democracynow.org
Stories:
Meet the Whistleblower Who Exposed the Secret Room AT&T Used to Help the NSA Spy on the Internet
As documents from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden expose how AT&T aided the NSA’s vast spying operations, we speak to former AT&T technician Mark Klein, who worked at the company for 22 years. In 2006, he blew the whistle on AT&T’s cooperation with the National Security Agency by leaking internal documents that revealed the company had set up a secret room in its San Francisco office to give the NSA access to its fiber-optic Internet cables.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We are also joined by Mark Klein, a technician with AT&T for 22 years, who in 2006 blew the whistle on AT&T’s cooperation with the National Security Agency. He’s also author of Wiring Up the Big Brother Machine...And Fighting It. Mark, with these revelations, what do you think is most—well, most surprised you and is most important for us to understand?
MARK KLEIN: Well, of course, I feel very vindicated, and the documents reveal what I was saying back in 2003—well, actually, I came forward in 2006, but what I discovered in 2003 was that they were tying into the main Internet data stream. So these documents confirm that. There’s actually a paragraph in there that talks about, in September 2003, the NSA went live on the Internet because of the installations at AT&T. And so, I was right about that. They tried to dismiss me back then, because I didn’t work for the NSA.
I was a little surprised I didn’t know about that the program with AT&T went back to 1985, which is mentioned in The New York Times article. I’m not sure what that’s about. But I assume that might be phone calls, because there wasn’t very much Internet back in 1985. But it indicates the very close, friendly relationship between AT&T and the NSA.
AMY GOODMAN: Mark, can you go back? I mean, we talked to you, what—when was it? In 2008 on Democracy Now!
MARK KLEIN: Right.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you go back and talk about how you found what you found? What exactly was your job at AT&T?
MARK KLEIN: Well, I was a communications technician. I took care of the data lines and the equipment in central office. And in late 2002, we heard there was an installation going in at a nearby office, which turned out was an NSA installation, because the NSA actually showed up at my office to interview the one guy who was not one of us, not one of the union technicians. Only that one guy, who was NSA-cleared, could work in this room. So that told us right there that this was an NSA installation. And the following year, in 2003, I was transferred to that office, 611 Folsom Street. And I was in charge of the Internet room. So, I hadn’t—as part of my job, I got hold of engineering documents to show what they were doing. And I actually had to hook up fiber-optic cables to a cabinet, which were connected down to the secret room. And the documents I got hold of showed very clearly that they were blindly sweeping up everything going across those key Internet peering links, they’re called, which connected AT&T’s network to other companies, like Qwest and what have you. So they were sweep—
AMY GOODMAN: So they were all collaborating, this idea of peering?
MARK KLEIN: Peering is when you connect different networks together. That’s how you get the Internet, basically. So, that meant that they were sweeping up everybody’s communications, not just AT&T customers, but any—anybody or other companies who were not aware of this arrangement back then. They were sweeping up all that stuff, without any selection, because the apparatus they were using to sweep it up with had no intelligence. It was just a blind sweep of everything, which told me right then and there that was unconstitutional.
AMY GOODMAN: And so, what did you do?
MARK KLEIN: Well, at that moment, I did nothing, because I was too scared, and I didn’t know if I could find anyone to believe me, because who was I? I didn’t work for the NSA; I worked for AT&T. All I had were these engineering documents, which showed an intrusion into the AT&T network by somebody. But I came forward later, after I retired.
AMY GOODMAN: And how did you release the information?
MARK KLEIN: Well, I retired in 2004, and then, after The New York Times came out with a revelation article in December 2005 revealing that this kind of collaboration with the phone companies was going on for surveillance, I came forward in 2006, went to the Electronic Frontier Foundation with my documents. And I wanted to point out, because the government line at that time was they’re just looking at foreign-to-foreign communications or domestic-to-foreign communications; they’re not looking at the domestic population, their privacy is safe. But I knew from the apparatus they were using, they were sweeping up domestic-to-domestic communications. It was obvious from the way it was set up. So I went to the EFF. They filed a lawsuit against AT&T in March 2006. And then we had a big fight for several years after that.
AMY GOODMAN: Jeff Larson, is this a violation of the Constitution?
JEFF LARSON: Well, so what’s weird about the documents that we published is that AT&T is doing the filtering on behalf of the NSA. The telecoms, as part of an act passed in 2008 in response to the article that Mark Klein is talking about, got an exemption. But that doesn’t seem—but that still—the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution against unreasonable search and seizure still seems to apply to the NSA. In fact, in one court case, at the end of the court case, the government shut down—it was Clapper v. the NSA—I mean, the Clapper court case. They denied standing to the defendants—I mean, to the plaintiffs, by saying that even if there was a Fourth Amendment violation, it would only happen on the order of milliseconds, and it would be such a minor infraction against the Fourth Amendment that possible intelligence value would outweigh Fourth Amendment concerns.
AMY GOODMAN: Clearly, this is an issue people care about in this country. I wanted to turn to the first Republican primary debate that took place earlier this month. Presidential hopefuls New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Kentucky Senator Rand Paul got into a heated argument over NSA domestic surveillance.
SEN. RAND PAUL: And I’m proud of standing for the Bill of Rights, and I will continue to stand for the Bill of Rights.
GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE: And—and, Megyn? Megyn, that’s a—that, you know, that’s a completely ridiculous answer: "I want to collect more records from terrorists, but less records from other people." How are you supposed to know, Megyn?
SEN. RAND PAUL: Use the Fourth Amendment!
GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE: What are you supposed to—
SEN. RAND PAUL: Use the Fourth Amendment!
GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE: How are you supposed to—no, I’ll tell you how you—
SEN. RAND PAUL: Get a warrant!
GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE: Look, let me tell you something. You go—
SEN. RAND PAUL: Get a judge to sign the warrant.
GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE: When you—
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Chris Christie versus Rand Paul. Mark Klein, first, your response?
MARK KLEIN: Well, of course, you should get a warrant. They could have done that back then. They could have gone—used the FISA law. But George Bush simply disregarded the FISA law and approved it all on his own signature, which was totally illegal. So, you know, I might add that while there are a few dissidents in both parties, like Rand Paul in the Republican side and Ron Wyden on the Democratic side, both parties—the real political crime here is that both parties approved this when they passed the immunity bill for the phone companies in 2008, with the help of Barack Obama, I might add, and that killed the lawsuit.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, I mean, that’s a very significant moment. I remember back then, this was right before that—it was, I think, in December of 2007 that Barack Obama had said that he would not, as senator, be approving retroactive immunity for the phone companies. Then he turned around. He not only supported it, he voted for it. We went to the Democratic convention in Denver, and everyone got those schwag bags, and right on the cover—right on the bags, it said "AT&T" on both sides, and one of the first major parties was a huge thank-you party for AT&T. Jeff Larson?
JEFF LARSON: Well, I wasn’t at the Democratic National Convention. But I do want to say, you know, they do get warrants—there is an apparatus for them to get—you know, they call them certifications, so they have a bunch of certifications, foreign government certifications. They also get warrants under the 215 program for purely domestic communications. But we don’t know the size of these warrants. They seem very, very bulky. It’s hard to—it’s hard to imagine that millions of emails, everybody gets a warrant for every single one of those millions of emails. And in the past we have seen that these certifications are particularly bulky.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go to former Florida governor, Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush, who has been calling for the reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act, saying there’s no proof the metadata program violates civil liberties. This is Bush speaking to Face the Nation earlier this summer.
JEB BUSH: There’s no evidence, not a shred of evidence, that the metadata program has violated anybody’s civil liberties. The first duty of our national government is to protect the homeland, and this has been an effective tool, along with many others. And the PATRIOT Act ought to be reauthorized, as is.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Jeb Bush speaking earlier this summer. Jeff Larson?
JEFF LARSON: Well, I also want to point out that, going back to my previous point about warrants, that the 215 orders are particularly bulky, in that they’re every domestic phone call. Right? And what happened was, when this first came out, there was a Verizon order that was released in 2013, and the federal government said that this was largely landline. Part of the news in our story that we published was that AT&T is also handing over cellphone records, so who you call and what time you made those calls. And that’s an example of this sort of really bulky type of warrant that they’re able to get from the secret intelligence court.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go to President Obama, to President Obama addressing the issue of the USA FREEDOM Act that was passed earlier this summer that requires the NSA to get a warrant in order to obtain records from phone companies. Obama was speaking earlier this summer, explaining what the act will succeed in doing.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: The USA FREEDOM Act also accomplishes something I called for a year and a half ago: It ends the bulk metadata program, the bulk collection of phone records, as it currently exists and puts in place new reforms. The government will no longer hold these records; telephone providers will. The act also includes other changes to our surveillance laws, including more transparency, to help build confidence among the American people that your privacy and civil liberties are being protected.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s President Obama, Jeff Larson. So, he’s saying, "Don’t worry. We won’t hold your information. Companies like AT&T will."
JEFF LARSON: So, what’s also—so, what’s also surprising about these new documents is that AT&T is already doing the filtering for the 702 program, which is Internet. So, the bulk records, they’re just moving bulk records from NSA-controlled full dump of every bulk record back to AT&T. But they already have this relationship with these—with telecom companies, who are doing, in essence, the filtering and the selecting on behalf of the NSA. So, it’s sort of a weird law, under these revelations, because half of the NSA’s programs, the bulkier part, is already done, already operated under that manner.
AMY GOODMAN: Is there a difference between the telephone companies and the NSA?
JEFF LARSON: You know, I don’t know. The NSA, I think, sees the telecom companies as an important intelligence tool, but the telecom companies also have a very long history of complying with the NSA. Right? So, since 1985, we’re talking about a program that has lasted for decades. So it sort of seems like they’re busy.
AMY GOODMAN: So I want to go back to that AT&T quote that they gave us when we asked them to come on the show: "We do not provide information to any investigating authorities without a court order or other mandatory process other than if a person’s life is in danger and time is of the essence. For example, in a kidnapping situation we could provide help tracking down called numbers to assist law enforcement." Are they lying?
JEFF LARSON: I don’t know. It’s hard to—it’s hard to say. Again, the secret court orders are secret, right? We don’t know what sorts of court orders they got. But it’s at odds with the documents, especially when the NSA’s own language is "extreme willingness to help," "highly collaborative," "really important partner."
AMY GOODMAN: And, Mark Klein, when President Obama says, "Don’t worry. The reauthorization of the USA PATRIOT Act means the companies like yours, that you worked for, AT&T, will hold the information, not us"?
MARK KLEIN: Well, you should worry. They’re storing everything they collect, and they collect everything that they can get their hands on, as the NSA documents reveal. There’s no need for that. They should rip out the secret rooms. If they have some individual that they suspect, they can get a warrant for that individual, but they don’t have to collect billions and billions of communications, which is what they’re doing. That’s all too tempting for the government to use when they want to go after someone. And by the way, they didn’t stop a lot of attacks that happened. They had all this in place, and they didn’t stop the Boston bombing, for instance, even though they knew the perpetrators beforehand. So, this is all just an excuse to collect information on everybody, as far as I’m concerned.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you both for being with us. We’ll continue to follow this story. Mark Klein, AT&T whistleblower, and Jeff Larson of ProPublica. And, of course, we’ll link to the major piece done in The New York Times, "AT&T Helped U.S. Spy on Internet on a Vast Scale."
This is Democracy Now! We’ll be back in a minute with an update on Chelsea Manning. Stay with us.
Snowden Documents Reveal AT&T's "Extreme Willingness to Help" NSA Domestic Spy Program
Documents from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden have exposed how extensively the NSA relied on telecommunications giant AT&T for its vast spying operations. Records described by The New York Times and ProPublica laud AT&T’s "extreme willingness to help" the NSA’s spying efforts. According to the piece, the company supplied access to billions of emails flowing across its domestic networks and technical aid in carrying out a secret order allowing the wiretapping of all Internet communications at the headquarters of the United Nations — an AT&T customer. In 2013, the NSA’s top-secret budget for its partnership with AT&T was reportedly more than twice that of the next largest such program.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Documents from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden have exposed how extensively the NSA relied on telecommunications giant AT&T for its vast spying operations. Records described by The New York Times and ProPublica laud AT&T’s "extreme willingness to help" the NSA’s spying efforts. According to the piece, the company supplied access to billions of emails flowing across its domestic networks and technical aid in carrying out a secret order allowing the wiretapping of all Internet communications at the headquarters of the United Nations—an AT&T customer. In 2013, the NSA’s top-secret budget for its partnership with AT&T was reportedly more than twice that of the next largest program.
Democracy Now! asked an AT&T representative to join us on the program, but they declined. An AT&T spokesperson sent us a note saying, quote, "We do not provide information to any investigating authorities without a court order or other mandatory process other than if a person’s life is in danger and time is of the essence. For example, in a kidnapping situation we could provide help tracking down called numbers to assist law enforcement," unquote.
Well, to talk more about the significance of these latest revelations, we’re joined by two guests. In San Francisco, Mark Klein is with us, a technician with AT&T for 22 years. In 2006, he blew the whistle on AT&T’s cooperation with the National Security Agency by leaking internal documents that revealed the company had set up a secret room in its San Francisco office to give the NSA access to its fiber-optic Internet cables. Here in New York, we’re joined by Jeff Larson, data editor at ProPublica. He co-authored the New York Times/ProPublica piece headlined "AT&T Helped U.S. Spy on Internet on a Vast Scale."
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Jeff, let’s start with you. Explain what you found in the Snowden documents.
JEFF LARSON: So what we found is we found a partnership between AT&T and NSA that was extremely close, highly collaborative, and characterized by the partner AT&T’s extreme willingness to help.
AMY GOODMAN: So, go further into that. What exactly did you find?
JEFF LARSON: So, basically, we found that—through a bit of sleuthing, we found that AT&T provides the NSA with access to at least 17 of its Internet access hubs on U.S. soil. So that includes things like cable landings, where transoceanic cables come out of the ocean, to different facilities within the United States. And they provide the NSA with large amounts of data, not only foreign-to-foreign, but also foreign-to-domestic and purely domestic data including cellphone records.
AMY GOODMAN: Explain why U.S. companies and the cables that they lay are so significant all over the world. It’s not just a U.S. operation.
JEFF LARSON: Right, exactly. So, the Internet is largely operated through the U.S., right? It was originally the ARPANET, right? So it’s all of the infrastructures in the U.S. So, an email that maybe is going from France to Germany has a good chance of traversing the United States. And this is where AT&T comes in. AT&T operates—is a tier-1 provider, operates the big fat pipes that make up the Internet. And what AT&T gave the NSA was access to what they call their "Common Backbone," which was in—was part of the Mark Klein declaration.
AMY GOODMAN: And why single out AT&T? What do the documents show?
JEFF LARSON: So, it shows that the Fairview partnership, which is the codename between—for the partnership between the NSA and AT&T, is much larger than the second-largest program, which is Stormbrew, which includes Verizon. So that only has a handful of access points. What we see in the Fairview documents is we see this extreme willingness to help. We see them handing over, you know, internal plans for the United Nations’ network. We see them—they’re often the first ones to boot up new spying capabilities for the NSA. And also, in some cases, they even check the work for Stormbrew, which includes Verizon.
AMY GOODMAN: And Fairview, they’re using a codename?
JEFF LARSON: Yeah, that’s a codename.
AMY GOODMAN: This is NSA, is using a codename?
JEFF LARSON: Yes, this is NSA’s codename for the relationship between AT&T and the NSA.
AMY GOODMAN: So, how did you figure it out? How do you know? Did they ever say directly AT&T?
JEFF LARSON: They never said directly AT&T in the documents. We were able to work back from a number of highly technical, jargony words and acronyms to the fact that those acronyms are only used at AT&T. We also were able to correlate real-world events, like a fiber-optic cable going down during the Japanese earthquake, to the fact that AT&T operates those facilities. In Verizon’s case, for Stormbrew, we were able to look at FCC records to confirm that Verizon operates those particular undersea cables.
AMY GOODMAN: Are they still doing it?
JEFF LARSON: It’s hard to tell. The documents cover the period from 2003 to 2013. And after 2013, with the Snowden revelations, we know a couple things have changed. So there was the USA FREEDOM Act, which, in November, will put an end to the bulk calling records, like the cellphone records. We don’t know if it’s continuing apace as it was in 2013, but it stands to reason that such a massive apparatus wouldn’t just be turned off overnight.
AMY GOODMAN: And talk about the kind of wording. You refer to directions of how NSA, government workers should go into AT&T plants or facilities.
JEFF LARSON: Right. So what characterizes the Fairview program is that it’s a collaboration. They call it a collaboration. They remind NSA employees that if they are going into AT&T facilities, to be mindful of the fact that this is a contractual relationship, not—I mean, this is not a contractual relationship, this is a partnership. Right? So it’s a partnership between AT&T and NSA. In the U.N. case, again, they’re working hand in hand to decode data, to help NSA enable spying of them.
AMY GOODMAN: So let’s talk about the United Nations. Where does it fit into this picture?
JEFF LARSON: So, the NSA got a court order to basically spy on every bit of traffic going through the United Nations. The NSA engineers had a little bit of trouble decoding that data, so AT&T engineers helped, worked in concert with NSA engineers to decode that data. And it’s a large amount of data. It’s basically everything, a full-take access to everything flying around the United Nations.
AMY GOODMAN: Who gave this order?
JEFF LARSON: It’s unclear from the documents. They got a court order. I would assume that it’s the—like all things court order-related when you’re talking about the NSA, it’s the secret intelligence court, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which only hears the government’s arguments, and all of their court decisions are secret.
AMY GOODMAN: So, AT&T is helping the NSA spy on every person in the U.N. headquarters, reading email. How far does it go? Listening in on phone conversations?
JEFF LARSON: It had come out before that they’re also looking at the video conference systems at the United Nations. In 2013, Barack Obama did publicly announce that he would stop spying on the United Nations. We don’t know—like everything else, because the documents end at 2013, we don’t know whether or not that actually happened.
Obama Gives Shell Final Approval to Drill in Arctic Despite Protests & Pledge to Cut Emissions
The Obama administration has granted Royal Dutch Shell final approval to resume drilling for oil and gas in the Arctic Ocean for the first time since 2012 despite widespread protests from environmental groups. Shell first obtained drilling permits in the Arctic during the George W. Bush administration, but drilling stopped in 2012 after a series of mishaps. The Interior Department’s decision comes just weeks after a protest in Portland, Oregon, temporarily blocked an Arctic-bound rig of Shell’s from leaving the city after a group of activists from Greenpeace dangled off a bridge, blocking the ship’s movement while "kayaktivists" took to the water below. A coalition of environmental groups have pushed the Obama administration to say no to Arctic drilling, citing the dangers of a possible oil spill in the pristine region and the impact new oil extraction would have on the climate. The Interior Department approved the Arctic drilling ahead of President Obama’s upcoming trip to the Arctic later this month. He mentioned the trip during his recent speech unveiling plan to slash carbon emissions from U.S. power plants.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: The Obama administration has granted Royal Dutch Shell final approval to resume drilling for oil and gas in the Arctic Ocean for the first time since 2012 despite widespread protests from environmental groups. Shell first obtained drilling permits in the Arctic during the George W. Bush administration, but drilling stopped in 2012 after a series of mishaps.
The Interior Department’s decision comes just weeks after a protest in Portland, Oregon, temporarily blocked an Arctic-bound rig of Shell’s from leaving the city after a group of activists from Greenpeace dangled off a bridge, blocking the ship’s movement while "kayaktivists" took to the water below. A coalition of environmental groups have pushed the Obama administration to say no to Arctic drilling, citing the dangers of a possible oil spill in the pristine region and the impact new oil extraction would have on the climate.
The Interior Department approved the Arctic drilling ahead of President Obama’s upcoming trip to the Arctic later this month. He mentioned the trip during his recent speech unveiling his plan to slash carbon emissions from U.S. power plants.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: I’ll also be the first American president to visit the Alaskan Arctic, where our fellow Americans have already seen their communities devastated by melting ice and rising oceans, the impact on marine life. We’re going to talk about what the world needs to do together to prevent the worst impacts of climate change before it’s too late.
AMY GOODMAN: Joining us from Washington, D.C., is Athan Manuel, director of Sierra Club’s Lands Protection Program.
Athan, welcome to Democracy Now!
ATHAN MANUEL: Thanks for having me.
AMY GOODMAN: So, the Obama administration has given approval for drilling in the Arctic yesterday. Can you talk about the Sierra Club’s response?
ATHAN MANUEL: Well, we’re very disappointed. As you said in the lead-in, this president really gets it on climate change, talks about climate change all the time and talks about it in his trip to Alaska. This is just a very bad decision. You know, Shell is not a very clean company. They have a history of mishaps and problems with drilling anywhere in the United States—anywhere in the world, but especially in an area as challenging as the Arctic Ocean. And as you mentioned, this is not going to make our climate any better. If we’re serious about fighting climate change—and this president seems like he is serious about fighting it—we know we need to keep dirty fuels, like oil and gas and coal, underground where they belong. And so, this is really a disappointing decision, one we can’t figure out, one that’s not consistent with what this president has done in other realms around climate change.
AMY GOODMAN: So, can you talk about what this drilling could mean and when exactly it will take place? There’s a very small window, is that right?
ATHAN MANUEL: Yeah, it’s a very short drilling season. And this is just a really cynical issue, because the only reason that Shell can even consider drilling in the Arctic Ocean is climate change, you know, now that it’s getting warmer in the Arctic, the ice is breaking up, and in the summer the ice breaks up enough where companies can operate boats and put up temporary drilling rigs. So it’s a very—but still, it’s a very short drilling season. They have permits to drill in August, September. They have to end in August, when it starts getting colder again, cold enough to freeze up the entire ocean. So it’s a very narrow window that they have to operate in.
But the problems are that it’s just a very dangerous place to drill. The oil is—there’s still ice that tumbles through the water. There’s no onshore facilities where you can stage cleanup equipment, unlike the Gulf of Mexico where there’s lots of ports, lots of people, lots of boats. None of that exists on the North Slope of Alaska. There are no ports on the North Slope of Alaska. So it’s just not—there’s no infrastructure to clean up a spill. But if a spill happens, there’s almost no way to clean it up. You see that anywhere in the world, but you’ll see that even worse in the Arctic Ocean.
AMY GOODMAN: Why has the Obama administration given approval to Shell?
ATHAN MANUEL: Well, we can’t really figure that out. There’s no logical reason why this kind of president, one who cares about climate, one who inherited this problem from a Republican president, wouldn’t step in and say this is a terrible idea. It’s bad for our climate. It’s bad for the ecosystem there. It’s bad for marine mammals and fish. It’s bad for Alaskan natives who depend on the Arctic Ocean for their way of life and for subsistence. So it’s really a head scratcher. We can’t understand it. It’s completely inconsistent with what he’s done recently, when you look at the clean power plant rule, when you look—you talked about the methane regs that are going to come out today. This president has clearly attacked climate change and has made it a signature issue of his. And this decision to just not reconsider Shell’s drilling record and not consider how this drilling would impact the climate negatively really makes no sense. We can’t figure it out.
AMY GOODMAN: Athan—
ATHAN MANUEL: We’re not going to stop pushing him, though, on this issue, and it’s going to be a priority for Sierra Club and Greenpeace and other groups going forward.
AMY GOODMAN: The Interior Department, not Greenpeace of Sierra Club, said there is a 75 percent chance of one or more large spills since Shell begins drilling.
ATHAN MANUEL: Yeah, yeah. I mean, the agency that regulates drilling says there’s going to be a spill if they allow drilling there. So, no, none of it adds up. It makes absolutely no sense. This is really a huge mistake by the Obama administration to allow Shell to operate there, knowing what we know about the risks of operating in an area like the Arctic Ocean, which is very dangerous and very remote.
AMY GOODMAN: So what’s the next step for the Sierra Club, Athan?
ATHAN MANUEL: Well, the one thing is, this is just a first step in Shell developing this field. You know, they probably want to put—do two more rounds, two more years of exploratory drilling, before they even consider putting a permanent platform there. So we’re going to fight them every step of the way. I think you’re going to continue to see more protests like you saw in Portland, but see those all around the country, all around the world, really, as this issue gets more and more high-profile. And we’re going to continue to fight them in the courts using laws like the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act. This is a long road that we’re going to continue to fight every step of the way to prohibit Shell from putting up any production platforms that industrializes the Arctic Ocean.
AMY GOODMAN: What are the positions of the presidential candidates?
ATHAN MANUEL: Well, we have a—we’re in luck there that, at least on the Democratic side, every candidate running for office, from Senator Clinton to—I mean, Secretary Clinton to Senator Sanders to Governor O’Malley to Governor Chafee, all those folks oppose drilling in the Arctic Ocean, and many of them have all voted to oppose drilling in the Arctic Refuge when they were in the Senate. So, hopefully, the next president will overturn this decision and put a stop to this very, very bad idea that would really damage one of the last pristine places left in the United States.
AMY GOODMAN: And the significance of President Obama’s trip?
ATHAN MANUEL: Well, it kind of—well, you know, it’s going to be all about climate. And obviously in Paris, he’s going to go there touting issues like the clean power plant rule and the fact that we’re moving—that we’re reducing emissions here in the United States. But I think this issue—he would have had a stronger position going to Paris, if he had said, "We are not going to drill in the Arctic Ocean." I mean, one of the problems we’re seeing is that other countries—Russia, Canada, Norway, Great Britain—they want to drill for oil in the Arctic Ocean also. And we were hoping that the U.S. would lead the world in showing the world how we’re supposed to respect our Arctic, not drill for oil there, and keep this area off-limits from any kind of drilling.
AMY GOODMAN: I actually mean the trip he’s going to take to the Arctic—
ATHAN MANUEL: Oh, the Arctic, yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: —where he’ll be the first U.S. president who will be doing this.
ATHAN MANUEL: Well, I think he’s going to be confronted by a lot of questions about—if you really care about climate and care about protecting Alaska’s North Slope from the impacts of climate change, why are you allowing drilling in the Arctic Ocean? The Alaska natives who live in that area above the Arctic Circle understand the impacts of climate change on their villages and on their way of life. And most of those folks oppose drilling in the Arctic Ocean, for all of the reasons we do, as well. So, he’s going to be confronted with that contradiction when he goes up there at the end of this month.
AMY GOODMAN: Athan Manuel, I want to thank you for being with us.
ATHAN MANUEL: Sure.
AMY GOODMAN: Director of the Sierra Club’s Lands Protection Program. Of course, we’ll continue to follow this issue, and we will be in Paris at the end of the year for the COP summit, the Conference of Parties, the binding meeting that will take place of all—many of the countries, most of the countries, of the world, the U.N. climate summit.
This is Democracy Now! When we come back, who is listening? Who is watching? Who is reading your email? And what does AT&T have to do with it? Stay with us.
As Chelsea Manning Speaks Out on Trans and Prison Issues, Authorities Threaten Her with Solitary
Imprisoned Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning is scheduled to go before a closed-door disciplinary hearing today at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where she is serving a 35-year sentence for leaking U.S. government cables to WikiLeaks. Manning’s lawyers say she could be sent back to indefinite solitary confinement after being accused of a number of infractions including having an expired tube of toothpaste, an issue of Vanity Fair in which transgender celebrity Caitlyn Jenner describes her new life living openly as a woman, a copy of the U.S. Senate report on torture, several LGBT books and magazines and other "prohibited property" in her cell. Supporters of Manning are planning to deliver a petition today to the Army Liaison Office on Capitol Hill signed by more than 75,000 people calling on the U.S. military to drop the new charges and demanding that her disciplinary hearing be open to the press and the public. We speak to Chase Strangio, staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union and a member of Manning’s legal team.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to the latest on imprisoned Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning. Chelsea Manning is scheduled to go before a closed-door disciplinary hearing today at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where she’s serving a 35-year sentence for leaking U.S. government cables to WikiLeaks. Manning’s lawyers say she could be sent back to indefinite solitary confinement after being accused of a number of infractions, including have an expired tube of toothpaste, an issue of Vanity Fair in which transgender celebrity Caitlyn Jenner describes her new life living openly as a woman, a copy of the U.S. Senate report on torture, several LGBT books and magazines and other so-called prohibited property in her cell.
Chelsea Manning has been denied the right to be represented by an attorney at the hearing. In her most recent tweet, Chelsea wrote, quote, "Prison staff are now denying me access to the law library at scheduled times—with only two days until my board," unquote. Supporters of Manning are planning to deliver a petition today to the Army Liaison Office on Capitol Hill signed by more than 75,000 people calling on the U.S. military to drop the new charges and demand[ing] her disciplinary hearing be open to the press and public.
Well, we’re joined right now in New York by one of Chelsea Manning’s attorneys. Chase Strangio is a staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union. Last year, the ACLU filed a lawsuit on behalf of Manning to force the military to provide her medical treatment for her gender dysphoria and be provided hormones therapy and permission to follow female grooming standards.
Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Chase.
CHASE STRANGIO: Thank you for having me.
AMY GOODMAN: So, explain what’s happening.
CHASE STRANGIO: So, first, I just—I want to thank you for highlighting this issue, because it is only through public scrutiny that we’re going to be able to ensure that the government doesn’t continue to abuse Chelsea Manning and people like her who are sent into solitary confinement and who endure horrible conditions.
So, today, Chelsea will go before this disciplinary board, in which she’s not going to be represented by an attorney. She will face a possible indefinite solitary confinement, as well as other possible punishments that would severely limit her ability to engage with the public, possibly losing these publications altogether and other materials that allow her to have the public voice that she has. So there’s a lot of reason to be concerned about what’s happening to her right now.
AMY GOODMAN: Explain the Caitlyn Jenner Vanity Fair issue in her cell—that they say she could face indefinite solitary confinement for?
CHASE STRANGIO: So, obviously, the Caitlyn Jenner issue came in lawfully. It wasn’t smuggled in by Chelsea, and they’re not claiming that it was. There are some allegations in the disciplinary report that it somehow was altered from its original state, that it was used—of course, anything that one possesses would be used. I think this just highlights the extent to which prisons, in general, and the military prison, in this case, really use arbitrary disciplinary infractions to threaten people with things like solitary confinement.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the timing of this? I mean, Chelsea has just started tweeting. She now is writing a column in The Guardian.
CHASE STRANGIO: Yeah, so this—I mean, I think a number of things are happening right now. After five years of confinement, Chelsea really is leveraging her voice, and she’s become an important commentator on issues of government transparency, media access to prisoners, and, of course, transgender rights. And here we are, as her voice is being solidified in the public discourse, having the threat that she’s going to have that voice shut down, whether through solitary confinement or other means to take away the materials that she uses to inform her political and her public voice.
AMY GOODMAN: So explain this hearing today.
CHASE STRANGIO: So, you know, unfortunately, so many aspects of this are unknown. And as her attorneys, we have not been given a lot of information about it, nor has Chelsea. It is a closed-door hearing. She is not entitled to have counsel. The charges against her include the misuse of medication for the expired toothpaste.
AMY GOODMAN: Now, explain. I mean, how many people are thinking now, "I haven’t checked the expiration date on my toothpaste"?
CHASE STRANGIO: Right. I mean, a lot of people didn’t know toothpaste could expire. I mean—
AMY GOODMAN: But isn’t she getting it from inside the prison?
CHASE STRANGIO: She is, and she’s getting all of these things lawfully. So I think it’s just an example of the way in which prison rules can be used to punish and silence people when the government doesn’t want their voice to be heard. And, of course, Chelsea Manning is one of, you know, tens of thousands of prisoners subjected to arbitrary rules, in which they can be sent to solitary confinement for things like praying in a group of three, for singing "Happy Birthday." And we hear these things all the time. And with Chelsea, because her voice is so important, because we need to highlight the issues of government transparency and transgender rights, we should be particularly concerned that this is an effort to silence that voice that is so important.
AMY GOODMAN: So, let’s talk about the full list of books and magazines that were taken from Chelsea and not returned. You had the Vanity Fair issue that highlights Caitlyn Jenner on the cover, Advocate, Out magazine, Cosmopolitan issue with Chelsea herself. You’ve got Transgender Studies Quarterly; a novel about trans issues, A Safe Girl to Love; the book Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of Anonymous; the book I am Malala; five books by Robert Dorkin; legal documents including the Senate torture report; and the book Hidden Qualities That Make Us Influential.
CHASE STRANGIO: Yeah. So, I mean, one thing to point out that isn’t clear from the document list itself is that other materials were also taken, but they were returned and not deemed prohibited, even though they were in the same condition as those documents were. So, I think it is particularly concerning that the Senate report on torture and all of these trans publications were the things that were deemed prohibited. You know, those are the things that she’s been using to publish her tweets and publish her Guardian columns, to inform her voice.
AMY GOODMAN: What’s the latest on your ACLU lawsuit?
CHASE STRANGIO: Right now we are still awaiting word from the government whether or not they’re willing to let Chelsea Manning grow her hair. Right now she is still forced to maintain male grooming standards with respect to her hair. We were successful in getting her access to hormones, which has been hugely important to her, and it was a plain violation of the Constitution that they were denying her that. But the fight is still ongoing. And the fact that they’re forcing her to essentially shave her head regularly, in accordance with the male grooming standards, is something that is greatly upsetting to her, and that fight will continue and will pick up in the fall, as will her continued effort to fight for her freedom through her appeal of her court-martial convictions.
"A State of Emergency": At Least 17 Transgender Women Have Been Murdered This Year
The murder of Tamara Dominguez on Saturday in Kansas City, Missouri, marked at least the 17th murder of a transgender woman so far this year. Dominguez was repeatedly run over in a church parking lot. Her death follows the recent murders of a number of African-American transgender women, including Elisha Walker, found in a "crude grave" in North Carolina; Shade Schuler, whose decomposed body was found in a Dallas field; Amber Monroe, shot and killed in a Detroit park; and Kandis Capri, fatally shot last Tuesday night in Phoenix, Arizona. "This is a state of emergency for the transgender community," Chase Strangio says. "We are living in a moment where we should be incredibly concerned about all of the mechanisms of violence against our community."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to switch gears a bit and talk to you, Chase Strangio, about the recent killings of transgender women across the country. The body of Elisha Walker, a 20-year-old transgender woman missing for almost a year, was recently found in a "crude grave" in North Carolina. This comes amidst reports of three other black transgender women killed in Texas, Michigan and Arizona: Shade Schuler, whose body was found in a Dallas field; Amber Monroe, who was shot and killed in a Detroit park; and Kandis Capri, shot dead Tuesday night in Phoenix, Arizona. Now, Tamara Dominguez of Kansas City, Missouri, has reportedly become the latest transgender woman murdered, bringing the total number to 17. Dominguez was—17 just this year. Dominguez was run over repeatedly in what’s being investigated as a possible hate crime. People are calling this a national crisis.
CHASE STRANGIO: It absolutely is. And I think, you know, as leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement have made clear, and trans black leaders have also made clear, this is a national crisis. This is a state of emergency for the transgender community. And it’s a state of emergency that’s disproportionately affecting transgender women of color, and particularly black trans women. And we are living in a moment where we should be incredibly concerned about all of the mechanisms of violence against our community. And state violence includes the violence of police officers, but it also includes all of the ways in which transgender people, particularly transgender women of color, have their lives cut short through systems of discrimination and through the interpersonal violence that leads them to be killed, as these women have been. And it is absolutely devastating, and I hope that, you know, that we don’t have to turn on the TV or look on Facebook or Twitter to see another trans woman of color murdered.
AMY GOODMAN: Are you finding that these women are being—the investigations being treated differently than if they weren’t transgender?
CHASE STRANGIO: Absolutely, I think, in two critical ways. The first is that the media, the local media in particular, often misgenders the transgender women, calling them men, which is—you know, itself contributes to the violence against them. And then the delays in bringing people to justice is also a concern for the transgender community. It’s been two years since Islan Nettles was murdered right here in New York City, right here in Harlem, and it was a long time before any meaningful investigation was done, and people had to take to the streets over and over again. And, of course, just bringing an individual to justice is not going to solve the problem of this violence, because it is systemic and it is institutional. And we really have to look at all of the ways in which transgender people, and black transgender woman in particular, are cut off from systems of support.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go back for one moment to Chelsea Manning and the possibility of her facing solitary confinement, indefinite solitary confinement. How does this go to the issue of solitary confinement in this country?
CHASE STRANGIO: We overuse solitary confinement in this country. It is something that we should not be using at all, and we use it as a default mechanism for minor disciplinary infractions, things like having an expired tube of toothpaste. We use it as the default mechanism for allegedly keeping transgender people safe in men’s prisons. We use it, you know, to keep death row prisoners in solitary confinement for the duration of their time on death row. We have a serious problem here, because people are being tortured in our prisons, in our jails, and people are dying and coming out of prison and killing themselves, because this is absolutely an intolerable way to confine people. And I hope that the continued attention to Chelsea’s case will affect our policies.
AMY GOODMAN: Chase Strangio, I want to thank you for being with us, staff attorney at the ACLU, part of Chelsea Manning’s legal team.
Headlines:
Obama Administration Gives Shell Final Approval for Arctic Drilling
The Obama administration has granted Royal Dutch Shell final approval to resume drilling for oil and gas in the Arctic Ocean for the first time since 2012 despite widespread protests from environmental groups. Shell first obtained drilling permits in the Arctic during the George W. Bush administration, but drilling stopped in 2012 after a series of mishaps. The permit was issued Monday after Shell’s icebreaking ship arrived at the drill site carrying a required piece of equipment known as a capping stack. The equipment arrived on the same ship Greenpeace protesters temporarily blocked from departing Portland, Oregon, by hanging suspended from the St. Johns Bridge for more than 40 hours. Shell now says it may drill its first well as early as this summer. The Interior Department has said that there is a 75 percent chance of "one or more large spills" once Shell begins drilling. We’ll have more on Arctic drilling later in the broadcast.
Obama to Announce Plans to Cut Methane Emissions by 40 to 45%
The Obama administration is expected to announce as early as today the first-ever federal regulations requiring the oil and gas industry to cut methane emissions. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas that fuels global warming. The regulation would cut the emissions of methane 40 to 45 percent over the next decade from 2012 levels. The move comes after the Obama administration announced plans earlier this month to cut emissions of carbon dioxide, another greenhouse gas, by 32 percent by 2030.
Pentagon to Increase Drone Use with Help from Private Contractors
The Pentagon says it is planning to ramp up its use of drones by 50 percent over the next several years. The increase will rely on the use of the U.S. Army and private contractors to fly the unmanned aircraft. Currently, the U.S. Air Force flies about 65 drone missions a day. The Pentagon is looking to increase that number to 90 missions. The Pentagon says the private contractors would only fly surveillance drones, not lethal strike drones.
Syria: U.N. Pushes to Renew Peace Talks After Gov’t Strikes Kill 100
The United Nations Security Council has approved an initiative to renew peace talks in Syria, marking the first time in two years the 15-member council has agreed on a political statement to address the crisis. The move came as the Syrian government launched fresh airstrikes on a rebel-held district northeast of Damascus, a day after killing about 100 people at a market in Douma. The attack appears to be among the deadliest in the four-year conflict. Speaking Monday in Damascus, U.N. humanitarian chief Stephen O’Brien said he was "horrified" by the attacks on civilians.
U.N. humanitarian chief Stephen O’Brien: "Last week we heard of shelling of Damascus by armed groups. While I have been here, we have heard appalling reports of new airstrikes on the besieged area of Douma. Yesterday’s airstrikes on the central market area caused scores of civilian deaths, and hundreds of people were injured. Hospitals are scrambling to treat them. I am absolutely horrified by the total disregard for civilian life by all parties in this conflict."
Thailand: 20 Killed in Explosion at Hindu Shrine in Bangkok
In news from Thailand, at least 20 people have died after a bomb placed inside a Hindu shrine exploded Monday night in the capital Bangkok. The Erawan Shrine is a popular tourist destination. Authorities have called it a deliberate attack on civilians. The bombing is the worst in a series of explosions that have rocked Thailand since the military seized power in a coup last year. Authorities are now hunting for a suspect identified on surveillance video. Police reported a second explosion in Bangkok this morning, with no injuries.
South Sudan President Declines to Sign Peace Treaty with Rebel Leader
In news from South Sudan, President Salva Kiir has declined to sign a peace agreement aimed at ending a civil war that has claimed tens of thousands of lives. President Kiir and rebel leader Riek Machar faced a deadline Monday to sign a peace accord or face possible sanctions. But late Monday, President Kiir said he needed more time, and proposed returning within 15 days. The fighting erupted in 2013 between forces loyal to President Kiir and supporters of rebel leader Riek Machar, his former deputy. U.S. State Department spokesperson John Kirby said Monday the office would consider ways to increase the pressure for a peace agreement.
U.S. State Department spokesperson John Kirby: "We call on the government to sign the agreement within the 15-day period it requested for consultations, and as the president has stated, if there was no agreement signed today, we consider — we would consider ways to raise the cost for intransigence. We’re going to work with our regional and international partners on next steps and on ways to increase pressure, especially against those that are undermining the peace process or opposing this agreement."
IRS: Hackers Stole Personal Data of at Least 330,000 People This Year
The IRS says hackers have gained access to the personal data of as many as three times more U.S. taxpayers than previously thought. In May, the IRS said hackers accessed the tax return information of about 114,000 people in 2015. But a new review shows that the total figure is closer to 330,000. The agency says that it processed 15,000 fraudulent tax returns this year as a result of the data breach.
State Dept: Some of Hillary Clinton’s Private Emails May Be Classified
A State Department review of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s emails has flagged 305 messages which require further scrutiny because they may contain classified information. Clinton has been under fire for relying exclusively on a private email server while she was secretary of state. She has denied sending or receiving emails marked classified on the private account.
Mexico: Officials Blocked Interviews with Soldiers over 43 Students
In news from Mexico, a team of independent experts says authorities have blocked them from interviewing soldiers who may have witnessed the disappearance of 43 students in the southern state of Guerrero almost a year ago. Investigators with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights say authorities did not inform the families of the 43 students that some of their clothing had been discovered shortly after their disappearance. Investigators also said it is possible that security video of the incident may been destroyed. The 43 young men, who were training at the rural teachers’ college of Ayotzinapa, went missing last year after being detained by local police. A member of the Inter-American Human Rights Commission spoke Monday.
Claudia Paz y Paz: "We have special concern for loss of evidence in the case. We have informed the authorities of the Attorney General’s Office about the existence, at the time, of a video recording at the scene of the police intervention that led to the disappearance of a group of students."
Mexico: Veracruz Journalist Juan Heriberto Santos Killed by Gunmen
Meanwhile, in the southern Mexican state of Veracruz, a journalist was killed by armed gunmen in a bar last Thursday, two weeks after the death of another journalist from Veracruz sparked international outcry. Juan Heriberto Santos, who had worked as a correspondent for Televisa Veracruz for 10 years, died after gunmen opened fire in a bar, killing the journalist and five others. Human rights groups say he is at least the 18th journalist from Veracruz to be killed since 2000.
NLRB Rejects Bid by Northwestern Football Players Seeking to Unionize
The National Labor Relations Board has dismissed a bid by Northwestern University football players seeking the right to unionize. The move deals a major blow to the movement of college athletes who are arguing that the massive profits generated by sports like college football make them university employees who should have the right to collective bargaining. In a unanimous decision Monday, the National Labor Relations Board said it dismissed the players’ petition in part because if the Northwestern players had the right to unionize, it would be "difficult to imagine any degree of stability in labor relations." The Northwestern players are not allowed to appeal the decision, but college athletes are allowed to bring similar cases in the future.
White House Plan to Address Heroin Epidemic Gets Mixed Reviews
The Obama administration has announced a new initiative to address the epidemic of heroin overdoses in the United States. Heroin-related deaths have nearly quadrupled over the past decade, in part because people are turning to cheap heroin after becoming addicted to prescription painkillers. The new initiative focuses on 15 hard-hit Northeastern states and involves hiring both drug intelligence officers and policy analysts. In a statement, the Drug Policy Alliance said, "Half of what they’re doing is right — the focus on health and overdose prevention — but the other half, the side that focuses on the failed arrest and incarceration policies of the past, is destined to ruin lives and fail."
Kansas: Man Arrested After Bringing IED into Wichita Abortion Clinic
In Kansas, a man is in police custody after bringing an improvised explosive device and knives into an abortion clinic in Wichita. The man had the items in his backpack when he entered the South Wind Women’s Center, the recently reopened former clinic of Dr. George Tiller, the abortion provider who was assassinated in 2009. No one was injured in Monday’s incident.
States Seek to Cut Planned Parenthood Funds After Video
This comes as states are ramping up efforts to defund Planned Parenthood following an anti-choice group’s release of heavily edited videos showing Planned Parenthood employees discussing the sharing of fetal tissue with researchers, a practice Planned Parenthood says is performed legally and never for profit. On Friday, Arkansas became the fifth state to try to end its contract with Planned Parenthood for low-income residents covered by Medicaid.
New York: Autopsy Shows Prisoner Died After Beating by Officers
In news from upstate New York, an autopsy report obtained by The New York Times determined that the death of a prisoner from the Fishkill Correctional Facility four months ago was a homicide caused by a "physical altercation with corrections officers." Samuel Harrell, an African-American prisoner with bipolar disorder, died on April 21 after as many as 20 corrections officers kicked, punched and dragged him down a flight of stairs while he was handcuffed, according interviews conducted by The New York Times. Officers then called an ambulance and told the medical crew Harrell may have overdosed on synthetic marijuana, known as K2. Harrell died that night in a nearby hospital.
Oscar Pistorius to Be Released; Prosecutors Seek Murder Charges
In South Africa, prosecutors have asked for Olympic and Paralympic runner Oscar Pistorius to be charged with murder, just days before he is due to be released from prison less than a year after being convicted of killing his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp. Pistorius opened fire on Steenkamp through a locked bathroom door, then claimed he thought she was an intruder. He is due to be released Friday after serving 10 months of a five-year sentence for manslaughter. He’ll be kept under a form of house arrest at a three-story mansion.
Texas: Memorial Held for Family of 8 Killed by Wife’s Ex-Partner
And in Texas, a memorial service was held Monday for eight people killed in the latest mass shooting related to domestic violence. On August 8, David Conley killed his ex-partner, Valerie Jackson, along with her husband and her six children in their Houston-area home. Conley had a history of domestic abuse. He faces murder charges. An estimated three women are killed every day in the United States by their male partners or ex-partners.
Donate today:Follow:
FEATURED TOPIC
Julian Bond (1940-2015)
WEB EXCLUSIVE
VIDEO: Amy Goodman Delivers Keynote Address to Creative Time Summit at the Venice Biennale
WORK WITH DN!
Social Media Editor
207 West 25th Street, 11th Floor
New York, New York 10001 United States
___________________________
___________________________
No comments:
Post a Comment