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Court Rules NSA Bulk Spying Illegal: New Vindication for Snowden, and Uncertainty for PATRIOT Act
A federal appeals court has ruled the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of millions of Americans’ phone records is illegal. The program was exposed by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden; the ACLU filed its lawsuit based largely on Snowden’s revelations. In a unanimous decision Thursday, a three-judge panel of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York called the bulk phone records collection "unprecedented and unwarranted." The ruling comes as Congress faces a June 1 deadline to renew the part of the PATRIOT Act that authorizes the NSA’s bulk data surveillance. Another measure, the USA FREEDOM Act, would lead to limited reforms of some of the NSA’s programs. We are joined by Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director of the ACLU, which filed the case challenging the NSA’s bulk collection of Americans’ phone records.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: A federal appeals court has ruled the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of millions of Americans’ phone records is illegal. The program was first exposed in 2013 by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, and the ACLU filed its lawsuit based largely on Snowden’s revelations. In a unanimous decision Thursday, a three-judge panel of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York called the bulk phone records collection "unprecedented and unwarranted." Judge Gerard Lynch wrote, quote, "[T]he government does not even suggest that all of the records sought, or even necessarily any of them, are relevant to any specific defined inquiry." In a concurring opinion, Judge Robert Sack wrote, quote, "Considering the issue of advocacy in the context of deliberations involving alleged state secrets, and, more broadly, the 'leak' by Edward Snowden that led to this litigation, calls to mind the disclosures by Daniel Ellsberg that gave rise to the legendary 'Pentagon Papers' litigation."
AMY GOODMAN: Thursday’s ruling comes as Congress faces a June 1st deadline to renew part of the PATRIOT Act that authorizes the NSA’s bulk data program. Another measure, called the USA FREEDOM Act, would lead to limited reforms of some NSA programs, if passed.
Well, for more, we turn to Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director of the ACLU, which filed the case challenging the NSA’s bulk collection of Americans’ phone records. His new article for Slate is called "Flip the Patriot Act’s Kill Switch: Let the Worst Parts of the Law Die."
Well, Jameel, welcome back to Democracy Now!
JAMEEL JAFFER: Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the significance of the court ruling.
JAMEEL JAFFER: Well, it’s a very important ruling. It’s something that we have been looking for now for almost two years, since the first Snowden disclosures. This is a lawsuit relating to the call records program, which is a program under which the NSA is collecting information about essentially every phone call made in the United States. Every time you pick up the phone, the NSA has a record of who you called and how long you spoke to them and at what time you called. And that’s an immense amount of information. They’re collecting it not only about suspected terrorists and suspected criminals, but about everybody, everybody in the country. So we challenged that program right after the first Snowden disclosures back in June of 2013, and it’s been winding its way through the courts.
And yesterday, we got this decision from a unanimous federal appeals court here in New York, and the opinion essentially says that the call records program isn’t authorized by the statute that the government is relying on. The PATRIOT Act is very broad, but even the PATRIOT Act has limits, and the government has gone beyond those limits. So it’s a great ruling, and it’s significant not only because if the ruling stands, if it’s not overturned, it will end the call records program, but also because the same legal theory that the government is relying on to justify the call records program, it’s relying on to justify many other mass surveillance programs, as well. So this ruling is going to require the government to reconsider some of those other programs, as well.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And isn’t this, in effect, a major vindication by a federal appeals court of the actions of Edward Snowden, in that if Snowden had not come forward with this information, this court case would not even possibly have reached this level?
JAMEEL JAFFER: That’s exactly right. I mean, obviously, we wouldn’t be having this debate without the Snowden disclosures, and we wouldn’t have been able to get this ruling without the Snowden disclosures. Now, there were—there were judicial decisions, even before the Snowden disclosures, relating to this program. Those decisions were made in secret, not published. Only the government had appeared before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. So it all happened behind closed doors. But because of the Snowden disclosures, we were able to have adversarial review of the program for the first time. And that’s one of the things that the court noted yesterday. They said that the ruling was based, in part, on the fact that there had been adversarial review.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Edward Snowden speaking about the NSA surveillance programs in the first video interview he did with Glenn Greenwald, who was at the time at The Guardian.
GLENN GREENWALD: Why should people care about surveillance?
EDWARD SNOWDEN: Because even if you’re not doing anything wrong, you’re being watched and recorded. And the storage capability of these systems increases every year, consistently, by orders of magnitude, to where it’s getting to the point you don’t have to have done anything wrong. You simply have to eventually fall under suspicion from somebody, even by a wrong call, and then they can use the system to go back in time and scrutinize every decision you’ve ever made, every friend you’ve ever discussed something with, and attack you on that basis, to sort of derive suspicion from an innocent life and paint anyone in the context of a wrongdoer.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Edward Snowden. Judge Gerard Lynch wrote in his opinion in this case, quote, "The sheer volume of information sought is staggering; while search warrants and subpoenas for business records may encompass large volumes of paper documents or electronic data, the most expansive of such evidentiary demands are dwarfed by the volume of records obtained pursuant to the orders in question here." So, Jameel Jaffer, if you can you comment on this? And what does this mean for Congress? Section 215—does that include Section 215(a), that—
JAMEEL JAFFER: Yeah, right.
AMY GOODMAN: —you know, librarians being asked questions about—
JAMEEL JAFFER: It’s the same provision, same provision, right, right.
AMY GOODMAN: —you know, what did a patron—so it’s all the same thing. What does this mean? As early as yesterday morning, the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, was talking about how they weren’t going to change this.
JAMEEL JAFFER: Right, right. I think he’s still talking about that. So we get this decision in the middle of this congressional debate, and the reason we’re having the congressional debate is that three provisions of the PATRIOT Act, including Section 215 are scheduled to sunset on June 1st, meaning that they will go away unless Congress does something. Now, we actually think they should go away, that these provisions should never have been—at least Section 215—should never have been enacted in the first place. But at the very least, Congress should make strong reforms to prevent the kinds of abuses that we’ve just been talking about. But in Congress, there’s a real split. There are some legislators, including the Senate majority leader, who want to extend Section 215 in its existing form and to allow this kind of surveillance, this kind of mass surveillance, to continue indefinitely. There are other legislators, pro-privacy legislators, who would like to scale back Section 215 in some ways. You know, as I said, we have been calling for a sunset of 215. But at the very least, I think that yesterday’s opinion makes clear that the reforms that are on the table right now don’t go nearly far enough, and that the reform side should really strengthen the bill.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: But the court not only ruled this illegal, but also said that Congress is free, if it so chooses, to enact laws that would make this legal, didn’t they?
JAMEEL JAFFER: Well, that’s right. So, basically, what the court said is—so we had argued both on statuary grounds and constitutional grounds. We had said this doesn’t—this isn’t authorized by the statute, and even if it is authorized by the statute, the Constitution doesn’t allow it. But because the court agreed with us on the first question, it didn’t have reach all the constitutional questions. So the court basically said, "This statute doesn’t allow it. Congress, if you want to pass a statute that allows it, go for it. But in that case, we’ll have to consider whether it’s constitutional or not."
AMY GOODMAN: On Thursday, Republican presidential hopeful Florida Senator Marco Rubio addressed the NSA surveillance.
SEN. MARCO RUBIO: The perception has been created, including by political figures that serve in this chamber, that the United States government is listening to your phone calls or going through your bills as a matter of course. That is absolutely, categorically false. The next time that any politician, senator, congressman, talking head, whatever it may be, stands up and says that the U.S. government is listening to your phone calls or going through your phone records, they’re lying. It just is not true.
AMY GOODMAN: Lying? Jameel Jaffer?
JAMEEL JAFFER: You know, this is very frustrating, because what Senator Rubio is doing here is creating a straw man. Nobody is saying that this program is about listening to phone calls. It’s not. It’s about tracking phone calls. It’s about tracking who you call and when you call them. And that, that kind of information, can be very, very sensitive, and it’s one of the things that the Second Circuit acknowledged yesterday. The government says, look, it’s not content, but that doesn’t mean it’s not sensitive. The government, with this kind of data, can track your political beliefs, your religious beliefs, your medical history, your intimate relationships. There’s very little that the government can’t find out by tracking your phone calls over a significant period of time.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And what’s the likelihood of the Obama administration seeking to appeal this to the Supreme Court? Obviously, the administration itself has been talking about changes to the current status.
JAMEEL JAFFER: That’s right. That’s right. Yeah, it’s difficult to know because it’s so tied up with what’s going on in Congress right now. I think what happens next in the litigation is going to turn in part on what happens next in Congress. If Congress reauthorizes Section 215 in its current form, then I would expect that the intelligence community would want to appeal this, would want to ask the Supreme Court to review the Second Circuit’s decision. If Congress changes the law in some ways, it may have an effect on the litigation and may lead the administration to do something other than seek Supreme Court review. So it’s a little bit hard to say.
AMY GOODMAN: How does this relate to the USA FREEDOM Act?
JAMEEL JAFFER: So, the USA FREEDOM Act is an effort to—it’s a response to this June 1st sunset that’s impending. USA FREEDOM is an effort to scale back Section 215 in some ways and to create reforms to some of the other provisions of the PATRIOT Act. And in some—the bill includes many—it has many worthwhile aspects. There are many good things about it. But its reforms are very limited. And even, I think, its proponents concede that its reforms are limited. Its champions include Senator Leahy and Senator Wyden, who have been privacy reformers from the beginning. But they’ve had to make a lot of concessions to the intelligence community in order to keep the NSA on board, to keep the administration on board. And so now the bill is actually fairly weak. And so, we are hoping that the decision that we got yesterday will change the dynamic on the Hill and will create the possibility that that reform bill becomes stronger than it is right now.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I wanted to ask you about President Obama’s comments back in 2013, shortly after Edward Snowden revealed that the NSA was engaged in bulk collection of American phone records. Obama refuted Snowden’s claim at that time.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: When it comes to telephone calls, nobody is listening to your telephone calls. That’s not what this program is about. As was indicated, what the intelligence community is doing is looking at phone numbers and durations of calls. They are not looking at people’s names, and they’re not looking at content. But by sifting through this so-called metadata, they may identify potential leads with respect to folks who might engage in terrorism. If these folks—if the intelligence community then actually wants to listen to a phone call, they’ve got to go back to a federal judge, just like they would in a criminal investigation. So, I want to be very clear. Some of the hype that we’ve been hearing over the last day or so, nobody is listening to the content of people’s phone calls.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: That was President Obama in 2013. Marco Rubio sounds like he took those words practically verbatim.
JAMEEL JAFFER: Right, right. Although I’d say that the administration’s tune has changed a little bit over the last couple years. You know, we now know, from the administration and from two official review groups, that this is a program that has never been pivotal in any terrorism investigation. We also know, from the review groups and from the administration itself, that the government could track suspected terrorists’ phone calls without tracking everybody’s phone calls. So given those two acknowledgments, it becomes very difficult for the government to defend this program. And I think that you see evidence of that in yesterday’s decision.
AMY GOODMAN: So, you brought this lawsuit, the American Civil Liberties Union. You represent Edward Snowden. What is he saying in Russia? And what does this mean for his case, his ability to come home?
JAMEEL JAFFER: Well, I mean, he’s obviously—he’s thrilled by the decision. He hasn’t spoken publicly about the decision, in part because he’s happy with the debate being about the issues. That’s what he’s wanted from the beginning. And there is a debate about the issues in Congress right now. There’s a larger national debate about the issues. And there’s a debate about these issues in many other countries, as well, including Canada and France and Germany. And, you know, I think we all agree that that’s what people should be focused on.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Jameel Jaffer, we thank you so much for being with us, deputy legal director of the ACLU, which filed the case challenging the NSA’a bulk collection of Americans’ phone records in June of 2013, shortly after Edward Snowden disclosed the program’s existence. Jameel’s article for Slate is called "Flip the Patriot Act’s Kill Switch: Let the Worst Parts of the Law Die." We’ll link to it at democracynow.org. We’ll be back in a minute.
Omar Khadr, Child Prisoner Who Claimed Torture at Gitmo, Freed on Bail in Canada During U.S. Appeal
Omar Khadr, once the youngest prisoner held on terror charges at Guantánamo Bay, has been released on bail from a Canadian prison. The Toronto-born Khadr was detained in 2002 by U.S. forces in Afghanistan before being transferred to Guantánamo Bay at the age of 16. Khadr became the first person since World War II to be prosecuted in a war crimes tribunal for acts committed as a juvenile. After eight years at Guantánamo, he confessed in 2010 to throwing a grenade that killed an American soldier. His lawyers say his statements were illegally obtained through torture and cruelty. As part of a plea deal, the United States later allowed his transfer back to Canada. Khadr will remain free while he appeals his war crimes convictions in the United States. We are joined by Michelle Shephard, national security reporter for the Toronto Star and author of "Guantanamo’s Child: The Untold Story of Omar Khadr."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We turn now to Canada, where Omar Khadr, who was once the youngest prisoner held on terror charges at Guantánamo Bay, was released on bail from an Alberta prison Thursday. The Canadian-born Khadr was detained in 2002 by U.S. forces in Afghanistan. At the time, he was just 15 years old. Weeks after turning 16, he was transferred to Guantánamo. Omar Khadr became the first person since World War II to be prosecuted in a war crimes tribunal for acts committed as a juvenile. The United Nations special representative on children and armed conflict, Radhika Coomaraswamy, warned at the time that the military tribunal will set a dangerous precedent for child soldiers worldwide. She said juvenile justice standards are clear: Children should not be tried before military tribunals. After being held at Guantánamo for eight years, Khadr confessed in 2010 to throwing a grenade that killed an American soldier. As part of a plea deal, the United States allowed him to be transferred back to Canada.
AMY GOODMAN: Omar Khadr is now appealing his convictions in the United States for war crimes. His lawyers have said his statements were illegally obtained through torture and cruelty. On Thursday, Khadr briefly spoke with the media after he was released on bail.
OMAR KHADR: I would like to thank the court for trusting me and releasing me. I would like to thank my—Dennis and Nate, my lawyers, and their families for all the work. They’ve been working for such a long time. And I would like to thank the Canadian public for trusting me and giving me a chance. It might be some times, but I will prove to them that I am more than what they thought of me. And I’ll prove to them that I’m a good person. Thank you very much.
REPORTER 1: Omar, what do you want Canadians to know most about you? What’s most important for them to know?
OMAR KHADR: Just to give me a chance, see who I am as a person, not as a name, and then they can make their own judgment after that.
REPORTER 2: Who are you as a person?
OMAR KHADR: Well, I’m still learning about myself. I’m still growing. I believe in learning. I didn’t have a lot of experience in life, and I’m excited to start my life.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Omar Khadr speaking in Edmonton, Alberta, in Canada on Thursday. Right now we’re going to go to Edmonton, where we’re joined by Michelle Shephard, who has been closely covering Omar Khadr’s story since 2002. She’s the national security reporter for the Toronto Star and author of Guantanamo’s Child: The Untold Story of Omar Khadr.
So, Michelle, if you could tell us his story, how he ended up as the youngest person, child, at Guantánamo, and now freed after spending more than half his life in prison?
MICHELLE SHEPHARD: Well, it has, as you said, been a long story. It’s been going on since 2002, and it’s been this incredible legal odyssey, really, in Canada, and before that in Guantánamo and the U.S. Omar Khadr is the second-youngest child of an Egyptian-Canadian charity worker who had ties to some of al-Qaeda’s elite, and he brought his family back and forth between Canada, Pakistan and Afghanistan. When 9/11 happened, the family was in Afghanistan. They fled. And about a year later, in July 2002, Omar Khadr’s father had lent Omar out to some Libyan fighters as a translator, and the compound that they were in came under attack by U.S. special forces. Near the end of the attack, a grenade was thrown that fatally wounded a U.S. Delta Force fighter. Omar Khadr was shot and captured, and then has spent, as you said, more than half of his life in detention now.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And in terms of the confession that he supposedly gave at a certain point during captivity, could you talk about that and the circumstances around that?
MICHELLE SHEPHARD: Yeah, he had been interrogated many, many times. Some of the harshest interrogation he had was for the first 90 days when he was held at Bagram, before he was transferred to Guantánamo. At the time, he was severely wounded. We heard in—during his hearing in Guantánamo, that he had been shackled and handcuffed to a stretcher during the interrogations, because he couldn’t sit up. When he was transferred then to Guantánamo, he was given some of the techniques that they used there, including what they call the frequent flyer program, which was the sleep deprivation program, before he was interrogated. He also had an instance where, during an interrogation, he urinated on himself, and he was used as a—a human mop was the way they described it. So he definitely underwent quite a lot during the interrogations and later said, you know, "I have no idea what I said at that time."
Fast-forward to 2010, when he’s before the military commission, and at that time the Pentagon was offering him a plea deal. The U.S. really wanted to get rid of his case for a number of reasons. And so, as we were sort of on the eve of this trial beginning, they offered him a plea deal for a eight-year sentence, a chance to return to Canada, if he confessed to throwing the grenade that fatally wounded U.S. Delta Force soldier Christopher Speer. He did that. He spent another two years in Guantánamo, came back to Canada. And when he came back to Canada, he said, "I just—my lawyers told me to say that. I would have said anything to get out of Guantánamo." He is not sure whether he threw the grenade. I think for many years he believed he did. More recently, he said he’s seen evidence that shows he possibly couldn’t, because he was buried under rubble at that time. But as he said yesterday, when he made his first public statements, whether he did or didn’t, he’s sorry for any pain and wants to put that behind him.
AMY GOODMAN: So, Michelle Shephard, what is the U.S. response to Canada releasing him on bail from jail? He’s living with his lawyer?
MICHELLE SHEPHARD: That’s right. It’s kind of a remarkable situation where he’s living now. His longtime Canadian lawyer has really taken him into his home, offered to supervise him. So it was a very—the judge was confident that it was a good bail package for him to be released on. But he—we’re not certain now how long he’ll—right now he is free on bail, and he should not be going back into prison. But Canada, as you may have seen yesterday, reacted harshly to his release and said they’re going to do everything that they can to keep him in prison. And, in fact, that was the latest legal action that they took, that they tried to argue that his release would jeopardize relations with the U.S. But the U.S. has actually said that his release doesn’t have impact on relations, and that’s what the judge said yesterday. She agreed.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I want to go back to Omar Khadr speaking on Thursday after he was released on bail.
REPORTER 3: Omar, what about the modern world shocked you most since you’ve been out?
OMAR KHADR: Nothing so far. What I’m really surprised is, it’s like—freedom is way better than I thought. And the Canadian public, so far, has been way better than I anticipated.
REPORTER 4: What do you want to do with your life?
OMAR KHADR: Finish my education. I have a lot of learning to do, a lot of basic skills I need to learn. So just take it one day at a time, take it slowly.
REPORTER 5: Do you have anything to say to Mr. Harper, Prime Minister Harper?
OMAR KHADR: Well, I’m going to have to disappoint him. I’m better than the person he thinks I am.
REPORTER 5: What do you make of how polarizing a figure you have become in Canada?
OMAR KHADR: Well, I can’t do anything about that. All I can do is work on myself. That’s all I can do.
REPORTER 6: Can you categorically say that you denounce violent jihad, Omar?
OMAR KHADR: Yes. Yes, I do.
REPORTER 6: It’s not something...
OMAR KHADR: No, it’s not something I believe in right now. I want to start a fresh start. There’s too many good things in life that I want to experience.
REPORTER 5: Do you have any career aspirations? Looking down the road, is there anything that you really...?
OMAR KHADR: Something in the healthcare. I believe that you have to be able to empathize with people in pain, and I know I have—I’ve experienced pain, so I think I can empathize with people who are going through that. And I think—I hope I can do something in the healthcare.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: That was Omar Khadr speaking yesterday. I wanted to ask you, Michelle Shephard—there has been several references in these interviews to the public opinion and public reaction to his case. What has been the public reaction in Canada to his case?
MICHELLE SHEPHARD: You know, I have never covered a more controversial case. For years, Canadians seemed to be divided. Many saw him as a child soldier and a victim of post-9/11 policies. Others saw him as a symbol of terrorism. For many years, that was the portrayal that the government had put forward. So it’s really divided. I would say, probably in the last—even the last few months, I think many of those who had been critical of Omar Khadr have reached a point that they have said, "Enough time has passed. Let’s," as he had asked for, "give him a chance." That, to me, is my sense of public sentiment shifting slightly. However, that’s not the sentiment of our government. They have remained very black and white on this case.
AMY GOODMAN: Omar Khadr was also asked about his father during Thursday’s news conference.
REPORTER 3: Omar, so many came to know about your father. What do you think of your father now, after all these years and what happened to you?
OMAR KHADR: Well, there’s a lot of questions that I would like to ask my father. I can’t change the past. All I can do is just work on the present and the future.
REPORTER 3: What do you want to ask him? What would you ask him?
OMAR KHADR: Everything, a lot of decisions that he made, the reason he took us back there, just a whole bunch of questions about his reasoning behind, you know, his life decisions. Yeah.
REPORTER 3: And these are not life decisions that you want to make going forward?
OMAR KHADR: No.
REPORTER 7: What would you say to someone kind of contemplating extremism and maybe looking to you? What would you say to them, a young person?
OMAR KHADR: What I would tell anybody is to educate yourself, emotional control. Education is a very important thing. I have noticed that a lot of people are manipulated by not being educated. So education is a very important thing.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Omar Khadr yesterday in Edmonton, Alberta, after he was released from jail on bail. Finally, Michelle Shephard, we just have 30 seconds, but his father died in Pakistan in 2003. Is that right? And a final question: He was charged with a war crime; is it a war crime to kill a soldier on the battlefield?
MICHELLE SHEPHARD: Well, that’s the case that is now before an appeals court in the U.S. They’re arguing that it’s never been a war crime before 9/11. In fact, when Omar Khadr’s alleged actions happened, it was not a war crime; it was brought in later. So that will be the challenge then. It never has been before, and Omar Khadr is the only detainee who has ever been charged by that—by the Pentagon with those offenses.
AMY GOODMAN: Michelle Shephard, we want to thank you very much for being with us, national security reporter for the Toronto Star, author of Guantanamo’s Child: The Untold Story of Omar Khadr. She has been following his case since his arrest in 2002. We’ll also link to your piece, "Omar Khadr Walks Free on Bail After 13 Years in Custody."
This is Democracy Now! When we come back, how much has been spent on charter schools, and what has this country gotten for that money? Stay with us.
As Obama Admin Seeks More Funding for Charter Schools, Questions Raised over Billions Already Spent
As Obama Admin Seeks More Funding for Charter Schools, Questions Raised over Billions Already Spent
As the Obama administration asks Congress to increase funding for charter schools by almost 50 percent, a new report claims charter schools are spending billions of dollars with nearly no oversight, regulation or accountability. The Center for Media and Democracy argues the federal government has spent more than $3 billion over the past two decades on the charter school industry, but there is no comprehensive database showing how these funds are spent and what results they produce. The new report analyzes materials obtained from open records requests regarding independent audits of how states interact with charter schools and their authorizers. It concludes that the anti-regulatory environment around charter schools coupled with their lack of financial transparency warrants a moratorium rather than increased charter funding. We are joined by Lisa Graves, executive director of the Center for Media and Democracy. The group’s new report is "New Documents Show How Taxpayer Money Is Wasted by Charter Schools."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: With the Obama administration asking Congress to increase funding for charter schools by almost 50 percent, we turn to a major new report that claims charter schools are already spending billions of dollars of federal money with nearly no oversight, regulation or accountability. The report was released by the Center for Media and Democracy, and it’s called "New Documents Show How Taxpayer Money Is Wasted by Charter Schools." According to the report, the federal government has spent more than $3 billion over the past two decades on the charter school industry, but there is no comprehensive database showing how those funds are spent and what results they produce.
AMY GOODMAN: The new report analyzes materials obtained from open records requests regarding independent audits of how states interact with charter schools and their authorizers. It concludes that the anti-regulatory environment around charter schools, coupled with their lack of financial transparency, warrants a moratorium rather than increased charter funding.
Well, for more, we go to Denver, Colorado, to Denver Open Media, where we’re joined by Lisa Graves, executive director of the Center for Media and Democracy. Their new report is called "New Documents Show How Taxpayer Money Is Wasted by Charter Schools."
Lisa, welcome to Democracy Now! Lay out the key findings of your report.
LISA GRAVES: Thank you so much. We spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out how much money has even been spent by the federal government fueling this industry. And it turned out the sum is $3.3 billion. And so, we thought, with that much money at stake, there would be tremendous controls on that spending. But our open records requests showed time after time in which the federal government and the state governments have no idea how that money is being spent. And that, in part, is due to the—pardon me—design of those schools. The design at the state level, driven by ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council’s policies and a number of sort of extreme policies represent a real hostility to government schools, to the idea of public schools and government oversight. And so, what we saw in our records requests was time after time in which no one really knew how much money was being spent by the schools, how much of those tax dollars was being spent on executive pay, how much money was being outsourced to for-profit corporations.
But we know that this $3.3 billion have fueled an industry that now devotes millions of dollars each year to lobbying for more charter schools, and devotes millions of dollars advertising on public airways for people to send their kids to charter schools, things that public schools don’t have a chance to do. Public schools don’t have the budget to advertise their benefits. Even though these things are called public charter schools, in many respects these operate, in many instances, for the private sector, for the benefit of CEOs and Wall Street.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Lisa, one of the things that your report highlights is this black hole of accountability when it comes to charter schools, that the federal government is not holding the states responsible for the money it gives to the states for charter schools. The states are not holding their own charter authorizing agencies or even the individual charter schools accountable. And you conclude that this was not by accident.
LISA GRAVES: That’s right. You know, one of the things we’ve seen over and over again are promises by the Department of Education to do more to hold charter schools accountable. But what you see on the ground, based on the audits, based on the inspector general’s report, is a real lack of controls. You basically have the Department of Education’s charter operation sort of encouraging the states to do more. Meanwhile, you have audits that show that in many instances the states have no idea where the money was spent once it went into the charter school system. They don’t know how many kids were really served. They don’t know what happened to assets that were purchased through our tax dollars. And there’s a recent report last week from the Center for Popular Democracy that shows, through looking through federal and state criminal fraud indictments, that there have been more than $200 million worth of fraud in the charter school industry. And so, this sort of circumstance calls for much greater control, much greater restraint, rather than the 50 percent increase that the administration has called for for charter school funding.
AMY GOODMAN: Lisa, I wanted to turn to a mother featured in an ad released by Charterswork.org.
MOTHER: I had the potential to be great, but no one helped me to identify that. I was not letting that happen to my kids. Public charter schools provide a high-quality education right in our community. I have a daughter that attends Achievement First Apollo, and there’s no limits for her now. I voted for de Blasio, but I didn’t vote for you to take my child’s future.
AMY GOODMAN: So there you have it, and, of course, they’re talking about de Blasio, the mayor of New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio. But, Lisa Graves, what about this? And what about the success of or failure of charter schools overall?
LISA GRAVES: Well, you know, the studies that we’ve looked at—and we’ve looked at a huge range of them—show that overall the charter schools don’t perform better than the public schools, the traditional public schools. And, in fact, in the worst circumstances, the charter schools perform far worse. You also can see circumstances in which in the so-called virtual public schools, where the dropout rates are higher, the failure rates, in essence, are higher. And so, while people can point to examples here and there of success or innovations, the overall studies seem to indicate that we’re siphoning a lot of money out of our public school system to these charters, and some people are getting really rich off of it. Some of these for-profit corporations are making millions—in fact, hundreds of millions—of dollars out of our tax dollars, and turning around and spending that money to lobby for more tax dollars, and spending that money to advertise for more kids to come through these systems, even though they’ve had record after record after record of failure, in many instances, by these charter schools.
What we’ve also seen, in one of the biggest studies, was that more money goes to so-called administration in charter schools than to students directly. And that’s not a surprise when you see how these things are structured. Some of these charter schools basically outsource everything to the private sector. And then the private sector is not accountable to open records requests in Ohio, Indiana, other states, where people have tried to figure out where the money went. How much money went to executive pay, how much money went to these for-profit operations, you can’t even tell.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Lisa, I want to play for you a comment by Reed Hastings, who is the CEO of Netflix. He’s a supporter and an investor in the Rocketship Education charter school network. Last year, at a meeting of the California Charter Schools Association, he called for the abolition of local school boards. His speech was posted on YouTube. The audio is not great, but if you listen carefully, you can hear his words.
REED HASTINGS: And so, the fundamental problem with school districts is not their fault. The fundamental problem is they don’t get to control their board. And the importance of the charter school movement is to evolve America from a system where governance is constantly changing and you can’t do long-term planning, to a system of large nonprofits. Now, if we go to the general public and we say, "Here’s an argument why you should get rid of school boards," of course no one’s going to go for that. School boards have been an iconic part of America for 200 years. And so, what we have to do is to work with school districts to grow steadily. And the work ahead is really hard, because we’re at 8 percent of students in California, whereas in New Orleans they’re at 90 percent. So we have a lot of catch-up to do.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: That was Reed Hastings, the CEO of Netflix and a big supporter and investor in the charter school industry, last year at a meeting of the California Charter Schools Association. Lisa Graves, your reaction, and also this whole issue of the long-term goal of eliminating any kind of democratic process for parents and communities in their school boards?
LISA GRAVES: Well, if you listen closely to what he said, what he said was we need to abolish the school districts; we need to abolish the school boards, basically. School boards are really the only way that we have democratic control, direct democracy, over our schools. For ordinary public schools, if they want to build a new gym or a new stadium, they have to often go to taxpayers to get permission to expand the school system, to get taxes to expand. And also, people can elect who’s on that school board. What we see through charters and through the American Legislative Exchange Council’s agenda is an effort to circumvent local democratic control, to basically remove control of these schools, these charter schools, these often for-profit enterprises that are related to them, and that’s part of the design of them. When you look back at the history of this, what you see is the year after Brown v. Board of Education, when the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the schools had to desegregate, Milton Friedman, sort of the godfather of the right on the economics, someone who has fueled and supported the American Legislative Exchange Council before he passed away—Milton Friedman suggested that the solution to segregation was that there ought to be just purely private schools. They ought to abolish public schools, and people could choose all-white schools, all-colored schools and mixed schools.
AMY GOODMAN: Actually—
LISA GRAVES: And Milton Friedman, you know—
AMY GOODMAN: Actually, we have a clip of the late economist Milton Friedman back in 2006 talking about the public school system should be eliminated.
MILTON FRIEDMAN: How do we get from where we are to where we want to be, to a system in which parents control the education of their children? Of course, the ideal way would be to abolish the school—the public school system and eliminate all the taxes that pay for it. Then parents would have enough money to pay for private schools. But you’re not going to do that. And so, you have to ask: What are politically feasible ways of solving the problem? And the answer is, in my opinion, choice, that you have to change the way government money is directed. Instead of its being used to finance schools and buildings, you should decide how much money you’re willing to spend on each child, and give that money to the—provide that money in the form of a voucher to the parents of the children, so that the parents can choose a school that they regard as best for their child.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s the late Milton Friedman, the economist Milton Friedman, speaking in 2006. And behind him is the banner of ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council. So if you can talk about the significance of this, Lisa, and also, you referred to ALEC, but explain exactly its role in all of this, as well as the Koch brothers?
LISA GRAVES: So, you know, that was a speech to ALEC, as you point out. And what Milton Friedman was saying was basically the goal is to abolish the public schools. This is a radical, extreme goal, and it had been his goal since at least 1955. That goal has been joined by numerous billionaire families in this country, including the Koch brothers. When David Koch ran for vice president in 1980, one of his platforms was to abolish, privatize the public schools. You heard it in the last presidential cycle, in which the Republican candidates were competing for which agencies to abolish. They wanted to do abolish the Department of Education. I’ve heard Grover Norquist and others joke about the need to get rid of public education. This is part of that agenda. It’s also fueled by the DeVos family from the Amway fortune, by the Wal-Mart family, the Wal-Mart Foundation. All of them have basically wrapped their agenda in these words of "choice" that Milton Friedman suggested, that this is about choice, when, in fact, the agenda is hostile to the idea that there should be public schools. The radicals, basically, in the country, for a long time, including Fred Koch, who was David and Charles Koch’s father, believed that the idea of public schools was basically communist or socialist, which is really ridiculous. Public schools are one of the basic innovations of America that has made our country strong and great, to have universal public education for all kids.
But what we’ve seen through ALEC is this combination of ideological right-wingers and for-profit entities and their trade groups coming together to actually vote as equals, behind closed doors, with legislators from across the country in this effort to privatize our schools, through vouchers, through expanded charters, through charters with very few controls, charters exempted from state and federal regulations, charters exempted from local regulations, charters exempted from control by local school boards. What happens at ALEC Education Task Force meetings—and that task force has been co-chaired in the past by for-profit corporations that benefit from this agenda, as well as nonprofits that outsource money to for-profits—those task force meetings, unbelievably, legislators actually vote as equals on those model bills with these special interest groups, before those bills are introduced in our state houses and state legislatures across the country.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Lisa—
LISA GRAVES: And that’s one of the reasons why we work to expose ALEC.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Now, Lisa, I wanted to ask you, particularly, the mention of Friedman about having the money in the form of vouchers per child, rather than for schools itself. You’ve talked about how in Wisconsin and other states now, you’re getting online private schools. And we’re talking not just in colleges. We’re talking in—at public school levels, charging, getting the same per-child fee as a normal public school would get. Could you talk about that?
LISA GRAVES: Yes, one of the most amazing bills I read, after the whistleblower gave me the bills in 2011 that were approved through this corporate voting process of ALEC with legislators, was a bill called the Virtual Public Schools Act. It and other ALEC bills basically require that these so-called virtual schools, that would get vouchers or tax dollars, would be paid basically the same per-pupil amount as schools with bricks and mortar and air conditioning, blackboards, you know, lunch ladies, school buses, etc. The difference is profit. And so, you have a situation in which some of these vouchers are going to support operations that have far fewer costs, in part because some of these vouchers, at least in the virtual arena, are supporting schools or classrooms where there’s one teacher for 50, 60 or hundreds of students. And in some states, like Arizona, where they, through ALEC measures and related measures, have basically stripped down teacher certification rules so that you don’t have to have the traditional teacher certification, you can have uncertified teachers teaching, in so-called virtual classrooms, hundreds of students, getting thousands per pupil, and meanwhile, the corporations that are involved, like K12, are making millions of dollars. K12 has gone from a Wall Street firm that was created in part by the junk bond—Michael Milken, you know, his—that felon who was convicted for those junk bond schemes. He invested in K12. It’s gone from about $200 million in revenue to nearly a billion dollars in revenue. That’s almost entirely supported by federal and state tax dollars. And so, there’s enormous profit to be made through these vouchers.
AMY GOODMAN: Lisa, we have to leave it there. I thank you for being with us, executive director of the Center for Media and Democracy. And we will link to your report at democracynow.org. As well, Juan, we’ll link to your piece in the New York Daily News called "Feds Failed to Keep Tabs on $3 Billion in Aid Doled Out to Charter Schools."
Headlines:
Appeals Court Rules NSA Bulk Data Collection is Illegal
A federal appeals court has ruled the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of millions of Americans’ phone records is illegal. The program was exposed by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden; the ACLU filed its lawsuit based largely on Snowden’s revelations. In a unanimous decision Thursday, a three-judge panel of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York called the bulk phone records collection "unprecedented and unwarranted." The ruling comes as Congress faces a June 1 deadline to renew the part of the PATRIOT Act that authorizes the NSA’s bulk data surveillance. Another measure, the USA FREEDOM Act, would reform some of the NSA’s programs.
Justice Dept. Will Probe Baltimore Police
The Justice Department has confirmed it will investigate the Baltimore Police Department for a potential pattern of unconstitutional policing in the wake of the death of Freddie Gray. The move comes one day after a request for such a probe from Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake. Six officers were indicted for Gray’s death on Friday. Federal investigators are already looking into whether Gray’s civil rights were violated. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said the federal government has a responsibility to look into potential abuses.
Attorney General Loretta Lynch: "When there are allegations of wrongdoing made against individual officers and police departments, the Department of Justice has a responsibility to examine the evidence and, if necessary, to help them implement change."
Justice Department reviews of other police forces nationwide have led to consent decrees that mandate changes.
Nike Vows to Create U.S. Jobs If TPP Approved; Activists Protest Obama in Oregon
The footwear giant Nike has announced it will create 10,000 jobs in the United States if the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, or TPP, is approved. The 12-nation pact would encompass 40 percent of the global economy and is being negotiated in secret. Critics say the deal would hurt workers, undermine regulations and expand corporate power. But Nike says the agreement would allow it to invest in U.S.-based production. The announcement coincides with President Obama’s visit today to Nike headquarters in Oregon. Dozens of protesters rallied against the TPP at a fundraiser attended by Obama in Portland Thursday night. In a statement, the group Public Citizen said: "As Obama tries to sell a pact that many believe would lead to more U.S. job offshoring and lower wages, why would he honor a firm that has grown and profited not by creating U.S. jobs but by producing in offshore sweatshops with rock bottom wages and terrible labor conditions?"
Conservative Party Wins British Elections
Britain’s Conservative Party has won an unexpected victory in national elections, setting the stage for an overall majority in Parliament and a second term for Prime Minister David Cameron. Polls had expected a tight race with the Labour Party, but Conservatives scored a series of surprising wins. Labour’s Ed Milliband is widely expected to step down as the party’s leader. In Scotland, the Scottish National Party won a vast majority of seats after losing a referendum on independence from Britain last year.
Saudi Arabia Offers 5-Day Truce in Yemen
Saudi Arabia has proposed a five-day ceasefire in Yemen to allow for the delivery of desperately needed humanitarian aid. The Saudi kingdom says it will only comply if Houthi rebels also accept the pause. The Saudi-led bombing campaign has helped worsen a humanitarian crisis that has left large parts of the country in dire need. Speaking during a visit to Saudi Arabia, Secretary of State John Kerry welcomed the proposal.
Secretary of State John Kerry: "Today, we particularly welcome a new Saudi initiative to try to bring about a peaceful resolution through the announcement of their intent to establish a full five-day renewable ceasefire and humanitarian pause — no bombing, no shooting, no movement or repositioning of troops to achieve military advantage."
Houthi sources say they expect their side to accept the ceasefire. A new report from Human Rights Watch meanwhile says the Houthis may have committed war crimes in the deaths of two women and the kidnapping of aid workers in the besieged city of Aden.
Senate Approves Measure to Weigh In on Iran Nuclear Deal
The Senate has approved legislation that would give Congress a say in the final nuclear deal with Iran. The measure calls for a Senate review of a final agreement and a potential congressional vote on blocking the lifting sanctions. Democratic Senator Ben Cardin praised the bill as a step forward.
Sen. Ben Cardin: "We understand that this country is stronger when we can find a way to work together. And we did — the proper role for Congress in this process. And today we’re one step closer to getting this bill done, and I believe we’re closer to being able to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear weapons state. And we would like — our preference is to do that through the diplomatic means. And that is a much more likely result as a result of the action the United States Senate has taken today."
President Obama is expected to sign the bill if the House gives final approval. Obama withdrew his opposition last month in the face of a bipartisan rebuke.
U.S. Begins Training Program for Syrian Rebels
The U.S. has begun training Syrian rebel fighters as part of a program aimed at confronting the self-proclaimed Islamic State. A group of around 90 rebels are training at a base in Jordan, to be followed by similar efforts in Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced the move.
Defense Secretary Ashton Carter: "We’re announcing today that combat training has begun for a company-sized group from the new Syrian forces. This program is critical and a complex part of our counter-ISIL (Islamic State) efforts. We expect a second group to begin training in the next few weeks. They are being trained and equipped to fight ISIL. That is the purpose, and that is the basis upon which they’re being vetted and trained."
Fmr. Gitmo Prisoner Omar Khadr Freed on Bail in Canada
Omar Khadr, once the youngest prisoner held on terror charges at Guantánamo Bay, has been released on bail from a Canadian prison. The Toronto-born Khadr was detained in 2002 by U.S. forces in Afghanistan before being transferred to Guantánamo Bay at the age of 16. Khadr became the first person since World War II to be prosecuted in a war crimes tribunal for acts committed as a juvenile. After eight years at Guantánamo, he confessed in 2010 to throwing a grenade that killed an American soldier. His lawyers say his statements were illegally obtained through torture and cruelty. As part of a plea deal, the United States later allowed his transfer back to Canada. On Thursday, Khadr briefly spoke with reporters after his release.
Omar Khadr: "I would like to thank the Canadian public for trusting me and giving me a chance. It might be some time, but I will prove to them that I am more than what they thought of me. And I’ll prove to them that I’m a good person."
Reporter: "Omar, what do you what the American people to know about you? Do you have any message for the United States?"
Omar Khadr: "Well, I can just say I’m sorry for the pain I might cause the families of the victims. And there’s nothing I can do about the past, but I hope that the future can — I can do something about the future."
Khadr will remain free while he appeals his war crimes convictions in the United States.
Atmospheric Concentration of CO2 Tops 400 ppm for Longest Period on Record
The global level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has topped 400 parts per million for the longest time in recorded history. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says the grim milestone was reached on average for the entire month of March. The 400 parts per million threshold has been an important marker in U.N. climate change negotiations, widely recognized as a dangerous level that could drastically worsen human-caused global warming. The environmentalist group 350.org takes its name after the 350 parts per million threshold that scientists say is the maximum atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide for a safe planet.
House Panel Votes to Slash Funding for Climate Science
The news comes as the Republican-controlled House Science Committee has voted to cut over $320 million in funding for the study of climate change. The money would come out of the budget for NASA’s Earth science research.
NY Gov. Cuomo Unveils Push for Higher Fast-Food Wages
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has formally unveiled his effort to raise the pay of the state’s fast-food workers. On Thursday, Cuomo said he will ask the state labor commissioner to convene a panel on increasing the fast-food industry’s minimum wage. Cuomo said taxpayers are subsidizing the industry’s low wages through public assistance to its workers.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo: "I announce today, as the governor of the state of New York, that I want to get out of the hamburger business. I don’t want the taxpayers of New York subsidizing the profits of McDonald’s anymore, and this has to end. I think the fast-food industry should live up to the spirit of the law and pay a minimum wage that is truly a minimum wage and a livable wage. I think their situation is a fraud. I think their profits are based on unpaid wages and unpaid employee expenses and costs that have been improperly transferred to government. And if the Republican Senate doesn’t want to hear it, then I will use the power I have."
The panel’s findings are expected in three months. Cuomo’s announcement comes just weeks after thousands of fast-food workers staged a national protest calling for a $15 minimum wage, their largest such action to date.
Chelsea Manning Proposes Whistleblower, Media Protection Bill
And the jailed Army Private Chelsea Manning has proposed legislation that would help future whistleblowers follow in her footsteps. The National Integrity and Free Speech Protection Act would amend several laws, including the Freedom of Information Act and Espionage Act, to help protect journalists and their sources. Manning is serving a 35-year sentence for leaking U.S. government cables to WikiLeaks.
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