interviewed him in December, and I asked him to talk about what he had found out in the mid-’80s. At this point, Nelson Mandela had been in prison for over 20 years.
ANDREW COCKBURN: He had been—I found out—I reported that he had been—as you mentioned, that he had been arrested, thanks to a tip from the CIA, while disguised as a chauffeur. He was actually—what I had heard at the time was he was actually on his way to meet an undercover CIA, an American diplomat who was actually a CIA official. So it made it rather easy for them to alert the South Africans where to find him.
I mentioned—I thought it was particularly interesting to report when I did in 1986, because at that point it was just when the sanctions were being introduced over—voted through by the Congress over President Reagan’s veto. So, and I had noticed that in the sanctions legislation, it said there should be no contact, official contact, with the South African military, and so on and so forth, except when intelligence required that, you know, they did have to have contact. So it was ongoing, this unholy relationship, which had led to Mandela being arrested and locked up for all those years, continued on through the ’60s, through the ’70s, through the ’80s, absolutely flourished, with the—for example, the NSA routinely handing over intercepts of the ANC to the South African secret police. ...
U.S. military intelligence cooperated very closely with South African military intelligence, giving them information about what was going on, what they were collecting in the rest of southern Africa. And, in fact, you know, the two countries—CIA and the South Africans collaborated on, you know, assisting the UNITA in the horrible civil war in Angola that went on for years and years with thousands of people dying. So, you know, this wasn’t just a flash in the pan, the tip-off that led to the coordination on the arrest of Mandela. It was absolutely a very deep, very thorough relationship that went on for decades.
AMY GOODMAN: That was journalist Andrew Cockburn. I now want to read from the letter the NSA sent to Ryan Shapiro in response to his Freedom of Information Act request for records on Nelson Mandela. The letter is dated December 31st, 2013, just a few months ago. It reads, in part, "To the extent that you are seeking intelligence information on Nelson Mandela, we have determined that the fact of the existence or non-existence of the materials you request is a currently and properly classified matter." The letter continues, quote, "the FOIA does not apply to matters that are specifically authorized under criteria established by an Executive Order to be kept secret in the interest of national defense or foreign relations," end-quote. And it cites another statute: "Title 18 U.S. Code 798." Ryan Shapiro, explain.
RYAN SHAPIRO: Well, that next code is the Espionage Act of 1917. And as you’ve discussed many times on this show, this is the same odious law under which Chelsea Manning was convicted, Edward Snowden is facing charges, and Daniel Ellsberg was prosecuted for leaking the Pentagon Papers.
AMY GOODMAN: So, how do you get around the fact that you’ve been denied? Today, as we go to air, you filed this—a new FOIA with NSA. What changed in your request?
RYAN SHAPIRO: Well, today I filed a lawsuit against the NSA, FBI, DIA and CIA due to their failure to comply with the Freedom of Information Act. They are in violation of federal law, and so I’m suing them to hold them accountable to federal law. What changed is that they failed to comply with law, and so I’m suing them to hold them accountable.
How do we get around it? That’s a very—that’s a great question and a very tough one. The NSA is a very difficult nut to crack as far as FOIA is concerned. Not only does the NSA invoke national defense here, as well as the Espionage Act, they also invoke the NSA Act of 1959, which—though the NSA Act of 1959 was passed years before the Freedom of Information Act was passed, the NSA has succeeded in convincing the courts that the NSA Act of 1959 exempts the NSA entirely from the obligations of FOIA. And so, the only times the NSA complies with the Freedom of Information Act is when it wants to, which is when the release of records will make the NSA look good, and it should therefore be unsurprising that the recent AP report found that the NSA failed to comply with the—or, denied FOIA requests 98 percent of the time last year.
AMY GOODMAN: How are they in violation of the law?
RYAN SHAPIRO: Well, my FOIA attorney, Jeffrey Light, who is a D.C.-based FOIA specialist, will be arguing in part that Exemption 3 does not apply here, that in fact the NSA is wrong in arguing that the NSA Act exempts the agency entirely from FOIA. The NSA also failed to conduct an adequate search for records responsive to my request. And, perhaps most basically, they’re not—they’re not refusing to release records; they’re saying that it would violate national security to even confirm or deny the existence of records. And whether or not the release of records might violate national security, my attorney and I intend to argue that simply confirming the existence or denying the existence of the records is—would certainly be within the bounds of the Freedom of Information Act.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to turn to President Obama. Following Nelson Mandela’s death last year, President Obama referenced Mandela’s time in jail during his speech at the memorial.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: He would endure a brutal imprisonment that began in the time of Kennedy and Khrushchev, and reached the final days of the Cold War. Emerging from prison, without the force of arms, he would, like Abraham Lincoln, hold his country together when it threatened to break apart.
AMY GOODMAN: While Obama referenced the Kennedy administration in his memorial, he made no mention of the multiple reports that the CIA, under Kennedy, tipped off the apartheid South African regime in 1962 about Mandela’s whereabouts. Now I want to go—fast-forward to 1990. Nelson Mandela had been released from jail. Four months after his release, Nelson Mandela traveled to the United States. He spoke at Yankee Stadium, where he was introduced by Harry Belafonte.
HARRY BELAFONTE: Never in the history of humankind has there ever been a voice that has more clearly caught the imagination and the spirit and fired the hope for freedom than the voice of the deputy president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela.
NELSON MANDELA: The principle of "one person, one vote" on a common and non-racial voters’ roll is therefore our central strategic objective. Throughout our lifetime, we have fought against white domination and have fought against black domination. We intend to remain true to this principle to the end of our days.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Nelson Mandela, the former president of South Africa, speaking at Yankee Stadium four months after his release from prison in South Africa. He came to the United States to thank those who had fought for his freedom. That clip is taken from Danny Schechter’s film Mandela in America. Ryan Shapiro, we’re going to move on in our next segment to talk about other cases you’re involved with, but why is this so important to you? And also, talk about the latest news we have of President Obama seeking limits for the NSA.
RYAN SHAPIRO: Why is this so important to me? I want to know why. Nelson Mandela is now almost universally hailed as a tremendous freedom fighter, this heroic figure, and yet the United States actively suppressed his movement, was very likely involved in putting him in prison for decades, and supported both covertly and openly the apartheid state until near its end. Why? And the answer has to do with this blinkered understanding of national security, this myopic understanding that places crass military alliances and corporate profits over human rights and civil liberties. And I’m interested in—I’m interested in highlighting how we as a nation need to foster a broader understanding of national security. And I think by trying to get records on why Nelson Mandela was on the U.S. terror watch list until 2008 is a good opportunity to do that.
AMY GOODMAN: And President Obama today announcing changing rules, not that those rules will affect your lawsuit?
RYAN SHAPIRO: That’s right. Those rules will not affect my lawsuit. Obama’s proposal offers some improvements, although only about one surveillance program and only limited portions thereof. But even more problematically, Obama’s proposal offers no mechanism for transparency or serious oversight. Remember that the only reason we know about this program to begin with is the Snowden revelations, and that the director of national intelligence even lied to Congress about it. And now Obama is offering or proposing a few changes and then asking us to trust the same people who have been spying on us and lying to us in the first place. And we’re still left with a secret spy agency, operating secret surveillance programs, obtaining secret permission from secret courts. There’s just no mechanism for transparency. Indeed, as I was just saying, the NSA believes it’s entirely exempt from the Freedom of Information Act. There’s just no transparency. How can we trust an agency we aren’t allowed to know anything about, especially an agency with this sort of track record?
AMY GOODMAN: Has the NSA ever been successfully sued?
RYAN SHAPIRO: I am unaware of any successful lawsuits against the NSA—any FOIA lawsuits against the NSA. I don’t know that there are none, but I am not aware of any. Very few have tried.
AMY GOODMAN: Ryan Shapiro, we’re going to continue with you after break, talk about other issues that you’ve been involved with, trying to get information from the U.S. government. Ryan Shapiro has been called a "FOIA superhero" for his skill at obtaining government records using the Freedom of Information Act. We’ll see if he will be successful in his lawsuit against the U.S. government, the NSA, the FBI, the DIA, in getting documents around the imprisonment of Nelson Mandela. Again, the NSA letter that I just read said, though it wouldn’t confirm the existence or nonexistence of the materials, that they are "currently and properly classified matter." This is Democracy Now! Back with Ryan Shapiro in a minute.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: We continue with our interview with Ryan Shapiro, who the Justice Department calls the FBI’s "most prolific" Freedom of Information Act requester. Well, if governments have always been notoriously secretive, new figures show Shapiro is fighting an especially uphill battle under President Obama. The Associated Press reports that last year the Obama administration censored more government files than ever before under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. It also cited more legal exceptions to justify withholding materials. Amidst intense public interest in surveillance programs, the government cited national security reasons for withholding information a record 8,496 times, more than double Obama’s first year. The AP said it could not determine whether the denials amounted to an abuse of the exception or whether the public had simply asked for more documents about sensitive subjects. The NSA said it saw a 138 percent surge in records requests from people asking whether it had collected their phone or email records, which it generally refuses to confirm or deny, saying such requests pose an "unacceptable risk" because terrorists could check to see whether the U.S. had detected their activities. Your response, Ryan Shapiro?
RYAN SHAPIRO: I’m in total agreement with the AP report. Though President Bush initiated a disastrous welter of anti-transparency iniatives, President Obama has been, if anything, worse, including bringing more Espionage Act prosecutions of whistleblowers than all previous administrations combined and, as you just said, the new AP report showing invoking national security more than ever before to censor or deny FOIA requests.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to turn to Leonard Downie Jr., the former executive editor of The Washington Post, who spoke to us about the excessive secrecy detailed in his report titled "The Obama Administration and the Press," which was commissioned by the Committee to Protect Journalists.
LEONARD DOWNIE JR.: First, there’s too much that’s classified. The president himself has said repeatedly in the past that too much information is classified. It’s not just information that might be harmful to national security or human life; it’s just lots and lots, millions and millions and millions of documents and pieces of information that are classified that shouldn’t be. Obviously that preceded this administration, but it’s not improved during this administration.
The president promised to have the most transparent government in American history. He promised to reduce overclassification. He promised to make it easier to obtain government information through the Freedom of Information Act. And so far, none of these promises have been kept. So, part of the reason for why I agreed to do this report for the Committee to Protect Journalists is I would like to alert the president to the fact that this is one of the most—this is one of the first promises he made. He signed presidential directives about open government his first day in office. These are not being carried out by his administration. He still has time for his legacy to make good on these promises.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Leonard Downie, formerly with the—the former executive editor of The Washington Post. Your response to that, Ryan Shapiro?
RYAN SHAPIRO: Absolutely. We are experiencing a crisis of secrecy. And as historian of science Peter Galison at Harvard had shown, the amount—the universe of classified information now far exceeds the universe of nonclassified information. And, yes, President Obama, on day one, promised to be a real advocate for FOIA, and it’s just the opposite of what we’ve seen. I mean, it’s just—absolutely.
AMY GOODMAN: How do you go about filing these FOIA requests—you known as the "FOIA superhero"?
RYAN SHAPIRO: Well, I mean, filing, itself, is a fairly easy process. One can just put a request in an envelope and send it off, or even email it. The problem is sending a request that’s going to produce documents. The FBI is flatly allergic to the Freedom of Information Act, and it is fair to say it does everything within its power to avoid compliance with the Freedom of Information Act. So, it’s very easy to send a request saying, "I want all records pertaining to X," and one will get a letter saying, "No, we couldn’t find anything." And so, exactly how the FBI gets away with this—because it is a violation of the Freedom of Information Act—how the FBI gets away with this has been unclear, because while the CIA and the NSA have statutorily exempted themselves in large part from the Freedom of Information Act, the FBI hasn’t been able to do that nearly as successfully. And so, they’ve developed an unknown number, but dozens of strategies for avoiding compliance with the act.
AMY GOODMAN: So, when they say, "We can’t detect any files," but you know there are files, what do you do?
RYAN SHAPIRO: Well, the letter doesn’t say—the letter doesn’t—the denial letter doesn’t say they don’t have files; it says, "We are unable to locate them." And what it’s really saying is: "We looked in one place for one type of record, using one type of search, and we couldn’t find anything." And what they’re not telling you is that, in most cases, that’s not the type and place and search methodology necessary to locate the responsive records.
AMY GOODMAN: So how do you push further?
RYAN SHAPIRO: Well, over the past five or six years, I have submitted hundreds of FOIA requests to the FBI. And each request, of course, was designed to produce responsive records, but it was also designed to see how the FBI was going to respond. And I would compare their responses, denials and successful letters, to see—to try and map out what it was that the FBI was doing, the various FBI strategies for failing to comply. I would also read declarations submitted by the FBI in court about how their databases worked and how their information retrieval systems worked. And I would submit FOIA requests about my FOIA requests. And now the FBI is refusing to process those. And I’m also suing the FBI for their failure to process my FOIA requests about my FOIA requests.
AMY GOODMAN: What are privacy waivers?
RYAN SHAPIRO: FOIA has nine exemptions. There are nine legitimate reasons, according to the Freedom of Information Act, that an agency may withhold a record or a portion thereof. And, you know, part of those—one of those exemptions—or, several of those exemptions deal with privacy issues. And this is totally reasonable. It seems totally reasonable that I can’t just request your FBI record without your consent. However, the FBI routinely abuses this privacy privilege and—or this privacy exemption, to redact massive amounts of information that should not be redacted. And so, one of the things I’ve done in order to map out the nature and evolution of the FBI’s understanding and handling of the animal rights movement has been to collect privacy waivers, so basically letters from activists saying that I’m allowed to request their FBI files, from roughly 300 leading animal rights activists from the 1970s to today. 
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Why Did the FBI Label Ryan Shapiro's Dissertation on Animal Rights a Threat to National Security?
Over the past decade, Ryan Shapiro has become a leading freedom of information activist, unearthing tens of thousands of once-secret documents. His work focuses on how the government infiltrates and monitors political movements, in particular those for animal and environmental rights. Today, he has around 700 Freedom of Information Act requests before the FBI, seeking around 350,000 documents. That tenacity has led the Justice Department to call him the "most prolific" requester there is — in one year, two requests per day. It has also led the FBI to claim his dissertation research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology would "irreparably damage national security." Shapiro discusses his methodology in obtaining government documents through FOIA requests, and the details that have emerged therein about the crackdown on animal rights activists.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Our guest is Ryan Shapiro, who is called the "FOIA superhero," best known for requesting FBI documents related to animal rights activism, which the agency has dubbed the nation’s "number one domestic terrorism threat." The documents have been used in a lawsuit filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights that challenged the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, a 2006 law targeting activists whose protest actions lead to a "loss of profits" for industry. One FBI file Shapiro obtained in 2003 details how animal rights activists used undercover investigations to document repeated animal welfare violations. The agent who authored the report said the activists, quote, "illegally entered buildings" in order to document conditions in a slaughterhouse, and concludes there is, quote, "a reasonable indication" they "violated the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act," unquote.
Ryan Shapiro, can you explain how these activists, who go in undercover to document what’s happening in slaughterhouses or on factory farms, are equated with terrorists?
RYAN SHAPIRO: I can try. So, in 2004, the FBI designated the animal rights and environmental movements the leading domestic terror threats in the country, despite the fact that neither of these movements have ever physically injured a single person ever in this country, and then, not long thereafter, as you said, the passage of the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, this pernicious piece of post-9/11 legislation, explicitly targeting animal rights and environment activists as terrorists. People have been prosecuted under the AETA, the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, as terrorists under federal law, facing federal felonies for writing anti-animal-experimentation slogans on the sidewalk in chalk. And in this particular document, yeah, this is the FBI looking at animal rights activists who have gone undercover on a factory farm, and the FBI’s response to the horrific conditions on this farm, and the actions uncovering them, is to consider bringing felony terrorism charges against these activists. These are activists who are exposing animals confined in cages so small they can’t stand up, turn around or spread their wings, just horrific conditions which are the absolute norm on factory farms. And the FBI is considering bringing terrorism charges against these activists.
And I wanted to know why. And so, I have about 600 FOIA requests currently in motion with the FBI pertaining to the FBI’s campaigns against the animal rights movement. And the FBI—and I’ve sued the FBI, because they’ve stopped complying with my requests. And the FBI is now arguing in court that those FOIA requests themselves are threats to national security. Keep in mind, they’re not arguing that releasing the documents would be a threat to national security. They’re arguing that having to decide now whether or not they will release the documents—they want a seven-year delay so they can think about whether or not to release the documents; otherwise, it will constitute a threat to national security. Further, they argued the threat to national security is so severe that they can’t even tell us why. The FBI’s primary support for this radical and crazy argument, they’ve submitted to the court in the form of an ex parte in camera declaration—so, again, a secret letter from the Counterterrorism Division of the FBI to the judge about what a threat to national security complying with my FOIA requests—or even deciding whether or not to comply with my FOIA requests—
AMY GOODMAN: And you can’t see that letter?
RYAN SHAPIRO: Can’t see it. My FOIA attorney, Jeffrey Light, did a tremendous job fighting that, and we were able to get a very heavily redacted copy of it. But—
AMY GOODMAN: And what did you conclude from that heavily redacted copy?
RYAN SHAPIRO: It’s very hard to tell, but there was one footnote to a redacted section. So we don’t know what the section is, but the footnote is all about the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act. So the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act has something to do with why the FBI refuses to release these documents. And I would encourage everyone to check out journalist Will Potter’s website and book, Green is the New Red, because Will Potter does a tremendous job exploring these issues, as well.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to read from a 2005 FBI memo obtained—well, that you obtained, Ryan, when an agent in Knoxville, Tennessee, writes, quote, "Organizers of the Animal Rights Movement can be discredited and removed from the scene by planting rumors that they are plants and/or informants," unquote. He goes on to note there is, quote, "no risk of violence to these persons about whom these false rumors may be started as most of the animal rights people are also strict advocates of nonviolence against human persons," unquote. Ryan Shapiro?
RYAN SHAPIRO: Yeah, absolutely. And Will Potter, who I just mentioned, wrote a wonderful piece on Green is the New Red about that document when I obtained it. I mean, here we see explicitly COINTELPRO-esque-like strategies from the FBI, spreading false rumors about good activists being agents, knowing that the FBI can get away with it now, because animal rights activists, primarily being nonviolent, won’t do anything about it, other than, at most, shun the person. I mean, we are seeing just the most cynical strategies coming from the FBI, and it absolutely very much has the feel of continued COINTELPRO activities.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about your own animal rights activism that led you to become such a prolific FOIA requester? 2004, New York police file felony burglary charges against you and Sarahjane Blum for entering Hudson Valley Foie Gras, which is upstate New York, recording inhospitable conditions endured by the ducks living there. Ultimately, you both rescued and removed ducks from this Hudson Valley facility. What came of that?
RYAN SHAPIRO: Sure. So, along with a handful of other very dedicated activists, including Sarahjane Blum, I conducted a year-long undercover investigation of foie gras factory farms. Some of us were in New York, and some of us were in California. And Hudson Valley Foie Gras was one of those locations. The conditions were just horrific. The same is to be found on factory farms anywhere: animals confined in cages so small they can’t stand up, turn around, spread their limbs. Plus, these animals are being force-fed. Just horrible—
AMY GOODMAN: Where is this place?
RYAN SHAPIRO: Hudson Valley Foie Gras is in Liberty, New York. And we openly rescued a number of animals from—
AMY GOODMAN: What does that mean, "openly rescued"?
RYAN SHAPIRO: We—as an act of civil disobedience, rather than as a clandestine activity, we openly rescued, so we filmed—we made a movie about it. We made a documentary, which you can find at GourmetCruelty.com. We made a documentary called Delicacy of Despair, which not only showed the conditions, the horrific conditions on these factory farms, but also showed us openly rescuing animals from these farms, rehabilitating them and giving them new lives. Hudson Valley Foie Gras brought felony burglary charges against us for stealing their animals. And, yeah—
AMY GOODMAN: And what happened?
RYAN SHAPIRO: We ended up getting out of it, to our great surprise, with misdemeanor trespass charges. But the important thing here is that if we had done this even a year later, we wouldn’t have been fighting conventional state charges, even felony burglary charges, which have a hefty sentence; we would have been fighting federal terror charges. We wouldn’t have been getting out with misdemeanor trespass and 40 hours of community service for a group of our choice. We would have been sitting, like many animal rights activists did, colleagues of mine, sitting in federal prison cells for doing far less, convicted under the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act and its predecessor act, the Animal Enterprise Protection Act.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about your dissertation and why it’s been called a threat to national security. You go back to the 19th century. You talk about animal rights activism and government spying then.
RYAN SHAPIRO: That’s right. So the only part of the dissertation the FBI is designating a threat to national security is the FOIA component. They’re leaving the rest of it alone. But as I said, the FBI is arguing that to even decide whether or not to comply with my FOIA request constitutes a threat to national security so dire they can’t even tell us why. My dissertation is looking at the use of the rhetoric and apparatus of national security to marginalize animal protectionists from the late 19th century to the present.
AMY GOODMAN: Give us a brief history.
RYAN SHAPIRO: During World War I, when opponents of animal experimentation in the United States protested wartime animal experimentation, the self-described research defense community, so the pro-animal-experimentation lobby, alleged that American animal protectionists were agents of the kaiser, and there was an effort made to bring the new Espionage Act to bear against these animal protectionists for opposing wartime animal experimentation. And for another example, skipping ahead, during the early Cold War, the research defense community alleged that opposition to animal experimentation was a criminal and directed plot meant to undermine American security in order to pave the way for Soviet atomic aggression and overthrow of the United States government. And these arguments held a great deal of force. They were very convincing at the time.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the significance of what Upton Sinclair did in his famous book, The Jungle, 1906, I think it was. What exactly did he do in Chicago?
RYAN SHAPIRO: He brought attention to an issue that people flatly had not been paying attention to. In some way, it’s analogous to undercover investigators today. It is—or to FOIA work. It is bringing suppressed information to public light. And as with much suppressed information—again, there’s more suppressed information than there is unsuppressed information in the world—it can have a devastating impact on public opinion.
AMY GOODMAN: And he went underground into these slaughterhouses in Chicago, and he exposed what was going on there. He’s hailed as one of the great investigators and writers, Upton Sinclair.
RYAN SHAPIRO: Absolutely. I mean, the public is starved for information. We are flooded with information, but so much of it is useless or misleading or false or distracting. When real information about the horrific conditions that so many of us in this world—human, nonhuman—endure on a daily basis come to light, yeah, it can definitely set the public moving.
AMY GOODMAN: So, on this issue of terrorism and animal rights activism, what are the—what exactly is the government doing now, and what exactly are the movements doing? I mean, there’s a great trend in the United States for—for organic food, a whole push, especially, even in the medical community, for vegetarianism. Talk about how times have changed. And has that changed the attitude of the government when it comes to calling animal rights activists terrorists?
RYAN SHAPIRO: Well, a very important piece of this puzzle is the role of industry. Industry is definitely critical in persuading the FBI to target animal rights activists and environmentalists as terrorists. And industry is definitely a critical factor in pushing back against, absolutely, the trend towards vegetarianism, towards veganism. Even "Meatless Mondays," the meat and dairy and egg industry has been just vociferous in its condemnation of Meatless Mondays just asking people to reduce their meat consumption or to eliminate their meat consumption one day a week, much less to go vegan. And so, we’re seeing a lot of conflicting pieces in play at the moment. We have reports out from official medical bodies that a vegan diet is as healthy or even far healthier, in many cases, than a standard American diet, and yet, at the same time, we have American politicians pushing back heavily against that, pushing—it isn’t surprising. The agricultural industry is a tremendously powerful lobby.
AMY GOODMAN: What role do corporations play in writing this kind of legislation, like the Animal Enterprise Act?
RYAN SHAPIRO: Huge. I mean, for example, the American—ALEC has just—
AMY GOODMAN: The American Legislative Exchange Council.
RYAN SHAPIRO: The American Legislative Exchange Council has played a profound role in pushing forward ag-gag bills. And these bills criminalize undercover investigations of factory farms or laboratories or fur farms. And it’s interesting, because there’s a relationship also between these ag-gag laws and the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, because if you commit a crime, any crime, including violating an ag-gag bill, on a state level, then you can be prosecuted federally as a terrorist under the Animal Enterprise Terrorism law.
AMY GOODMAN: And what effect has that had on the movement, this whole issue, the specter of being charged as terrorists?
RYAN SHAPIRO: It’s definitely had a chilling effect on the movement. There’s no doubt. The animal rights movement is a very different place than it was 10 years ago. And different people have and different groups have responded in a variety of ways, but there is no doubt that there is a chilling effect. And that’s why, along with Sarahjane Blum and J Johnson, Lauren Gazzola and Lana Lehr, I’m one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act that the Center for Constitutional Rights—
AMY GOODMAN: And explain that.
RYAN SHAPIRO: We argue that the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act violates our First Amendment rights. We are chilled from engaging in the sort of advocacy that we once did, and that the AETA is overbroad on its face and it is—it suppresses our First Amendment rights. And so, the Center for Constitutional Rights is pushing that case.
AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about, when an animal rights activist goes to jail, the difference, when they’re charged with this overlay of terrorism, in terms of time that they have to serve.
RYAN SHAPIRO: Well, yeah, as I mentioned, I openly rescued, or stole, animals from a factory farm, made a movie about it. I mean, this is—it’s a real crime. I did it as an act of civil disobedience, but it’s a real crime. And I did 40 hours of community service, and that was it. People have gone to prison for years for running a website opposing animal experimentation.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to end—we have about a minute to go—with your slogan, "See something, leak something."
RYAN SHAPIRO: Right. So, secrecy is a cancer on the body of democracy. The records of government are the property of the people, but they’re consistently withheld from us on the basis of undefined national security. But as wrote Judge Murray Gurfein in his ruling against the Nixon administration’s infamous attempt to prevent The New York Times from publishing the leaked Pentagon Papers, "The security of the Nation is not at the ramparts alone. Security also lies in the value of our free institutions." And so, building upon this ruling, we as a nation need to foster a broader conception of national security. And in the interest of promoting such a conception, a conception borne of the free exchange of ideas among an informed citizenry, I call upon all of those with access to unreleased records about illegal, immoral or unconstitutional government actions to return those records to their rightful owners: the American people. Or, "See something, leak something." The viability of our democracy may depend upon it.
AMY GOODMAN: And how do you suggest people leak it?
RYAN SHAPIRO: It’s going to be different in all individual cases, but the information is not hard to find online.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you very much, Ryan Shapiro, for being with us, called a "FOIA superhero" for his skill at obtaining government records using the Freedom of Information Act, suing several federal agencies, including the NSA, for their failure to comply with FOIA requests regarding former South African President Nelson Mandela. Ryan Shapiro is also a Ph.D. candidate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Thanks so much for being here.
That does it for our broadcast. I’ll be speaking in St. Louis celebrating the First Amendment with the Gateway Journalism Review Saturday night, March 29. Check out details at democracynow.org.
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Why Did FBI Monitor Occupy Houston, and Then Hide Sniper Plot Against Protest Leaders?
Transparency activist Ryan Shapiro discusses a growing controversy over the FBI’s monitoring of Occupy Houston in 2011. The case centers on what the FBI knew about an alleged assassination plot against Occupy leaders and why it failed to share this information. The plot was first revealed in a heavily redacted document obtained by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund through a FOIA request. The document mentioned an individual "planned to engage in sniper attacks against protesters in Houston, Texas." When Shapiro asked for more details, the FBI said it found 17 pages of pertinent records and gave him five of them, with some information redacted. Shapiro sued, alleging the FBI had improperly invoked FOIA exemptions. Last week, Federal District Judge Rosemary Collyer agreed with Shapiro, ruling the FBI had to explain why it withheld the records.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to talk about your work around animal rights activism and getting information, but I want to first turn to Occupy Houston. You have been working on getting information from the FBI around Occupy Houston. The particular issue focuses on what the FBI knew about an alleged assassination plot in 2011 against leaders of Occupy Houston and why it failed to share this information. The plot was first revealed in a heavily redacted document obtained by the Partnership for Civil Justice through a FOIA request. It read, quote, "An identified [REDACTED] as of October planned to engage in sniper attacks against protestors in Houston, Texas if deemed necessary," unquote. When our guest, Ryan Shapiro, asked for more details, the FBI said it found 17 pages of pertinent records and gave him five of them with some information redacted. So, Ryan Shapiro, you sued, alleging the FBI had improperly invoked FOIA exemptions.
Last week, Federal District Judge Rosemary Collyer seemed to agree with you, when she ruled the FBI had to explain why it withheld records. She made reference in her ruling to David Hardy, the head of the FBI’s FOIA division, writing, quote, "At no point does Mr. Hardy supply specific facts as to the basis for FBI’s belief that the Occupy protesters might have been engaged in terroristic or other criminal activity. ... Neither the word 'terrorism' nor the phrase 'advocating the overthrow of the government' are talismanic, especially where FBI purports to be investigating individuals who ostensibly are engaged in protected First Amendment activity."
Ryan Shapiro, explain what the judge ruled and what "talismanic" means.
RYAN SHAPIRO: Absolutely. First I should say that this is a really weird and crazy story, and I’m still trying to make sense of it, and I’m working with my attorney, Jeffrey Light, and the journalist Jason Leopold to that end. But the judge’s ruling is terrific on this point.
So, basically, the FBI said, "We found 17 pages, but we’re only going to give you five of them, because national security." And the FBI alleged, and David Hardy, the head of the FOIA division of the FBI, asserted in his declaration to the court that the records were exempt from FOIA because they were part of the FBI’s investigation, a national security-oriented terrorism investigation of Occupy Houston protesters for potential terrorist activity, including advocating the overthrow of government. And David Hardy provided no evidence to back up his claim. He just said the words, because so often—as is sadly the case, so often judges are tremendously deferential to the FBI and to other intelligence and security agencies in these sorts of FOIA questions, because the FBI tells the judges, "You’re not qualified to decide whether or not this constitutes a threat to national security to release, so we’re going to tell you that it does, and you should defer to us."
In this case, Judge Collyer made a wonderful ruling and said, "No, you can’t just say the words. The words aren’t just talismans—terrorism, national security. You have to back them up. You can’t just wave them around like magic and expect us—expect the court to give you what you want." And so now the judge has required the FBI to provide substantiation for their seemingly preposterous claims that Occupy Houston were terrorists advocating the overthrow of government. And the FBI has until April 9 to provide this support. They can do it openly or they can do an ex parte in camera declaration, so a secret submission to the judge where she can review the documents herself.
AMY GOODMAN: And what about this assassination attempt against Occupy activists?
RYAN SHAPIRO: Yes, absolutely. As I said, I’m still trying to figure out exactly what’s going on there, but what I want to know is, first of all—so my requests here are in part inspired because I want to know what the role of the FBI is in coordinating the response to the Occupy movement, why the FBI considered the Occupy movement a terrorist threat, and I also want to know why the FBI didn’t inform the protesters of this tremendous threat against them. As Kade Crockford at the ACLU recently said, if the targets of this plot had been Wall Street bankers, I think we can all safely assume that the FBI would have picked up the phone.
AMY GOODMAN: And called them.
RYAN SHAPIRO: And called them, yes, absolutely. So—and, finally, I want to know—and because this is how it appears in the documents—of course, they’re heavily redacted, so we’re not sure—but why was the FBI appearing to pay far more attention to peaceful protesters in their investigation than to the actual terrorists who were plotting to kill those protesters?
AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Ryan Shapiro. He has been called a "FOIA superhero" for his skill in obtaining government records using the Freedom of Information Act. Today we are revealing on Democracy Now! he is suing several federal agencies, a lawsuit that was just filed today, including the NSA, for their failure to comply with FOIA requests regarding former South African President Nelson Mandela. Ryan Shapiro is a Ph.D. candidate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he’s received tens of thousands of FBI files on the animal rights movement, which is what we’re going to take up next. His dissertation, called "Bodies at War: Animals, Science, and National Security in the United States," the FBI has called a threat to national security. We’ll ask Ryan Shapiro why. Stay with us.
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Headlines:
Obama Admin to Propose Reforms of NSA Bulk Phone Spying
The Obama administration is preparing to ask Congress to reform the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of phone records – one of the most controversial NSA practices exposed by Edward Snowden. The New York Times, citing unnamed officials, says the proposal would leave the bulk data in the hands of phone companies. To obtain specific records, the NSA would seek permission from a judge in the form of a new kind of court order. While the NSA currently retains bulk data for five years, phone companies would not have to keep it beyond 18 months.
Malaysian PM: Plane Went Down in Southern Indian Ocean
New satellite data indicates a plane carrying 239 people that vanished nearly two weeks ago crashed into the Indian Ocean, leaving no survivors. Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak made the announcement on Tuesday.
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak: "This is a remote location, far from any possible landing sites. It is therefore with deep sadness and regret that I must inform you that, according to this new data, Flight MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean."
Despite an extensive search involving multiple countries, the plane’s wreckage has yet to be recovered.
U.S., Allies Expel Russia from G8 over Crimea
The United States and its allies have expelled Russia from the powerful Group of 8 industralized nations in response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. Ukrainian troops are leaving Crimea after it voted to join Russia following the ouster of Ukraine’s pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych. The Group of 7 say they will boycott a June summit in Sochi, Russia, instead holding their own talks in Brussels. The group also threatened harsher sanctions if Russia continues its incursions in Ukraine.
U.S. Senators Advance Massive Ukraine Aid Bill
The action came as Senate lawmakers in the United States advanced a bill to guarantee $1 billion in loans to Ukraine’s new pro-European government with an added $100 million in direct aid. Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the measure has broad bipartisan support.
Sen. Harry Reid: "Ukraine needs this money. We had Senator Durbin on a Sunday show, Senator Ayotte on a Sunday show, speaking together that this country needs our help. And without this money, help that we give will be a pat on the back, not really much help. So, I’m very grateful to have the support of Democrats and Republicans, as in bipartisan, to move this aid package forward this evening. I hope that the obstruction will stop. I’m hopeful and somewhat confident that this legislation will receive the strong bipartisan support that it deserves."
Right-Wing Nationalist Leader Killed in Ukraine
A right-wing nationalist leader has been shot dead in Ukraine. The Interior Ministry said Oleksandr Muzychko died in a shootout with police. He was a leader of Right Sector, a group that was active in the protests against President Yanukoych.
Afghanistan: Election Office Comes Under Attack
An election office has come under attack in the Afghan capital Kabul. It’s unclear how many may be dead amid an assault by militants involving both explosions and a gun battle with security forces. It’s the latest attack in the lead-up to presidential elections set for April 5.
Death Toll from Mudslide in Washington State Rises to 14
The death toll from a mudslide northeast of Seattle, Washington, has risen to 14, with 176 people reported missing. Several people were injured and about 30 homes destroyed.
More Than 100 Congolese Refugees Die When Boat Capsizes
In news from Africa, more than 100 Congolese refugees have died after a boat carrying them home from Uganda capsized on Lake Albert. Uganda said it had recovered 107 bodies, including 57 children. As many as 250 people were on board.
3 Al Jazeera Journalists Denied Bail in Egypt; New Mass Trial Opens
In Egypt, three Al Jazeera journalists have been denied bail after nearly three months in prison. Peter Greste, Baher Mohamed and Mohamed Fahmy stand accused of belonging to or aiding a terrorist organization. They appeared in court inside a cage on Monday, when their case was adjourned for a week. Fahmy condemned the proceedings.
Mohamed Fahmy: "Today’s proceedings show that there is — it seems like all the witnesses have some amnesia or something, Alzheimer’s. There’s a lot of discrepancies in the documents and what they are saying themselves. The prosecutor has a lot to answer for, for allowing the four engineers in the Maspero state TV to have exactly the same copy/paste testimony, that we have seen in our video."
Mohamed Fahmy says he has been denied proper medical care after his shoulder was broken during his arrest. Egyptian prosecutors accuse Al Jazeera of supporting the Muslim Brotherhood of ousted President Mohamed Morsi, which has been declared a terrorist group and subjected to a widening crackdown. On Monday, 529 Brotherhood supporters were sentenced to death. A new mass trial has opened involving 683 people, including top Brotherhood leader Mohammed Badie.
Spain: Hundreds of Thousands Join "Dignity Marches" Against Austerity
In Spain, hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets to protest austerity policies imposed by the European Union. The so-called dignity marches drew residents from across the country to Madrid over the weekend to protest Spain’s 26 percent unemployment rate and call for greater investment in healthcare, education and housing. The protests were largely peaceful, but a government report said dozens were injured in clashes between protesters and police, who fired rubber bullets to disperse the demonstrators.
U.N.: 13 of 14 Warmest Years on Record Occurred Since 2000
The United Nations has released new data on the accelerating impact of climate change. The U.N. World Meteorological Organization reports 13 of the 14 warmest years on record have all occurred in this century. In the Southern Hemisphere, Australia saw its hottest year on record last year, while Argentina saw its second hottest. The agency’s secretary-general, Michel Jarraud, described the global trend.
Michel Jarraud: "Every decade has been warmer than the preceding one over the last 40 years. In other words, the decade 2001-2010 was warmer than the '90s, which in turn were warmer than the ’80s, which were warmer than the ’70s. All the best models were used for this study, and the conclusion is actually very interesting and of concern. The conclusion is that these heatwaves, it is not possible to reproduce these heatwaves in the models if you don't take into account human influence."
Jarraud also noted greenhouse gases are at a record high, meaning that Earth’s atmosphere and oceans will continue to warm for centuries to come.
Report: Air Pollution Killed 7 Million People in 2012
In related news, the World Health Organization estimates air pollution killed seven million people in 2012. The agency said one in eight deaths worldwide were tied to air pollution, making it the single largest environmental health risk in the world.
Supreme Court Hears Corporate Challenges to Birth Control Mandate
The U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments today in two key cases about an employee’s right to birth control under the Affordable Care Act. The cases challenge the requirement that insurance plans provided by employers cover contraception. The law already contains exemptions for religious nonprofits, but now two for-profit companies, Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood, say they should also be exempt due to religious beliefs. At stake is not only the issue of contraception, but the question of whether corporations have religious rights. The case against the contraceptive mandate has reportedly been bolstered by an alliance of dozens of anti-choice and free-market groups working closely with top state employees in Ohio, Michigan, Alabama and West Virginia. According to records obtained by RH Reality Check, the group Alliance Defending Freedom has played the role of "air traffic controller" by drumming up legal briefs submitted to the court in support of the two companies. Reproductive health advocates plan to hold a "Not My Boss’s Business" rally at the Supreme Court today.
New Mexico: Video Shows Police Shooting Homeless Man After He Appears to Surrender
Protests are planned in New Mexico today after Albuquerque police shot and killed a homeless man who appeared to be surrendering. James Boyd was sleeping at a campsite in the Sandia Foothills last week when police arrived. Video from a police helmet cam show officers deploying a flash grenade and then firing at Boyd from yards away after he picks up his belongings and turns away. Police fire beanbags and deploy a police dog as Boyd lies on the ground, pleading with them not to hurt him and saying he can’t move. Police Chief Gordon Eden said the shooting was justified after Boyd threatened the officers with knives. But Albuquerque Mayor Richard Berry rejected the chief’s assessment.
Mayor Richard Berry: "He’s new in the chief position, but that’s no excuse. I think he was — you know, shouldn’t have said that. I think what we all need to do in a horrific situation like this is we need to thoroughly and comprehensively go through the process."
The Albuquerque Police Department already faces federal scrutiny after carrying out three dozen shootings since 2010.
New York: Corrections Officer Arrested over Death of Rikers Prisoner Who Ate Soap Ball
In New York City, a corrections officer was arrested by FBI agents Monday over the death at Rikers Island of a mentally ill prisoner whose pleas for help went unheeded for hours. Jason Echevarria was a 25-year-old prisoner with bipolar disorder. In August 2012, he ate a packet of detergent and began vomiting and pleading for medical help. According to the complaint, Captain Terrence Pendergrass repeatedly ignored reports Echevarria was ill, at one point telling a subordinate he shouldn’t be bothered unless "there was a dead body." The next morning, Echevarria was found dead in his cell. According to the medical examiner, the linings of his tongue and throat were burned off by the soap chemicals. Earlier this month, Echevarria’s supporters rallied to call for Pendergrass’s firing. The victim’s father, Ramon Echevarria, described his son’s time in the prison’s solitary housing unit, or SHU.
Ramon Echevarria: "When you put a person in a SHU for two months, six months, you’re breaking this person’s mental capacity down to zero. He did something bad, fine. But treat him as a human being, not like an animal. He has rights. He has civil rights. He’s got rights in this world."
Last week, news emerged a mentally ill homeless veteran had died in an overheated cell at Rikers. An official told the Associated Press Jerome Murdough "basically baked to death."
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