Democracy Now! Daily Digest: A Daily Independent Global News Hour with Amy Goodman & Juan González for Friday, 28 February 2014

Democracy Now! Daily Digest: A Daily Independent Global News Hour with Amy Goodman & Juan González for Friday, 28 February 2014 democracynow.org
Stories:
Peeping Webcam? With NSA Help, British Spy Agency Intercepted Millions of Yahoo Chat Images
The latest top-secret documents leaked by Edward Snowden reveal the National Security Agency and its British counterpart, the the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) may have peered into the lives of millions of Internet users who were not suspected of wrongdoing. The surveillance program codenamed "Optic Nerve" compiled still images of Yahoo webcam chats in bulk and stored them in the GCHQ’s databases with help from the NSA. In one six-month period in 2008 alone, the agency reportedly amassed webcam images from more than 1.8 million Yahoo user accounts worldwide. According to the documents, between 3 and 11 percent of the Yahoo webcam images contained what the GCHQ called "undesirable nudity." The program was reportedly also used for experiments in "automated facial recognition" as well as to monitor terrorism suspects. We speak with James Ball, one of the reporters who broke the story. He is the special projects editor for Guardian US.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: A new report based on top-secret documents leaked by Edward Snowden reveals the National Security Agency and its British counterpart, the Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ, may have peered into the lives of millions of Internet users who were not suspected of wrongdoing. A surveillance program codenamed "Optic Nerve" compiled still images of Yahoo webcam chats in bulk and stored them in GCHQ’s databases with help from the NSA. In one six-month period in 2008 alone, the agency reportedly amassed webcam images from more than 1.8 million Yahoo user accounts worldwide.
The program was reportedly used for experiments in "automated facial recognition" as well as to monitor terrorism suspects. A more accurate name for the "Optic Nerve" program may have been "Peeping Tom," because it ended up collecting a large number of sexually explicit images. According to the documents, between 3 and 11 percent of the Yahoo webcam images contained what the GCHQ called "undesirable nudity." Yahoo responded to the news by denying any prior knowledge of the program, saying the spy agencies had, quote, "reached a whole new level of violation of our users’ privacy."
The documents also reveal the surveillance agencies discussed intercepting other types of cameras, such as the ones found on Xbox 360 game consoles. The NSA and the GCHQ also reportedly considered designing more sophisticated and accurate facial recognition tools, such as iris recognition cameras.
For more, we’re joined now by one of the two reporters who broke the story, James Ball. He is the special projects editor for Guardian US. The article he co-wrote with Spencer Ackerman is called "Yahoo Webcam Images from Millions of Users Intercepted by GCHQ."
James Ball, welcome to Democracy Now!
JAMES BALL: Hi there.
AMY GOODMAN: Great to have you with us. OK, start from the beginning, what you found. What were contained in the documents Edward Snowden released?
JAMES BALL: I think ever since we first sort of reported, Glenn Greenwald in The Guardian reported the Verizon spying, we had all kind of wondered about mass surveillance. Is it just metadata? Is it just foreigners? And we’d kind of wondered just how far it might go. And this one, I think, even after nine months, was really shocking. This is webcams in people’s homes. Essentially, if you used a webcam service, if you were having a chat, if you were broadcasting, it looks as if—the documents show that GCHQ could see that traffic and just grabbed it en masse. They didn’t just look for current targets. They didn’t just look for suspects. They saved a little bit of everything.
AMY GOODMAN: Did you have to—did it have to be active for them to collect it, or could it just be sitting on your desk at home?
JAMES BALL: This particular program was just collecting when people were using it, as if you’re having a kind of Skype call or something like that. If you were using a webcam to have a chat, it just grabbed images from it as you did it. There are other programs which discuss sort of turning on the webcam for targets, but however you feel about that, at least that’s just people they suspect. This is everyone. This is you, me, Americans, Brits. Everyone can get caught in this.
AMY GOODMAN: So, this is GCHQ. What’s the role of NSA?
JAMES BALL: I think this is a really important question. What we do know is that the NSA helped—NSA research helped build this. NSA learned how Yahoo transmitted its webcam imagery, and GCHQ used that research to build the system. The NSA also have this XKeyscore system, this huge search that can grab all of your Internet activity. And this—results from Optic Nerve could feed into this database. So we know the NSA knew about the program, because it was in the Snowden files. We know the NSA research helped it. And we know it knew NSA’s systems. What we really have to know is whether the NSA had access to this system, whether they raised concerns about Americans’ information being in there, because we know it was, and what else their involvement was, because it does look as if the NSA themselves couldn’t legally have built a system like this, although it’s such a complicated area of law, it’s quite hard to be sure.
AMY GOODMAN: You called Yahoo?
JAMES BALL: Yes, well, my colleague, our national security editor, Spencer Ackerman, called Yahoo. And, yes, they were—they were very surprised and alarmed. I mean, I think we have to say, if Yahoo had been more secure at the time, if they’d have encrypted people’s chats, if they’d have had that level of concern about people’s privacy, they could have prevented this. And, you know, people were saying at the time they should do it. It’s not as if it’s just hindsight. But now they have come out very strongly. They’re calling for reform of surveillance laws. They’ve been one of the tech companies that’s really pushed for reform. And you can see from their statement they are not happy about this.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Democracy Now! invited Yahoo to join us on the program. They declined, but did send us a statement saying, quote, "We were not aware of nor would we condone this reported activity. This report, if true, represents a whole new level of violation of our users’ privacy that is completely unacceptable and we strongly call on the world’s governments to reform surveillance law consistent with the principles we outlined in December. We are committed to preserving our users’ trust and security and continue our efforts to expand encryption across all of our services." That’s what they said. But are there deals being made with these huge, multinational web giants and the governments to continue to operate?
JAMES BALL: I mean, there’s two different sets of problems. There’s the Internet companies and the degree to which they are working with law enforcement. And this was, of course, the PRISM program that is now a household name—it’s even in TV shows. That seems to have been legally compelled at least; they weren’t voluntarily handing it over. But it does seem as if they helped build automated or semi-automated systems to make it easy.
I think the big questions have to be asked for the cable companies, and, you know, whether the ones who put—pipe the Internet into our house or the industrial ones. They seem to have gone further. We know from GCHQ documents and NSA documents that they really do a lot to help the cable-tapping operations that power all of these other programs. And if I was really looking to ask companies questions about secret deals and who’s getting cash and who might be not just doing what they have to, but a bit further, it’s the cable companies I’d be asking.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk more about the facial recognition aspect of this.
JAMES BALL: So they had a couple of tricks with facial recognition. One of the things that they tried to do was just to see if there was a face in the image, so telling a face from an elbow. Happily, it seems the intelligence agencies can do that now. They did this to try and knock out some of the adult images, some of the other stuff. The bit that might get more concerning is they are trying to—what they’re trying to do with this is see if the person using one particular Yahoo account is the same person using another. So they’re trying to find if their targets are using more than one account. So, they try to automatically match it, check it against all of these images they’re collecting, and see if they get something, which would be fine if it was a perfect technology—well, it might be fine if it was a perfect technology—but it’s not. And so, there’s this risk of false matches, of people in these spy agencies looking up your pictures, your webcam chats, just because some malfunctioning algorithm thinks you look like someone GCHQ is spying on.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to—talk more about the sexually explicit images.
JAMES BALL: I mean, it’s quite a concerning thing. It’s essentially—they were actually complaining at length in the documents about just how many of these images were sexually explicit. I mean, we know they were capturing—this program ran for years and might still be going. In just one six-month period, they got 1.8 million people. They reckon up to about 180,000 of those were sending explicit images. So, GCHQ has this vast sort of store of pornographic images from people who had no intention of them seeing it.
In fairness to GCHQ, in this particular instance, it doesn’t look like they were trying to collect that. They actually complain almost about their analysts having to see it. They’re warned, "Hey, you know, if you don’t want to see something nasty, don’t use this database." But I think it kind of shows how concerning it is. Is your privacy only violated when an actual human analyst looks at an adult picture of you, or is just the very idea of the British government or the American government having this huge store of compromising pictures itself a bit creepy? I think most of us might feel it’s the latter. And GCHQ, every document we saw on this, suggested they weren’t trying to use these, they weren’t wanting to look at them. But there have been other documents relating to other programs talking about perhaps using people’s browsing habits and porn habits to discredit them, and so we know they’re not entirely above this kind of behavior.
AMY GOODMAN: Last month, a report from Glenn Greenwald and NBC News based on leaks from Edward Snowden revealed the British government can spy on social media sites, including YouTube, in real time, without the knowledge of companies. Another round of news reports based on Snowden’s disclosures found the NSA and its British counterpart are targeting smartphone apps, including the popular game "Angry Birds," for personal data on users, from their location to their sexual preferences. James Ball, you wrote this article for The Guardian called "Angry Birds Firm Calls for Industry to Respond to NSA Spying Revelations." Tell us more about it.
JAMES BALL: I think the key thing is, a lot of what lets the NSA spy on this stuff in bulk, rather than kind of picking their targets and going for them—and most people would say, "Hey, if they’re interested in a small number of terror suspects, OK, they should spy on those"—what lets them spy in bulk is things like the advert tracking cookies or bad security from the Internet firms or that kind of stuff. So, yes, by all means, we—we are, in America, having a debate about the limits of surveillance law, and it’s looking, hopefully, like there might be some reforms, maybe a lot more limited than people want. But in the meantime, the tech companies and the app makers can do a lot to protect us. And I think, as people who use those, we have to make it clear that if you want change, you’ve got to let your phone maker know, your app makers know, because a lot of this is just piggybacking on either their bad security or them tracking you to try and sell you stuff. There’s kind of a bit of a relationship going on between these big companies and the spy agencies, even if it wasn’t a deliberate one.
AMY GOODMAN: In November, leaks from Edward Snowden showed the NSA had gathered records on the online sexual activity of Muslim targets in a bid to discredit them. The Huffington Post reported the NSA had identified at least six Muslim leaders whose speeches have the potential to radicalize their audiences with an "extremist message," they said. None were accused of involvement in terror plots. The NSA had apparently collected their evidence of their online activity, including visits to porn sites, in a bid to undermine their credibility or intimidate them into silence. It’s unclear if the NSA carried out any of its plans. Given how the NSA has approached explicit images in the past, what risks are posed by the mass collection of potentially compromising webcam photos?
JAMES BALL: This is essentially the problem of bulk surveillance. It’s—we all do things which are perfectly acceptable, legitimate activities, but private—you know, things that we send to our partners, to our friends. We all do things that we wouldn’t want the world to know. And that’s kind of the problem. If it’s all collected, we all have some things we might [not] want used against us. And so, if the intelligence agencies really want to say, "Look, OK, we collected this stuff. It might be a bit compromising, but we don’t want to and we’d never dream of misusing it," that really is demanding quite a lot of trust. It’s—deliberately or not, they essentially have a bit of a blackmail file on almost everyone. And the issue is, with stories like that, it does suggest that maybe we shouldn’t be trusting them with it. As I should say, to be fair to the agencies, on this particular program, there’s no sign of misuse. But we do know, from the report you cited in November and so on, it’s not as if they’ve dismissed this as a tactic. And I think the idea of the government building, deliberately or accidentally, these dossiers on each of us is quite worrying.
AMY GOODMAN: And the relationship between these companies, like Yahoo, like Google, and the government, the trade-offs that are made. I mean, the deals they make with the government, the government expects something in return.
JAMES BALL: Exactly. I mean, we talk about this a lot in China. You know, Google, fairly commendably, actually, got out of China when the censorship demands became too much. But other companies, like Microsoft, will censor search results, will do what they have to do there. We never quite think about it the same way for companies operating here. There is a trade-off. They have to sort of comply with U.S. law. They often want friendly relations. You know, they’re worried about new regulation coming in, all sorts of things. And so, any country in the world, when the tech companies are working in, there are going to have to come some accommodations with the government, and sometimes that’s not going to be in the interests of the privacy of consumers or of activists. It’s kind of the same everywhere.
AMY GOODMAN: And has the NSA responded?
JAMES BALL: So, to this particular story, the NSA refused to answer any questions. We asked them very specific, very simple questions. Have you seen this imagery? You know, would you do the same? Do you have similar programs? No answer.
AMY GOODMAN: It’s still going on?
JAMES BALL: So, and whether it’s still going on. I’m really hoping someone in Congress asks the same questions, because hopefully the NSA will find it harder to give them no comment.
AMY GOODMAN: What would—what legislation would—what would legislation look like that prevents this kind of thing from happening, not to mention overall spying on Americans and people around the world?
JAMES BALL: It’s—I think you really would have to beef up this idea that there’s only a problem when this stuff is searched. I think you really have to focus on what should the NSA collect, what reasons should they have to have to collect on me or on you or on anyone. You know, I’m not American, so I tend to worry about the privacy of foreigners, because I am one, even though I live here. And so, we want reasonable protections. We want the idea that you shouldn’t have to collect—you know, you shouldn’t just start worrying about the law or about privacy when you search it; it’s when you store it. And that’s kind of the shift in principle that people are thinking about. It’s—I think, if not, if the NSA wants to make the case that they absolutely have to do mass collection, they really are going to have to convince the American public of it and show why it’s necessary. I think they’ve had nine months to do that, and they really haven’t been able to point to a terror plot stopped or a serious criminal caught because of mass surveillance. And I think if that’s the case they want to make, they’ve got to do it a lot better.
AMY GOODMAN: James Ball, I want to thank you for being with us, special projects editor for Guardian US. He recently co-wrote the piece with Spencer Ackerman called "Yahoo Webcam Images from Millions of Users Intercepted by GCHQ." We’ll link to it at democracynow.org. This is Democracy Now! Back in a minute.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: During the break, our TV audience has just been seeing pictures sent in from listeners and viewers from around the world telling us why Democracy Now! is important to them. February marked the 18th anniversary of Democracy Now! It’s wonderful to see all the messages people have been sending in online, signs and videos. We’ve posted many of these photos online, which you can see on our website at democracynow.org. Send more, send more, in our birthday month. Well, this is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman. 
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Freed Bahraini Activist Zainab Alkhawaja on Her Year in Prison, Continued Detention of Her Father
We go to Bahrain to speak with human rights activist Zainab Alkhawaja, just after she was released from prison by the Bahraini government. "One year in prison is nothing," Alkhawaja says of her time behind bars. "Because it’s nothing compared to what we’re willing to sacrifice for our goals, for democracy in our country." On March 3, she could be sent back to prison after appearing in court to face charges of damaging police property, defacing a picture of the king and insulting a police officer. Her father, longtime activist Abdulhadi Alkhawaja, remains behind imprisoned, serving a life sentence. Bahrain is a U.S.-backed monarchy that is home to the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, which is responsible for all naval forces in the Gulf. Alkhawaja’s release came on the heels of rallies marking the third anniversary of the pro-democracy protests that began on Feb. 14, 2011.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to the Bahraini human rights activist Zainab Alkhawaja. We spoke with her just after she was released from prison by the Bahraini government after nearly a year behind bars. At the time, she faced a return to prison pending her court appearance on charges of damaging police property, defacing a picture of the king, insulting a police officer. The following day, her case was postponed until March 3rd, next week. Zainab Alkhawaja joined us last Tuesday via Democracy Now! video stream. I spoke with her along with Nermeen Shaikh and began by asking her to talk about how she felt to be free.
ZAINAB ALKHAWAJA: Wow! It feels like a dream. I keep expecting to wake up and see myself inside my cell.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about your time in prison. You’ve been in prison for almost a year.
ZAINAB ALKHAWAJA: Mm-hmm. Well, what I feel about prison is that it’s a place where they try to break a person. It’s a place where you feel like you can be humiliated at any minute and on any given day. So, it can be a very stressful situation if you don’t look at the bigger picture and the cause that you’re sacrificing for.
My time in prison was a little bit difficult. The prison in Bahrain is a very, very dirty, filthy place. Seeing cockroaches and bed bugs and all kinds of insects is a daily thing. The number of prisoners inside the prison is way too many. We have people sleeping on the ground. There’s not enough beds. The rooms are very small. We cannot move in and out of our cells a lot. And also, we had a very difficult time convincing them to let us go out and get some air and get some sunlight. So, actually, for the first six months in prison, I was not let out of the prison. So sometimes it does feel like a grave.
But when I came out, the first thing I did say was, one year in prison is nothing. And I say that because it’s nothing compared to what we’re willing to sacrifice for our goals, for democracy in our country. And we’re going to continue on this path. We started on a path, and we’re determined to continue on it until we reach our goal.
AMY GOODMAN: What is your goal? What are you calling for?
ZAINAB ALKHAWAJA: We’re calling for a country where every Bahraini is respected, every Bahraini is treated equally. We’re calling for a country where we feel we have rights, where we feel we have dignity, where people can’t step all over us, can’t torture and kill and get away with these things. We’re living in a country, basically, where the criminals are the most powerful people in the country, and where a lot of us actually feel proud when we’re in jail, because we know that in Bahrain, when you go to jail, it means you did something right and not wrong. It should be the other way around. It should be that people who are activists, people who are calling for rights, they should be the ones who are on the outside and working, and criminals, people who are killing, people who are torturing, they’re the ones who should be in jail. But it’s all the other way around. But at the same time, I say that in Bahrain I do not feel pity for all those people who are in prison, all the injured protesters. I feel proud when I see them. I feel pity for our oppressors, because what they do is breaking them inside. We’re not broken. We sacrifice, but we feel proud, and we hold our heads up high.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Zainab, how do you respond to criticism of the anti-government movement that claims that it’s being funded exclusively by Iran in an attempt to make the region more Shia-sympathetic?
ZAINAB ALKHAWAJA: I mean, in Bahrain, Sunnis and Shias have lived side by side for generations. There’s intermarriage. We have—like, all friends are Sunnis and Shia, and we usually can’t even tell each other apart. The people who are trying to make it into a sectarian thing is the government. They’re the ones who are really trying, putting all their effort into making it a sectarian thing. Another thing is that Bahrainis are very proud Arabs. We have nothing to do with Iran. We started this revolution calling for our rights. I mean, we’ve lived under the same monarchy for more than 200 years. It’s actually—it’s really strange that nothing has happened before. This revolution is long overdue. People are supposed to stand up and call for their rights. It’s the 21st century. Everywhere we go, we see democracy, we see freedom, in other countries. We see civil liberties. And over here, we’re supposed to keep quiet just so that nobody accuses us of doing something just because we’re Shia. I think it makes a whole lot of sense what’s happening in Bahrain. We’re inspired by—we were inspired by what happened in Egypt, and we consider our Egyptian brothers our brothers. And they started this, and the Tunisians, and we’re doing the exact same thing. We’re calling for our rights. We’re calling for a country where we can live freely and with our dignity. This has nothing to do with Shia and Sunni. We want these rights for all Bahrainis, whether they are Shia or Sunni.
AMY GOODMAN: Zainab, talk about your father, Abdulhadi Alkhawaja, who is in prison. He has a life sentence now?
ZAINAB ALKHAWAJA: Yes. My father is sentenced to life in prison. He has now been in prison for almost three years. My father is my rock. He’s one of the strongest persons I have ever known. I have never seen him weak. After three years in prison, he’s as strong as ever. And my father has always been my role model. He’s been a human rights activist for almost all his life. He has been trying to do something not only for our country, but for the region, as well. He had been, before the revolution, been going from country to country throughout the Arab world training people on human rights, on how to write reports about human rights abuses. My father tries to put seeds in the ground, so that some day those seeds would grow into something that would benefit our region and our world. And I really believe in his work. He has been working very hard for the past maybe—more than 20 years. It’s not something that he started doing today and yesterday.
And this is why he’s one of the people that the government has been targeting for a long time and has used this situation now to just give him a life sentence, put him behind bars, so they could silence him. My father is one of the most outspoken people in the country talking about what’s happening here, about conditions here. So, putting him behind bars, I think the only reason for that is to silence him, like they’ve done with other activists, like Nabeel Rajab, for example. They’re behind bars so that there’s no one to represent the people of Bahrain.
But I think what makes us proud is, even though almost all human rights activists are either out of the country or in jail, even though a lot of the civil society leaders are in prison, a lot of the activists are in prison, still the Bahraini people go out, and they protest, and they demand their rights, which is very difficult. When you’re standing there with activists, you know that there’s someone covering what you’re doing, someone there who might try to protect you. But even without this protection, on this past February 14, we saw very, very big numbers of people go into the streets, still making the same demands, showing that they’re not backing down.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And what are the prospects, Zainab, for any kind of change in Bahrain? What is the state of negotiations between opposition groups and the government? And what prospects do these political prisoners—3,000, you said, including many of your family members—have of being released or having their jail sentences diminished?
ZAINAB ALKHAWAJA: Well, here’s the thing. Prison can be difficult. Actually, it is very difficult. And a lot of people, they want to get out of prison. They want to go to their families. But this is not the end goal. We don’t just want to get out of the small prison into the bigger prison we call Bahrain. Bahrain is a big prison for us. A lot of Bahrainis don’t feel safe until they’re on a plane heading outside of their country, because here in this country you might be arrested on any day. You might get beaten up on any day. So, as a Bahraini, you do not feel safe. So, our end goal—a lot of prisoners say this. They say, "We don’t want to just get out of prison. After three years of suffering, of giving, of doing as much as we can, we want real results. We want democracy. We want to be represented. We want rights."
And I think that’s why if the government tries to solve the situation just by releasing some political prisoners, that’s not going to be the real solution. The government must give up some of the power and control that they have. And, I mean, the people of Bahrain, they want ultimately to have a full democracy. They want a country where they can vote for a president. The al-Khalifa regime is a regime that has been forced on the people of Bahrain. The al-Khalifa regime is just—is a hereditary regime, and we have no choice in who’s ruling this country. And I think this is one of the biggest problems. This is not something that the people here accept.
AMY GOODMAN: What about the United States, a major force? It has the Fifth Fleet there. What is the role of the United States with the Bahraini monarchy?
ZAINAB ALKHAWAJA: Of course, as you said, the Fifth Fleet is a big part of this. And the relationship between the U.S. and the al-Saud regime, they want to be on their good side, I guess. So, a lot of things together just, they—I guess they don’t see how supporting human rights in Bahrain is going to do them any good. And that’s not how the government of America should be thinking. If they feel like they represent freedom and democracy, they should be thinking first about the people and about the freedom that they’re demanding, about the democracy that they’re demanding, not thinking first about how their interest in the region is served by supporting dictators.
AMY GOODMAN: Bahraini human rights activist Zainab Alkhawaja, just out of jail. March 3rd, she goes to court to see whether she’ll be put back in jail. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. Back in 30 seconds.
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I Was Beaten, Tortured: Pakistani Anti-Drone Activist Karim Khan on Being Abducted by Masked Men
Pakistani anti-drone activist Karim Khan was abducted February 5, just before he was due to travel to Europe to speak out about U.S. drone strikes. He joins us to describe how he was held for nine days. During that time he says he was repeatedly tortured and beaten. In 2009, a U.S. drone killed Khan’s brother and son. He joins us from London, where he traveled to to meet with British lawmakers to raise concerns about the U.S. drone program. "They attacked our mosques, they attacked our schools, they attacked our schoolchildren, they attacked our teachers," Khan says. "So everything is completely destroyed by these drone strikes." We also speak with Khan’s lawyer, Shahzad Akbar. "This is what the human face of the victim is, and it is important that the American people are told about who these people are," Akbar says. "They are being targeted in the name of national security, [but] what we see on the ground is that it is not really serving the national security interests of anyone."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We turn to Pakistani anti-drone activist Karim Khan. He made headlines earlier this month when he was abducted just before he was due to travel to Europe to speak out about U.S. drone strikes. In 2009, a U.S. drone killed his brother and his son. On February 5th, Khan was abducted at gunpoint from his home. He was hooded, shackled and then driven several hours to a location where he was held in a basement cell. He was held for nine days. During that time, he says, he was repeatedly tortured and beaten. He was then released on February 14th. This week, Karim Khan traveled to London, where he met with British lawmakers. He joined us from London to describe his ordeal, along with his attorney, Shahzad Akbar, who also joined us. I began by asking Khan what happened to him February 5th.
KARIM KHAN: At that time, I was sleeping at my home. It was 12:30. Some people entered my house, and they took me. I asked them, "Who are you?" But they said, "Shut up. Don’t speak." So they took me, and they blindfolded and also cuffed handed, and also they put some cape on my head and also a blanket. So they took me in an undisclosed place, and after one night they took me from that place to another place and kept me in a tight-held cell. There, I spent eight days. So, after this, they released me.
AMY GOODMAN: Were you beaten?
KARIM KHAN: They abused me, and they also beat me, and they tortured me. So, they repeatedly asked me some names, but I don’t know them. They said that "They know you." But I said, "But I don’t know them." It was very strange questions. When I remember, it was very strange questions.
AMY GOODMAN: Shahzad Akbar, you’re the attorney for Karim Khan, as well as the attorney for other drone strike victims or families of those who have been killed. Talk about, first, what happened to Karim. Talk about the case of his family, and then what it means to get word out.
SHAHZAD AKBAR: I think the whole problem with drone is that the U.S. government doesn’t really want to talk about what’s really going on ground, because what Karim Khan’s story and Rehman family’s story and so many other drone—civilian drone victims’ stories tells us, that these strikes are not precisions, as President Obama would like to sell this to people in America, because this is what the human face of the victims is. And it’s important that American people are told about who these people are—they are being targeted in the name of national security—because what we see on ground, that it is not really serving a national security interest of anyone, be it United States or their ally Pakistan, which is a front-line state in this war against terror. And it’s really counterproductive, and it’s not really making any friends.
Now, what Karim Khan’s case is, it’s a clear case when we do not ask questions, and the governments are not accountable, and they can do whatever they wish to do. The United States government, first of all, killed Karim Khan’s son and brother in 2009, 31st December. And later on, when he tried to raise questions and awareness through his legal cases—and many others joined his legal battle—what we have seen recently is that when he was about to travel to Europe to speak with European parliamentarians and parliamentarians in the U.K., someone tried to stop it. We do not—we do not know who they were, because, again, there is no transparency, there is no accountability. And the powers that be, they seem to be acting with complete impunity. We went straight into court when Karim Khan was abducted. The court took it really seriously. The civil society, media—we had full support of everyone. And by the—by all these efforts, it was possible that he was released within such a short span of time. But I think the important message here is that if the voice is raised and the facts are brought before public and the court of laws, then there can be some difference, and Karim Khan’s release in this short span of time is one example of that.
AMY GOODMAN: What is the case that Karim Khan has brought against the governments of Pakistan and the United States?
SHAHZAD AKBAR: Well, there are two different cases. First of all, there’s a case of wrongful death of his son and brother, and he’s suing for compensation. The second case is Karim Khan is challenging U.S. drone strike program in Pakistan, and specifically alleging the act of murder on CIA’s station chief in Islamabad, because in 2009 the person who was CIA station chief, Karim Khan’s case says that he believes that this person is the main conspirator who killed his son and brother, who were innocent and civilians, and the U.S. is not at war.
Now, an important issue in this case is that the Pakistani police and authorities refused to investigate and prosecute CIA officials in Islamabad, but what the Islamabad High Court has recently declared is that they do have jurisdiction, because Pakistani police was claiming that they do not have a jurisdiction over a matter which happens in Waziristan, which is in the Federally Administered Tribal Area, and that is outside the legal jurisdiction of Pakistani courts and Pakistani police. But the Islamabad court has held very recently, while actually Karim Khan was in captivity, that they do have jurisdiction. And the offense alleged is an offense of murder, and therefore they have to investigate, and in case of finding any truth to the matter, they have to prosecute the person.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to play a clip of the Rehman family, who we had on Democracy Now! This is 13-year-old Zubair and his nine-year-old sister. They were sitting with their father, Rafiq.
ZUBAIR UR REHMAN: [translated] I had gone to school that day, and when I came back, I had a snack, and I offered my prayers. And my grandma asked me to come outside and help her pick the vegetables.
AMY GOODMAN: You were hit by this drone that killed your grandmother?
ZUBAIR UR REHMAN: [translated] Yes, I had seen a drone, and two missiles hit down where my grandmother was standing in front of me. And she was blown into pieces, and I was injured to my left leg.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Nabila, the two of you were not the only ones of your family that were injured, as well. Could you talk about your—what happened to you, what you recall, and your reaction?
NABILA UR REHMAN: [translated] It was the day before Eid, so I was outside with my grandmother, and she was teaching me how to tell the difference between okra that was ripe and not ripe. We were going to prepare it for our Eid dinner the next day. And then I had heard a dum-dum noise. Everything became dark. And I had seen two fireballs come down from the sky.
AMY GOODMAN: You all testified before Congress. You were one of the first people to do this. Rafiq Rehman, what is your message to America?
RAFIQ UR REHMAN: [translated] What I’d like to say to them is: Please find a way to end these drones, because it’s not only affecting me and my children, and it’s not only because they were injured; it’s affecting their future. I feel—I worry that their education will be disrupted and that they will not want to continue.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And were you ever—have you ever been contacted either by U.S. government officials or by the Pakistani government officials to explain to you why—why this attack occurred?
AMY GOODMAN: Why your mother was killed?
RAFIQ UR REHMAN: [translated] I did communicate with a local political officer of my village to find a reason and answer, but he was unable to give me an answer.
AMY GOODMAN: Have you been compensated for the death of your mother, for your children’s grandmother?
RAFIQ UR REHMAN: [translated] No one has given me anything.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Nabila, you’re nine years old. How have things changed for you since the attack? How’s your—going out again, out into the fields alone, do you fear again other possible attacks?
NABILA UR REHMAN: [translated] Ever since the strike, I’m just scared. I’m always scared. All of us little kids, we’re just scared to go outside.
AMY GOODMAN: Now I would like to play a clip of President Obama addressing U.S. drone warfare at National Defense University in Washington, D.C.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: And before any strike is taken, there must be near certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured—the highest standard we can set. Yes, the conflict with al-Qaeda, like all armed conflict, invites tragedy, but by narrowly targeting our action against those who want to kill us and not the people they hide among, we are choosing the course of action least likely to result in the loss of innocent life.
AMY GOODMAN: "Least likely to result in the loss of innocent life." Shahzad Akbar, can you respond?
SHAHZAD AKBAR: President Obama is a great orator, but he has to support his argument with some facts, because if you look at what happened to Nabila and you look at so many other cases, which have not just been investigated by us, but many other organizations, like Amnesty International, as well, that there are drone strikes as double-tap strikes. This is not a liberal rule of law favoring the United States, which go on and acts like double-tap strikes or signature strikes. In double-tap strikes, the rescuers are targeted—that, one, you attack one place, and then wait for rescuers to come, and then you attack second time. You do not attack people on behavior and pattern and how they’re dressed, how they look like, and then you make a guesswork of attacking people. So this is clear—and this all happened in President Obama’s tenure.
AMY GOODMAN: Karim Khan, can you talk about the effect of the drone strikes in your area? How do people feel?
KARIM KHAN: It destroyed everything—for example, our education, our health, our—everything is destroyed by these drone strikes. Our trade is completely destroyed, and our schools, our health institution. Everything is destroyed by these drone strikes.
AMY GOODMAN: Explain further the way people respond. How often do these drone strikes happen? How often are people killed?
KARIM KHAN: They attacked our mosques. They attacked our schools. They attacked our schoolchildren. They attacked our teachers. So, every—every one is completely—everything is completely destroyed by these drone strikes. If we see our forest, forest trees are completely destroyed. Our agriculture is completely destroyed. So, everything is destroyed by these drone strikes. And people are turned to anti-America and anti-Europe due to these drone strikes. So everything is completely destroyed.
AMY GOODMAN: The United States, Karim Khan, says they are doing this to rout out al-Qaeda. What is your response? To protect U.S. national security.
KARIM KHAN: You see that in these drone strikes they are not only targeted al-Qaeda or Taliban, they killed innocent people. For example, if they targeted or killed 70 or up to 80 al-Qaeda or Taliban leaders, they killed other innocent people. For example, they attacked my house and killed my brother and my son. They were [inaudible]. And they also attacked before my [inaudible] on my home. Before the attack on my home, they attacked another home in my village. This attack was on a person who was—his lower body was paralyzed. He was—sits here in wheelchair, and he was a driver by profession. They attacked this person and killed him and also his son and his nephew and his cousin. So it’s very strange. They are announcing that "we killed commanders or any person who are from Taliban or from al-Qaeda," but in fact they are killing innocent people and announcing that "we are killing Taliban and al-Qaeda members." But in fact they are killing innocent people.
AMY GOODMAN: Karim Khan, how does your community feel about the United States? How did they feel before the drone strikes? How do they feel now?
KARIM KHAN: We don’t know about America before these difficulties and these clashes so much more, but after these drone strikes and these difficulties, we said that they are—they are criminal. They are cruel people. They have no such things about humanity. And they destroyed humanity. For example, as man in search of lies have rights, but we, the Muslim, the Pakistani Muslim, and the tribal people have no rights in this world. They are targeting us. They are declaring us terrorists before coming in this world. For example, determined baby—they killed her, and they declared her a terrorist. So, it’s very strange, and it’s not good. And we, the people, are—hate America and hate the air forces and their people. And we are thinking that there is no care for human, and there are no humanity in these people. So, it’s very bad, on our part, that they are killing our innocent people.
AMY GOODMAN: And, Shahzad Akbar, what are your plans now and moving forward? Do you see any progress in your lawsuits and in changing U.S. policy?
SHAHZAD AKBAR: I think these lawsuits, on one sense, are making some progress, in a way that the number of drone strikes in Pakistan have gone down. Now, we don’t know that—what is the real reason, but the fact remains on the ground that the numbers have gone down. And since President Obama’s last year announcement that there are going to be no more signature strikes, we have to still investigate on ground that if there are more signature strikes taking place. But they seem to definitely have gone down.
In terms of the legal battle, I think the most important task ahead of us is to get some sort of justice for the civilian victims, because this is an issue which the U.S. needs to address and cannot shy away from. Whatever strategic benefit President Obama thinks he has achieved, that is in the past now. And what is left for the future is the case of civilian victims. And according to a Peshawar High Court finding which came out last year, there are more than 1,400 civilian victims of U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan. Now, this is something which President Obama can ignore and leave it when he’s leaving in 2014 from the region, or he can address it, because I think this is something which will be better for the future.
AMY GOODMAN: Karim Khan, will you continue to speak out? You’ve certainly gotten a very painful warning. Are you afraid for your life?
KARIM KHAN: Yes, inshallah, I will continue to make these efforts ’til I get justice. I will continue to make these efforts.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Pakistani anti-drone activist Karim Khan and his lawyer, Shahzad Akbar. They joined us from London after Khan traveled there to meet with British lawmakers to speak out about U.S. drone strikes, including one that killed his brother and son in 2009. Karim Khan was abducted February 5th in Pakistan and held for nine days, just before he was due to travel to Europe.
And that does it for our show. We’re on the road soon. On Tuesday, March 11th, I’ll be speaking at UMass Amherst at Bowker Auditorium at 7:00 p.m. On March 13th, Thursday, I’ll be in Flagstaff at Northern Arizona University, the Cline Library at 7:00 p.m. On Friday, March 14th, I’m in Santa Fe speaking at the Lensic. And on Saturday, March 15th, I’ll be in Denver, Colorado. Then it’s St. Louis on March 29th. You can see all the details at our website at democracynow.org.
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Headlines:
Armed Men Seize Control of Airports in Crimea, Ukraine
Armed men have taken control of two airports in the Crimea region of Ukraine as tension escalates. The new Ukrainian government, which seized power last weekend, described the move as an invasion and occupation by Russian forces. Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, which is based in the region, denied its forces were involved in seizing the airports. Crimea is the only Ukrainian region that has an ethnic Russian majority. It was a Russian territory until it was transferred to Ukraine in 1954, during the Soviet era. Protests have been held in Crimea condemning the ouster of Ukraine’s democratically elected president, Viktor Yanukovych.
Genadiy Vlasof, member of Russian Block Group: "The new authority in Kiev includes — not all of them, but some — people who were wearing masks and shouting, 'Moskals on the knife!' on the square, who fueled national anger, who are enemies of every Russian-speaking person on Ukrainian territory, who are realistically capable of using force to kill people living in south-southeastern Ukraine."
Yanukovych is now in Russia and is expected to hold a news conference today. Meanwhile, the United States is rejecting claims that the change in power in Ukraine constitutes a coup. On Thursday, White House spokesperson Jay Carney said Yanukovych had "abdicated his responsibilities" and "undermined his legitimacy" by fleeing Kiev. Carney outlined U.S. plans to work with the new government.
Jay Carney: When it comes to U.S. assistance, we are continuing to consider a range of options, Jim, including loan guarantees to support Ukraine economically. The next step is for the new government to resume talks with the IMF. And as the government engages the IMF, we will also begin taking steps in coordination with multilateral and bilateral partners as well as with the new government."
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GCHQ Intercepted Yahoo Webcam Chats & Stored Images
In the latest disclosure based on the leaks of Edward Snowden, The Guardian reports Britain’s spy agency GCHQ intercepted millions of people’s Yahoo webcam chats and stored still images of them. The surveillance program, codenamed Optic Nerve, collected images from the webcam chats of more than 1.8 million users globally in a six-month period in 2008 alone. Many of the images were sexually explicit.
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47 Die in Baghdad Bombings
In Iraq, at least 42 people died Thursday when a motorcycle rigged with explosives blew up near a secondhand market in Sadr City, Baghdad. At least 51 people were injured. In a separate attack in Sadr City, a bomb planted on a minibus killed five civilians and wounded 14. More than 1,650 people have been killed so far this year in Iraq, with 680 killed since the beginning of February.
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Palestinian Man Shot Dead by Israeli Troops in West Bank
Israeli forces opened fire and killed a Palestinian man in the West Bank Thursday after the man had barricaded himself inside his house to avoid arrest. The Palestinian Authority described the killing as an assassination, saying Israeli forces shelled the house, destroyed a part of it and then stormed it. The killing came on the same day that Amnesty International accused Israeli forces of using excessive violence in the West Bank, killing dozens of Palestinians over the past three years in what, they said, might constitute a war crime.
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Protests Call for Release of Al Jazeera Journalists Jailed in Egypt
Protests and vigils were held across the globe Thursday calling on Egypt to free four Al Jazeera journalists, three of whom have been charged with aiding a "terrorist organization." Osama Al Saeed is head of public relations at Al Jazeera.
Osama Al Saeed: "What we’ve been seeing over a number of weeks has been massive support around the world for our journalists to be freed by the Egyptian authorities, and there’s a further ramp-up today. There’s action taking place in over 30 countries. The hashtag #freeAJstaff is trending worldwide again. And we think that pressure will help in liberating our staff members from their jail cells in Cairo."
One of the Al Jazeera journalists, Abdullah Elshamy, has been held since August. His wife Jihad Khaled, spoke in Doha on Thursday.
Jihad Khaled: "Egyptian authorities are treating Abdullah as a detainee from Rabaa like other detainees. Abdullah should be treated as a journalist, but they are not treating him on this basis. The charges against him are the same as other people (detained from Rabaa). He was there to cover the sit-in, no more. As a proof to this, Abdullah was originally at Abuja office and was called by the network to provide coverage from Egypt. So, why are you not treating him as a journalist?"
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2,000 Haitians Mark 10th Anniversary of U.S.-Backed Coup
In Haiti, some 2,000 people marched in Port-au-Prince to mark the 10th anniversary of the U.S.-backed coup that ousted Haiti’s first democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. On Feb. 29, 2004, Aristide was forced to flee Haiti in what he called a kidnapping by the U.S. government. The protesters denounced the current government of Michel Martelly and called for his resignation.
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13 Workers at New Mexican Nuclear Waste Dump Exposed to Radiation
In news from New Mexico, authorities have confirmed 13 employees were exposed to radiation during a recent leak at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, nation’s first underground nuclear waste dump. Authorities did not give details on the level of contamination detected. The radiation leak was detected on February 14, but it is still not known what caused it.
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Obama Taps SOPA Lobbyist to Guide TPP Negotiations
President Obama has tapped a former lobbyist who led efforts to pass the Stop Online Piracy Act legislation to be the new deputy U.S. trade representative. If confirmed, Robert Holleyman will helped lead efforts to pass the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal. Critics of the TPP say the trade pact includes parts of the SOPA bill that was rejected by Congress last year after massive online protests.
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Hunger Strike Launched at Supermax in Colorado
In prison news, Solitary Watch is reporting eight to nine prisoners held at a supermax prison in Florence, Colorado, are on hunger strike and are being force-fed. More than 400 prisoners at the supermax spend between 22 to 24 hours a day locked alone in concrete "boxcar" cells without access to a window.
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Concealed Jailhouse Deal Raises Question over Texas Execution
There is a new development in the case of Cameron Todd Willingham, a Texas man who was executed 10 years ago after he was convicted of setting a fire that killed his three young daughters. For years, family members and death penalty opponents have argued that he was innocent. The New York Times is now reporting newly discovered evidence suggests that the prosecutor in the case may have concealed a deal with a jailhouse informant whose testimony helped put Willingham to death. Attorneys seeking a posthumous exoneration for Willingham say they have found evidence that the informant Johnny Webb gave his testimony in return for a reduced prison sentence.
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Bank of America Contests $2.1 Billion Fine
In financial news, Bank of America is contesting a $2.1 billion fine sought by the Obama administration over defective mortgages sold by the bank’s Countrywide unit. Bank of America is arguing the fine should be based on the amount of profit it made by selling the flawed loans, which it says was nothing.
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Convictions Tossed for Italian Agents Tied to CIA Kidnapping of Muslim Cleric
Italy’s top criminal court has thrown out the convictions of five Italian agents for their role in the kidnapping of a Muslim cleric as part of the CIA’s extraordinary rendition program. The cleric, Abu Omar, was snatched from the streets of Milan in 2003 and taken to U.S. bases in Italy and Germany before being sent to Egypt, where he says he was tortured. Twenty-two CIA members have been convicted in absentia in the case. But on Monday, the court overturned the convictions of Italy’s former military intelligence chief and four others, saying they were invalid because the case involved secret information.
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U.S. Prepares for Oil and Gas Exploration in Atlantic
The Interior Department has endorsed seismic exploration for oil and gas in Atlantic waters. The American Petroleum Institute praised the move that could open up new areas for drilling, but the conservation group Oceana said exploration "could be a death sentence for many marine mammals."
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Keystone XL Dissent Protests Planned for Washington
Opponents of the Keystone XL pipeline are gearing up for a series of protests known as "XL Dissent" in Washington this weekend. More than 1,000 students and youth will march from Georgetown University to the White House. Some 300 of the participants are expected to risk arrest in a sit-in outside the gates. Organizers say it will likely be the largest youth sit-in on the environment in a generation.
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"Yoga Mat Chemical" Found in 500 Food Items
Consumer advocates at the Environmental Working Group are warning that a chemical used to make yoga mats and flip-flops can now be found in more than 500 food items. The chemical, azodicarbonamide, is often used in bread, croutons, pre-made sandwiches and snacks made by many major brands, including Pillsbury, Nature’s Own, Sara Lee, Kroger and Little Debbie. The restaurant chain Subway recently announced it was phasing out the use of the chemical after an online campaign. The chemical is not approved for food use in Australia and Europe.
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Cuban Five Member Fernando González Released
Fernando González, one of the members of the Cuban Five, has been released after more than 15 years behind bars in the United States. González was transferred Thursday to an immigration prison pending deportation back to Cuba. His mother spoke in Havana praising the release of her son
Magali Llort: "For the Cuban people who have been fighting for a long time for this return, this is also a victory."
The Cuban Five were arrested in 1998 and later convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage. They say they were not spying on the United States, but trying to monitor violent right-wing Cuban exile groups. Another Cuban Five member was released in 2011; three others remain in prison.
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Oscar Countdown: Watch Our Filmmaker Interviews on "Dirty Wars," "The Act of Killing" & "The Square"
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will announce the 2014 Oscar winners on March 2 at the 86th annual Academy Awards. Democracy Now! has featured extended interviews with filmmakers behind three of the five films nominated for best feature documentary. A record 147 films had originally qualified in the category. Watch our interviews with three of the filmmakers who were nominated, and see all of our Oscar-related coverage over the years.
Dirty Wars: Jeremy Scahill and Rick Rowley’s New Film Exposes Hidden Truths of Covert U.S. Warfare
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We interview investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill and filmmaker Richard Rowley when "Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield" premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah. "One of the things that humbles both of us is that when you arrive in a village in Afghanistan and knock on someone’s door, you’re the first American they’ve seen since the Americans that kicked that door in and killed half their family," Rowley says. "We promised them that we would do everything we could to make their stories be heard in the U.S. ... Finally we’re able to keep those promises."
'The Act of Killing': New Film Shows U.S.-Backed Indonesian Death Squad Leaders Re-enacting Massacres
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We spend the hour with Joshua Oppenheimer, the director of the groundbreaking documentary called "The Act of Killing." The film is set in Indonesia, where, beginning in 1965, military and paramilitary forces slaughtered up to a million Indonesians after overthrowing the democratically elected government. That military was backed by the United States and led by General Suharto, who would rule Indonesia for decades. There has been no truth and reconciliation commission, nor have any of the murderers been brought to justice. As the film reveals, Indonesia is a country where the killers are to this day celebrated as heroes by many. Oppenheimer spent more than eight years interviewing the Indonesian death squad leaders, and in "The Act of Killing," he works with them to re-enact the real-life killings in the style of American movies in which the men love to watch — this includes classic Hollywood gangster movies and lavish musical numbers. A key figure he follows is Anwar Congo, who killed hundreds, if not a thousand people with his own hands and is now revered as a founding father of an active right-wing paramilitary organization. We also ask Oppenheimer to discusses the film’s impact in Indonesia, where he screened it for survivors and journalists who have launched new investigations into the massacres. The film is co-directed by Christine Cynn and an Indonesian co-director who remains anonymous for fear of retribution, as does much of the Indonesian film crew.
'The Square': Jehane Noujaim’s New Film Captures Egypt’s Ongoing Revolution After Mubarak’s Fall
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As Egyptians marked the second anniversary of the Egyptian revolution, we looked at the new documentary that captures the ongoing protest movement in Egypt well after the downfall of Hosni Mubarak. "The Square" follows a group of activists as they risk their lives in the uprising that ousted Mubarak only to face further threats under the transitional military regime. We’re joined by the film’s Egyptian-American director, Jehane Noujaim, at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. Noujaim’s previous work includes the famed Al Jazeera documentary, "Control Room."
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