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Spied on for Being Muslim? NSA Targets Named in Snowden Leaks Respond to U.S. Gov't Surveillance
A new report by The Intercept has identified five prominent Muslim Americans who were spied on by the National Security Agency. It cites an NSA spreadsheet leaked by Edward Snowden that shows nearly 7,500 email addresses monitored between 2002 and 2008, including addresses that appear to belong to foreigners the government suspects of ties to al-Qaeda, along with Americans accused of terrorist activity. But it also lists the email addresses of a former Republican operative and one-time political candidate, a professor at Rutgers University, and the head of the largest Muslim civil rights group in the country. We speak with Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Glenn Greenwald, who broke the story for The Intercept based on documents leaked by Snowden. "The only thing they really had in common is that they are all politically active American Muslims," Greenwald says. "And that seems to be enough in the intelligence community to render these people suspicious." We are also joined by two people Greenwald names in the article: Asim Ghafoor, a prominent civil rights attorney who has represented clients in terrorism-related cases; and Faisal Gill, an attorney and former senior policy director with the Department of Homeland Security. When asked what needs to be done in response to the revelations, Gill argues Congress should step in and exercise its authority over how the FISA courts approve surveillance. "In our cases, I don’t think there is probable cause ... so the entire system needs to be examined," Gill says. "What happens is you paint somebody with a broad brush, and they’re tainted for life. … Nobody wants a lawyer that the government suspects of being involved in these type of activities."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: "Shock" by Chilean hip-hop artist Ana Tijoux. She’s performing in Democracy Now!'s studios this week. We'll be posting our full interview with her, including more songs, at democracynow.org. She performs Friday night at Club Europa in Brooklyn, New York. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, a new report by the news website The Intercept has identified five prominent Muslim Americans who were spied on by the National Security Agency. An NSA spreadsheet leaked by Edward Snowden shows nearly 7,500 email addresses monitored between 2002 and 2008. Included in the spreadsheet are addresses that appear to belong to foreigners the government suspects of ties to al-Qaeda, along with Americans accused of terrorist activity, including Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan, who were both killed by a U.S. drone strike in 2011.
But the list also includes the email addresses of a former Republican operative and one-time political candidate; a professor at Rutgers University; and the head of the largest Muslim civil rights group in the country. What these figures all have in common is that they are Muslim Americans. They appear to have been targeted for their Muslim identities and ties to various Muslim causes or individual cases involving Muslims.
AMY GOODMAN: In total, The Intercept identified five leading Muslim-American activists, attorneys, academics whose email addresses were targeted for monitoring. None have ever been charged with a crime. In a video for The Intercept, Nihad Awad, the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, the country’s largest Muslim civil rights group, responded to the spying on him.
NIHAD AWAD: I was not aware that I was under surveillance, except recently. And I’m outraged that as an American citizen, my government, after decades of civil rights struggle, still the government spies on political activists and civil rights activists and leaders. It is outrageous, and I’m really angry that despite all the work that we have been doing in our communities to serve the nation, to serve our communities, we are treated with suspicion.
Our doors have been open for over 20 years. The government, obviously, from the scrutiny level that we have seen so far, they know everything. And they know perfectly well that we are a transparent, above-the-board American true success story. And they should celebrate our achievements as a civil rights organization that’s willing to stand up when many people are silent and not willing.
I believe that despite the pain and suffering I’m going through when I feel I’m being surveilled in my communications, wherever I go—here, abroad—all the dealings I deal with is being scrutinized by the government. I don’t feel free. I don’t feel the freedom that other people enjoy in this country. I have been—I feel that I’m being targeted because of my religious identity and my First Amendment activities, that are protected under the Constitution, and solely because I am vocal and I have been doing what every civil rights leader had to do for their communities and for their country. I do not compare myself to Martin Luther King, but he was surveilled. He was spied on. President Obama himself recognized this, and he—I paraphrase—he said, had it not been to the work of Dr. Martin Luther King, he would not be where he is now, the president. And yet, the government spied on Martin Luther King. I’m not like Martin Luther King. We are honored to continue the legacy of defending the civil rights of people. And I believe the government has not changed. When it comes to civil rights organizations, activists and leaders, I’m not surprised that, unfortunately, we have a long way to go.
If we do not speak up against the abuses of the NSA surveillance, if we do not stop the abuse of targeting people because of their religious identity and their First Amendment activities, if we do not stop this, if we do not speak against it, if we do not ask questions, it’s just a matter of time to come to you, as it has come to us.
It is true, and no one can deny, that American Muslims have been viewed with suspicion and have been treated as suspect. Some American Muslims have been put on the no-fly list for no obvious reason. And we stood for these people. Some people are being questioned about their faith—how many times do they pray, which imam do they follow, if they get up to the morning prayer, which mosque they frequent, how often do they read the Qur’an. These questions are asked sometimes to American Muslims at the borders. And we protest these policies. And apparently we are paying the price for speaking up against these, what I believe are, unconstitutional and un-American policies.
AMY GOODMAN: Nihad Awad is the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, the U.S.’s largest Muslim civil rights organization. He has been a guest on Democracy Now!
For more, we are joined by Glenn Greenwald, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who broke the story. His newest story for The Intercept at First Look Media is "Meet the Muslim-American Leaders the FBI and NSA Have Been Spying On." His new book is No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State. In a minute, we’ll speak with two of the Muslim Americans featured in his story.
Glenn, welcome back to Democracy Now! Talk about how you discovered this and the significance of spying on Muslim-American leaders.
GLENN GREENWALD: There were several documents in the Snowden archive [inaudible]—
AMY GOODMAN: Glenn, we’re going to have to interrupt. We can hardly hear you, so we’re going to try to clean up that line. And we’re going to go to our guests right now in Washington as we do that: Faisal Gill, an attorney and former senior policy director with the Department of Homeland Security, and Asim Ghafoor, the civil rights attorney who has represented clients in terrorism-related cases, previously sued the government for warrantless wiretapping—among the five prominent Muslim Americans who had their email addresses monitored by the NSA.
Faisal Gill, let’s turn to you first. You ran for the House to be a representative in the Legislature in Virginia. You’re a Republican lawyer. You worked for the Department of Homeland Security, had some of the highest clearance. Can you explain when you found out or even suspected you were being targeted by the NSA?
FAISAL GILL: I did not find out that I was suspected by the NSA until I spoke to Glenn. Glenn called me. I went to New York, I met with Glenn, and that’s the first time that I found out that I was targeted by the NSA. Before that, it wasn’t even a thought in my mind that I could be suspected of any sort of wrongdoing or would be surveilled or would be monitored at all.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, well, of course, the government has often said that this surveillance is limited and that if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about. What’s your response to that?
FAISAL GILL: Well, if that’s the criteria that we’re going to use, then we just need to throw out the entire Fourth Amendment. Our entire justice system is premised on the fact that not whether somebody has anything to hide or not, but whether law enforcement has a probable cause. I mean, under regular criminal law, what you have is, if the police go in without a warrant or without an effective warrant, they go in and they even find evidence of crimes, those evidence are thrown out, even if they find evidence of a crime, because under our Constitution, the right to privacy exists. Under our Constitution, the question, again, is not whether you have something to hide or not, but whether law enforcement has a reasonable expectation or reasonable suspicion to believe that you’ve committed a crime. So I think that saying that is just ridiculous.
AMY GOODMAN: Faisal Gill, talk about your work experience. I mean, this monitoring started under the Bush administration. You were working for George W. Bush.
FAISAL GILL: Yeah, I mean, I was working for President Bush, worked in the Department of Homeland Security. I was not involved in monitoring, so I, you know, was never involved in any sort of FISA warrants or anything of that sort, so I would not know that. I understand—after 9/11, I understand that there is a need for surveillance, and the program needs to expand. And I also understand that there will be times where you might have a reasonable suspicion for someone that you might have to—that you suspect maybe committed a crime or maybe is involved in terrorist activities, that after you monitor them, you find out that, OK, no, they’re not involved in any of those activities. But there still has to be some start. There still has to be some suspicion. There still has to be some activity that would lead someone to believe that, OK, this person is involved. There is nothing in my background that would lead anybody to believe that. I’ve never had any connection with any terrorist groups, never been involved. I’ve passed polygraphs stating such. So, that’s what’s more troubling to me is that there is no reasonable suspicion or probable cause to suspect me of any of these activities.
AMY GOODMAN: We have Glenn Greenwald back with us, on the line with us from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. So, Glenn, start again by talking about how you found out this information.
GLENN GREENWALD: There were many documents in the Snowden archive which pertain to NSA and FBI targeting of Americans on U.S. soil, one of the most interesting of which was this spreadsheet called "FISA recap" from 2008 that listed roughly 7,000 emails, at least several hundred of which were American citizens. And so we began the very arduous task of trying to determine the identity of the people who were using those email addresses. In most of the cases, it was actually quite difficult, if not impossible. But in some of the cases, we were able to find who the people were who were using these email addresses.
And we had maybe 20 or so Americans that we thought we should report on, and we narrowed it down to five, based on a variety of factors, including who was willing to be identified publicly as a surveillance target. A lot of people were very afraid of the stigma that it would have for them on their careers or their reputation forever and didn’t want to be named. And so, that was one big factor. And another one was making sure that we were reporting on people who clearly led very law-abiding, exemplary lives, as the five people here did.
And once we were able to determine their identities, and they were willing to go on the record, we began the process of reporting about how they were spied on and what possible rationale the government might have had. And what we found was that the only thing they really had in common is that they’re all politically active American Muslims who, in some form or another, have expressed criticism of the U.S. government or just been politically active in their communities and in the nation. And that seems to be sufficient within the intelligence community to render these people suspicious.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Glenn, since the file was labeled "FISA recap," was there any indication that these were actually all surveillance done pursuant to FISA warrants?
GLENN GREENWALD: The NSA and the FBI use the word "FISA" in a very broad way, pretty much to mean any kind of authority they have to surveil. It doesn’t mean at all getting a specific warrant from the FISA court. During the three months that we were doing the reporting, the NSA was urging us not to publish any of their targets and were telling us that the reason—one reason was because they do everything under the aegis of the FISA court. So we had assumed, based on what the NSA said, that all of this surveillance was done pursuant to individual FISA warrants. But as we were about to publish last week, literally hours before we were going to publish, Justice Department sources began telling other media outlets that in fact they didn’t have FISA warrants for at least one of the people we were naming—Nihad Awad, the executive director of CAIR—and possibly others, that they may have surveilled them pursuant to other theories that allowed them to surveil Americans without individual FISA warrants. So we don’t actually know if they got specific FISA warrants or general FISA warrants for all or any of these individuals. That’s something that I think the Obama administration ought to answer.
AMY GOODMAN: The NSA and FBI both declined our request to join us on today’s program, but the NSA sent a joint statement from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Justice, which reads, quote: "It is entirely false that U.S. intelligence agencies conduct electronic surveillance of political, religious or activist figures solely because they disagree with public policies or criticize the government, or for exercising constitutional rights. ... With limited exceptions (for example, in an emergency), our intelligence agencies must have a court order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to target any U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident for electronic surveillance. These court orders are issued by an independent federal judge only if probable cause, based on specific facts, are established that the person is an agent of a foreign power, a terrorist, a spy, or someone who takes orders from a foreign power," the government said. Your response, Glenn Greenwald?
GLENN GREENWALD: Well, first of all, I find it fascinating what they basically conceded there. They’re not denying that they take into account people’s political activism and their political views when deciding who should be surveilled. All they’re saying is, "We don’t base our decisions solely on those criteria." But I think it’s very clear, based on that statement and the reporting that we did that’s in the article, that people’s political opinions and what they express and the nature and extent of their political activism is a significant factor in deciding who their surveillance targets are, which is incredibly disturbing. These are American citizens who, under the Constitution, are guaranteed the right to engage in this political expression and political activism, and it’s clearly being used as a grounds for surveillance.
The second issue I would add is that although we don’t know that they’ve been targeted pursuant to a FISA court warrant, because prior to the 2008 law the government could actually target Americans, for example, if they were on foreign soil, just by getting the attorney general to OK it—they didn’t need to go to the FISA court. Even if they got FISA court approval, everybody knows the FISA court is notoriously a rubber-stamping tribunal. They meet in complete secrecy. Only the government can attend. In the 30-year history of the FISA court, they have approved something like 35,000 government requests and rejected a grand total of 12 of those requests. We had a source who said, "You just show up at the FISA court judge’s house at 2:00 in the morning, and if he knows you and likes you, he’ll sign whatever warrant you put in front of him." And so, I think everybody now knows that the fact that something was done with FISA court approval means absolutely nothing, given what a rubber-stamping and malleable tribunal that is.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Glenn, I want to ask you about the document you highlight in your report that instructs intelligence personnel how to format internal memos to justify FISA surveillance. In the place where the target’s real name would go, the memo offers the fake name "Mohammed Raghead" as a placeholder. The NSA issued a statement in response, saying it, quote, "has not and would not approve official training documents that include insulting or inflammatory language. Any use of racial or ethnic stereotypes, slurs or other similar language by employees is both unacceptable and inconsistent with NSA policy and core values." Your response?
GLENN GREENWALD: This is a critical point. I think this is the critical context to understand the reporting. That document that we found, where they use this slur, "Mohammed Raghead," as a sample for who they would get a FISA warrant against, is by no means the only evidence of rampant bigotry and anti-Islamic prejudice within the intelligence community. There was an award-winning story by Wired magazine from Spencer Ackerman in 2011 that found that huge numbers of training materials in the FBI instructed the FBI to view even moderate, law-abiding Muslims as serious national security threats. And he said they apologized, and they were going to revamp the program.
You know, if you look at what these surveillance targets have in common, one of the things they have in common is that they became the obsessive focus of some of the furthest right-wing, neoconservative, anti-Muslim fringes, like people like Frank Gaffney and that crowd, Pam Geller. They became obsessed, for example, with Faisal Gill when he was running for office in Virginia. They have long been obsessed with CAIR. And what I think that you see from all of this evidence is that these radicals, these anti-Muslim radicals in the United States, have enough of a foothold within the intelligence community to be able to use these vast surveillance weapons, that we’ve spent the last year documenting, to further their warped and bigotry-driven political agenda.
And just to go back to that statement that you asked me about, Juan, from the DNI, I mean, it’s really reprehensible what they’re doing. On the one hand, they’re saying, "We won’t in any way comment on why these people were surveilled," on the other hand, "Now we’re going to smear them with innuendo by saying we would only surveil people if they’re agents of a terrorist organization or a foreign power and have done something that constitutes espionage or terrorism." So, they’re smearing them while at the same time preventing them from actually addressing what it is that they supposedly did that merited this surveillance. And I think the only evidence we have publicly, based on all of the evidence that you just asked me about, all these documents, the history of the FBI and the NSA, is that they regard American Muslims, American citizens who are Muslims, who exercise their political rights, as being inherently suspicious and worthy of surveillance. It is exactly the same kind of surveillance abuses from the ’60s and ’70s, when the activists who were considered threatening of that time, like civil rights leaders or antiwar activists or antigovernment advocates on the left and the right, were similarly regarded as threatening if they exercised their political rights, and were also subjected to surveillance.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I’d like to bring in Asim Ghafoor on this issue, the civil rights attorney. You actually learned that you were being surveilled even before the Glenn Greenwald articles came out years ago. Could you talk about that?
ASIM GHAFOOR: Yes, sir. In 2004, a charity in Oregon that was under investigation by the U.S. Treasury Department—a group of lawyers were given a stack of documents, four pages of which I still cannot talk about today, because of warnings from the government that they would prosecute me if I did. But it has been publicly reported that those four pages were a summary of conversations of some overseas individuals with myself, my fellow lawyers and other staff here in the U.S., about a legal strategy on how to get delisted from Treasury designation. So, it wasn’t exactly terrorism. It was a group of people who were falsely accused of terrorism who were trying to hire a lawyer, use the civil justice system, suing the Treasury Department, suing the Office of Foreign Assets Control and other organizations in the U.S., government agencies in the U.S. That investigation ended up freezing the assets of the U.S. charity, jailing the leader for two years—and your show has covered that in the past—and freezing the assets of several individuals overseas. This was evidence of the government not only conducting warrantless surveillance, but then using that information to cause a very unjustified legal distress.
Ironically, in that case, we sued, we were found to have standing, and the case went on from 2006 until 2012, until the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed it on a technicality, saying that under the Section 1810 that we did of the original FISA, which was amended, of course, in 2008, we did not—while we had standing, while we were able to prove we were surveilled without a warrant, the government had immunity on use of that information, so we could not collect damages. It was a technicality, which Congress has to fix. And unfortunately, that’s one thing which will hurt us in trying to pursue any legal remedies on this new set of wiretapping, although, as a lawyer, as my fellow counsel from Brazil and here next to me in the studio know, that there’s always an opportunity to find another way to bring a lawsuit. But—
AMY GOODMAN: Asim—
ASIM GHAFOOR: Yes, ma’am?
AMY GOODMAN: —Ghafoor and Faisal Gill, as well as Glenn Greenwald, we’re going to break. When we come back, I mean, the significance of your case, among other things, Asim, is that you’re talking about, whatever the case was, you were being surveilled, monitored, your email was being read, as you represented clients. And I want to ask about this issue of client-attorney privilege, among many other things. We are talking to the Muslim-American leaders the FBI and NSA has been spying on. Glenn Greenwald, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, exposed this in The Intercept. We’ll be back with them in a minute.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We’re joined now by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald. He’s just broken the story in The Intercept called "Meet the Muslim-American Leaders the FBI and NSA Have Been Spying On." We’re also joined by two of the subjects of that piece. Faisal Gill worked in the George W. Bush administration from late 2001 until 2005. He served as an intelligence policy adviser in the Department of Homeland Security, where he was authorized to access sensitive, compartmented information, a classification level reserved for the nation’s most closely guarded secrets.
AMY GOODMAN: The NSA began monitoring Gill’s email account in 2006 after he left DHS, the Department of Homeland Security, and co-founded a law firm with our other guest, Asim Ghafoor, a prominent civil rights attorney who has represented clients in terrorism-related cases. He has also worked extensively on Capitol Hill as a legislative assistant and lobbyist. During the period that he was being monitored by the NSA, he was already suing the government after an accidental leak revealed warrantless eavesdropping on his phone calls with his clients. Ghafoor was awarded more than $20,000 in damages, but the judgment was later reversed.
Asim Ghafoor, your feelings when you learned what was taking place and this call that you got from The Intercept about these documents?
ASIM GHAFOOR: Again, it was unbelievable. In 2004, it was unbelievable, and in 2014, 10 years later, even more unbelievable. When the editor called me and told me, very cryptically, "We have an email address. Can you confirm your identity? Can you mail me an email from there?" I didn’t know who that was. Was he somebody also from the government? You know, I was worried for about 10 seconds before I googled it and realized this editor was the real thing. I emailed him, and then I met two of Mr. Greenwald’s colleagues, the two journalists who interviewed me. And it just became like Alice in Wonderland all over again.
This is something where, as a lawyer, as a civil rights lawyer who advises people who come to me for compliance issues when they’re somewhat in trouble with the government, when they’re in big trouble with the government, I really have to be careful about how I communicate with them. And I’m happy to maintain a reasonable expectation of privacy. Our legal ethics rules do tell us you have to be very discreet with what you say on a phone, email. But to think that the government was listening in on it was just really a shock to me. And I think it’s a disservice, really, to all lawyers, whether we’re a Muslim-American lawyer like me, who worked on Capitol Hill, who has many friends in the government, in the current White House, as well. I had some friends in the previous White House, even though I’m a lifelong Democrat. It was just really a shock.
And to think that a government lawyer or government agent, many of whom—most of whom who, you know, are very professional, wake up every day, do their job to secure America, to push the envelope and push the limit, to go to the supervisors, to go to a judge and say, "We need to listen to this guy," again, it just makes no sense. And if it was because I was winning a case against them in 2005, and they decided, "You know what? We’re going to listen in on this guy," again—I’ve said this before, I said this to the journalists at The Intercept, and I’ll say it again—if a lawyer were to go in court, come up with some evidence that they got from reading my emails to my clients or maybe to co-counsel, to a paralegal, to anyone that I deal with on a legal basis, on a day-to-day basis representing my clients in civil rights cases, a judge would laugh them out of court. So, what made a lawyer or an agent or somebody in the government think that they could even use this information? To me, that’s just as baffling as the fact that this whole regime has been implemented.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Glenn Greenwald, your report covers the period from 2002 to 2008. Is there any indication that the people targeted during that period, that that stopped after 2008 at all, or you just didn’t have further documentation of what happened after that?
GLENN GREENWALD: Right, the document that we have is from 2008. We have one from 2007, as well. It seems like the format of the document changed once the law changed in 2008. There’s zero reason to think that this stopped. I mean, some of the surveillance that’s talked about on this document indicates termination dates, and others of it say "sustained," meaning it’s ongoing. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to believe or to claim, or anything like that, that any of this stopped in 2008. And as The Washington Post noted in the story they did a week ago, about 90 percent of the collections being about nontargets, they said—and they’re right—that the Obama administration dramatically expanded the amount of surveillance that takes place both internationally and domestically. So we don’t have the proof that it continued beyond that, but the documents do say "sustained" for some of the surveillance.
Let me just quickly add one thing about Asim Ghafoor’s case, which is, when the 2004 case was first—first surfaced, what we knew was that his calls to his clients had been monitored. I don’t think we knew that he was the target. It could have been that his clients were the target, and they listened in anyway, knowing that it was an attorney-client communication. In this case, it was not his clients’ email addresses, but his email addresses that were on the NSA and FBI’s list. And I think that has sort of escalated the nature of the revelation.
AMY GOODMAN: And, Glenn, you postponed the release of this piece for over a week. Why?
GLENN GREENWALD: We had been, as I said earlier, led to believe for several months by the NSA that all of this spying was done pursuant to FISA warrants. And so, when we wrote our story, although we didn’t say that they had FISA warrants, because we didn’t know that, we wrote the story on the premise that it was done under the aegis of the FISA court, because that’s what we were led to believe. Literally hours before we were going to hit the publish button, one of the media partners with whom we were working talked to fairly high-level sources at the Justice Department and the FBI, who told them that in fact they didn’t have an individual FISA warrant against Nihad Awad and maybe one or two of the other targets. And so, we didn’t want to publish something, the accuracy of which we were uncertain, and so we said, "Let’s hold the story and investigate this. I need to resolve it definitively or say in the story that now there’s uncertainty surrounding this issue." And so we just took a week to make sure we had the story 100 percent right.
AMY GOODMAN: And what, ultimately, did you conclude?
GLENN GREENWALD: We went back to the NSA, and we said to them, "You know, for months you’ve been saying this has been under the aegis of the FISA court, and now you have Justice Department—anonymous people in the Justice Department supposedly saying that you don’t have it." And they said, "Well, we can’t tell you what they said. We won’t comment specifically on any of these cases." And based on all the information we were able to get, it seems likely that, at least prior to the 2008 law, they had other theories internally about how they could spy on Americans without FISA warrants. So we don’t actually know whether or not they actually did have FISA warrants against all of these individuals. And I really think the Obama administration needs to answer that question.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Faisal Gill, I’d like to ask you, given these revelations and given the constant reporting of the unbridled surveillance of our government on American citizens, what do you think needs to be done? And what would you hope that Congress would do at this stage?
FAISAL GILL: Well, I think Congress needs to step up and exercise oversight authority over the intelligence community. The biggest thing that came out of this is, if the Department of Justice and NSA statements are correct, then the FISA process and what constitutes probable cause needs to be seriously examined, because, again, in our cases, I don’t think there is probable cause, which means reasonable suspicion to believe that a crime has been committed. And that’s absolutely ridiculous to think that in this case there was probable cause, or in my case or Asim’s case or Nihad’s case there’s probable cause. So, the entire system needs to be examined.
And as Glenn mentioned, the FISA court is a rubber stamp. You cannot have that in cases like this, because what happens is you paint somebody with a broad brush, and they’re tainted for life, as I know from personal experience when it happened to me before, and now, as well. This is going to taint you. Nobody wants a lawyer that the government suspect is involved in these type of activities. And then what you get is you get a statement from the government that basically backs up the fact that they believed you were involved in those kind of activities, which is exactly what we got from the Justice Department and NSA.
So Congress really needs to examine the FISA court. They need to put in some safeguards in place. And they need to make sure that it is not a rubber stamp, because it does have real-life implications for the people that are targets. I mean, I’ve said this before. You go into any county in the United States and you look at the success rate for getting a search warrant for a crime such as breaking and entering or any other crime, even a petty crime, you’re not going to find a 99.9 percent success rate for those search warrants. Judges question you more on that. So if judges are questioning you more on that, I think the FISA court should be held to a little bit of a higher standard. And we want to make sure that anybody that we’re targeting and we’re surveilling without their knowledge, listening to their emails, they’re people that we really do suspect are involved and engaged in these type of activities, and the reason we believe that is because we have some credible evidence, and we just need to listen to them to basically either get more evidence that we can either use in court or to prosecute them or to stop them from whatever they’re trying to do.
AMY GOODMAN: Asim Ghafoor—
FAISAL GILL: So—
AMY GOODMAN: I want to just interrupt, because we have a few seconds. In both your cases, are you planning to sue the government now for surveillance?
ASIM GHAFOOR: If I could answer that first, I have no plans to sue the government right now. I believe the remedy is with Congress, with oversight, and the administration doing the right thing with the budget. But I’ll keep my options open. We have a few years, once we’ve discovered this, before our statute of limitations runs out. So, it’s something I’ll definitely look into.
AMY GOODMAN: Faisal Gill?
FAISAL GILL: Not at this time. I would like Congress to step up and exercise oversight authority.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you all very much for being with us, Faisal Gill, as well, attorney and former senior policy director at the Department of Homeland Security, allegedly targeted by the NSA. And thanks so much to Asim Ghafoor, prominent civil rights attorney. Glenn Greenwald, again, thanks for being with us, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. His latest story is at The Intercept. We’ll link to it: "Meet the Muslim-American Leaders the FBI and NSA Have Been Spying On."
"Indonesia is on a Different Path": U.S.-Trained General Defeated After Alleged Plot to Rig Vote
An initial count in Indonesia’s hotly contested presidential election shows Jakarta Gov. Joko Widodo has a several-point lead over former army general Prabowo Subianto. Prabowo has refused to concede defeat, and official results won’t be known until after July 20. The American journalist Allan Nairn recently reported Indonesian forces tied to Prabowo have waged a campaign to rig the election in his favor, including "ballot tampering, street violence and threats" against rivals. Prabowo, who received military training by the United States, has been accused of mass killings when he headed the Indonesian special forces in the 1990s. Nairn’s reporting on Prabowo became a major issue in the campaign, and Prabowo has filed criminal charges against him for inciting hatred against the Indonesian military. Joining us from Indonesia, Nairn argues that despite supporters that include "killer generals," Widodo will be more responsive to calls to reform the country’s corrupt political system if popular movements pressure him to do so. "It is very unlikely [Widodo] would respond by opening fire as the Indonesian army has in the past, and as Prabowo undoubtedly would," Nairn says. "He would probably respond by sitting down with people and saying, ’Let’s work something out.’"TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We begin today’s show looking at Indonesia’s hotly contested presidential election. A quick count shows Jakarta Governor Joko Widodo has a several-point lead over former army general Prabowo Subianto. But Prabowo has refused to concede defeat. Official results won’t be known until after July 20. On Wednesday, both Widodo and Prabowo addressed their respective supporters and claimed a mandate to lead the nation.
JOKO WIDODO: [translated] The fate of Indonesia is decided by us. We want a better Indonesia. We want all Indonesians to be healthy. We want our people to be educated, and we want our people to be civilized.
PRABOWO SUBIANTO: [translated] We’re thankful that all the data show that we, the candidate team number one, Prabowo-Hatta, have received the support and mandate from the people of Indonesia.
AMY GOODMAN: The American investigative journalist Allan Nairn recently reported Indonesian forces tied to Prabowo have waged a campaign to rig the election in his favor, including ballot tampering, street violence and threats against rivals. Prabowo, trained by the United States, has been accused of mass killings when he headed the Indonesian special forces in the '90s. Nairn's reporting on Prabowo became a major issue in the campaign, and Prabowo has now filed criminal charges against him, including inciting hatred against the Indonesian military. Indonesia’s presidential vote will mark its first-ever transfer of power from one elected leader to another.
For more, we go to Jakarta, Indonesia, where we’re joined by Allan Nairn.
Allan, welcome back to Democracy Now! We’re talking about the nation’s—we’re talking about the world’s largest Muslim nation. Can you talk about the significance of what at least the quick count indicates, the victory over Prabowo Subianto, the Indonesian general?
ALLAN NAIRN: Well, I think this is a historic day. The prospect of fascism has been turned back in Indonesia. General Prabowo, who, by all accounts, lost, although has yet to concede it, is a mass killer. He, for years, worked for the government of the United States. He has called for abolition of the direct vote. He has mused about fascism and dictatorship, as he was talking to me. He has said that Indonesia is not ready for democracy. But he almost won. He was on the verge of victory, because of lots of money behind him, because of the covert operation he launched using the state’s own special forces and intelligence illegally to try to fix the election, and because he ran on a platform that was the opposite of his record. He ran as a defender of the poor, he ran as an opponent of the United States, when, in fact, for years he has helped the U.S. [inaudible], and for years, as he told me and as Pentagon documents verify, he worked for the Defense Intelligence Agency and with U.S. special forces.
And this could have been a turning point that led back to the prospect of deep repression, as in the Suharto days, a rollback of freedom of speech, increased danger for advocates for the poor and for small farmers and small traders and people who fish for a living and those who dare to stand up against the army and the police. It was a real danger in the air, just 24 hours ago. But now I think it is dissipating. Now I think in Indonesia will be on a road where real progress is necessary—is possible if a popular movement can mobilize, because there are indications that Joko Widodo, Jokowi, the apparent president-elect, might respond positively if there is a mass popular movement demanding economic justice and demanding that killer generals be brought to justice.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Allan, during one of his last official campaign rallies in West Java, presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto vowed to prevent Indonesia from turning into a kleptocracy.
PRABOWO SUBIANTO: [translated] We are a democracy, and democracy is people power. But there is someone who would change it into a kleptocracy. And you know that the "klepto" means thieving or stealing. So the thief wants to be in power.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: That was Prabowo talking in West Java. Allan Nairn, your response?
ALLAN NAIRN: Well, the main thieves in Indonesian politics were on Prabowo’s ticket. The most notorious oligarchs and corrupt government bureaucrats were backing him. This was his campaign method: He ran as the opposite of what he was. And he’s a very good public speaker. He’s a much better public speaker than Widodo. He’s a powerful demagogue in his style. And that’s one reason why he had a chance to win, why he was on the verge of victory. But in the end, enough people came out, they stood up, and, apparently, by all accounts, the general has been turned back.
AMY GOODMAN: And can you explain who who they call Jokowi is?
ALLAN NAIRN: He’s a civilian. He’s a political phenomenon. He came to prominence in the last year as governor of Jakarta. He became famous because he went to speak to the poor. And in his style and manner of speaking, the poor, people from the poor majority, will tell you that "he talks like one of us," that he seems to have a certain sincerity. Now, it’s remarkable, because he comes out of a very corrupt political system that is still dominated by the army. His supporters include a number of the worst killer generals. But there’s a widely accepted sense that he is different, his personality. And I actually agree with that, even though I haven’t met the man yet. But all indications are that that may well be the case. But unless there is a popular movement that puts pressure on Jokowi, there can’t be progress. But if there is, he probably—it’s very unlikely that he would respond by opening fire, as the Indonesian army has in the past and as Prabowo undoubtedly would. He would probably respond by sitting down with people and saying, "Let’s work something out."
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Allan, what about the elections themselves that were carried out? Were there any major problems? What was the level of participation? And could you explain this quick count versus an actual count, that will have to wait until July 20th?
ALLAN NAIRN: Well, the turnout was very high. People at the grassroots are more serious about politics in Indonesia than they are in the United States. I spent Election Day in a poor, working-class neighborhood, and there was a real sense of seriousness and responsibility as people were walking to the polls. They don’t view politics as a game, as so many Americans do. At the same time, the election was facing this covert operation from Kopassus, the U.S.-trained special forces, and BIN, the intelligence agency, which has a liaison relationship with the CIA. It’s not clear if the U.S. had any connection to this covert operation. It was enacted by the Prabowo people, with apparent support from the current Indonesian president, General Susilo. But they were working to mess with the ballot boxes, to use street violence to try intimidate the Jokowi supporters. But as of this moment, it looks like it hasn’t succeeded. [inaudible]
AMY GOODMAN: Allan, we’re having some—
ALLAN NAIRN: This quick count, which [inaudible]—
AMY GOODMAN: We’re having some—
ALLAN NAIRN: —with actual ballots—
AMY GOODMAN: We’re having some trouble hearing you. But as we wrap up, if you could summarize what has happened in the revelations that you exposed in this last two weeks of this campaign against Prabowo, based on interview you did with him, what, some decade ago, that you started to write about now, and his response to those revelations?
ALLAN NAIRN: Well, it became a major issue in the campaign. I quoted him talking about fascism and dictatorship, saying the country wasn’t ready for democracy, endorsing [inaudible] massacres if they’re committed in remote villages, and insulting a former president of Indonesia who is something of a revered figure—he’s a civilian, a Muslim cleric, highly respected. And all of these things, especially the insult of the former president, Gus Dur, became major issues in the campaign.
The Prabowo campaign attacked me. We went back and forth. They called for my arrest. I said, "Go ahead." And they backed down. But then, because they got so much criticism for backing down, [inaudible] for backing down, the final act of the campaign was to file criminal charges against me, for insulting—for inciting hatred against the army, in part. For whatever reason, Prabowo narrowly lost, and Indonesian history is on a different path.
AMY GOODMAN: Allan, I want to thank you for being with us. Allan Nairn is an investigative journalist, reporting from Indonesia for years, has been exposing government killings of civilians. And we’ll continue to follow up on Indonesia’s presidential elections. The final results will be announced on July 20th.
This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. When we come back, we go to Glenn Greenwald’s latest exposé in The Intercept identifying five prominent Muslim Americans spied on by the National Security Agency and the FBI. Stay with us.
Headlines:
•Palestinian Toll from Gaza Attack Tops 80, Including 18 Children
The death toll from Israel’s attack on the Gaza Strip has more than doubled in 24 hours as the besieged territory comes under relentless bombing. At least 44 Gaza residents have been killed in the past day, bringing the total this week to around 80. The Palestinian news agency Maan reports the dead include 18 children and 10 women. The Palestinian Ministry of Health says more than 600 people have been wounded. In the deadliest single attack since the offensive began, at least seven Palestinian civilians, including five children, were killed when Israeli warplanes bombed several homes in a densely populated area where the victims were sleeping. Bodies were pulled from the rubble of at least three homes and neighboring buildings.
•Gaza Hospitals Overrun with Victims; Bombing Exceeds 2012 Israeli Assault
Palestinian militants continue to fire rockets into Israel, with more than 60 launched on Wednesday, bringing the total to more than 200 this week. Thousands of Israelis have taken refuge in shelters. No casualties or significant damage has been reported.
•Gaza Militants Continue Rocket Attacks on Israel
Palestinian militants continue to fire rockets into Israel, with more than 60 launched on Wednesday, bringing the total to more than 200 this week. Thousands of Israelis have taken refuge in shelters. No casualties or significant damage has been reported.
•Israel Rejects Hamas Ceasefire Terms; Minister Floats "Temporary" Gaza Takeover
On Wednesday, Hamas political leader Khaled Meshaal offered to renew the 2012 ceasefire based on three conditions: an end to the Israeli offensive, the release of prisoners initially freed under a prisoner swap but recently re-arrested in Israeli raids, and Israeli respect for the Palestinian unity government. Israeli officials have rejected Meshaal’s terms and vowed to continue the attack. Israeli Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz suggested a looming ground invasion, saying Israel "will have to take over Gaza temporarily, for a few weeks." Speaking in Tel Aviv, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blamed Hamas for rocket attacks on Israel and for the civilian deaths resulting from Israeli strikes.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: "Today we expanded our operations against Hamas and the other terrorist groups in Gaza. We’ll continue to protect our civilians against Hamas attacks on them. Now, Hamas, by contrast, is deliberately putting Palestinian civilians into harm’s way. It embeds its terrorists in hospitals and schools and mosques, apartment buildings throughout the Gaza Strip. Hamas is thus committing a double war crime: It targets Israeli civilians, while hiding behind Palestinian civilians."
•Israelis Stage Peace Rally in Tel Aviv
The Israeli Cabinet has authorized the option of calling up some 40,000 reservists for a potential ground assault. In a show of protest against their government, a small group of Israelis rallied in Tel Aviv to oppose the Gaza bombings.
Hilleli, Women of Peace: "We believe that this cycle of violence must be ended, and it’s definitely not going to be ended by more violence and by more bombs on Gaza, and it’s not going to help the people in the south and neither the people in Tel Aviv that have been subject to missiles in the past few days."
•PA Pleads for U.S. Aid to Stop "War Against Palestinian People"
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has called Israel’s attack on Gaza an act of genocide, accusing the Netanyahu government of a "war against the Palestinian people as a whole … defending [its West Bank] settlements." In Washington, the PA’s chief envoy to the United States urged President Obama to use American leverage over Israel to stop the attack.
Maen Rashid Areikat, chief PLO envoy to Israel: "I would like to say to President Obama that there is no — you cannot equate between an occupied people and an occupier. And the rising death toll on the Palestinian side tells clearly who is the party that is suffering the most from this violence. ... I think the United States should rein in Israel. They are the only country that can rein in Israel, because they are the country that provides the political, military, economic and financial support for Israel, and without that support, Israel cannot escape being accountable for their actions."
•Obama Admin Continues Backing for Israeli Airstrikes
As the Palestinian Authority pleaded for U.S. help, the Obama administration offered continued support for the Israeli strikes. At a news conference in Washington, State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki said the United States wants "de-escalation," but added that it backs the offensive and blames Hamas for the violence.
Jen Psaki: "As you know, we’re encouraging all sides to de-escalate the situation on the ground. But again, Israel has every right to defend themselves and take steps to defend themselves. And as we know, the aggression is currently coming from Hamas in Gaza."
During the news conference, Psaki repeatedly refused to answer a question on "whether Palestinians have the right to defend themselves." The Obama administration appears to have decided on a position of backing the Israeli strikes, but cautioning against a ground invasion. In a phone call to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Secretary of State John Kerry reportedly said the United States hopes to see Israel stop the rocket fire without sending troops into Gaza.
•Thousands in New York City Protest Israeli Attack on Gaza
Palestinian solidarity rallies have been held around the world in recent days. In New York City, thousands of people protested in front of the Israeli Mission to the United Nations before marching through the streets.
Protester: "We hope to change public opinion so that they understand that Palestinians are not terrorists, that they are defending themselves. It’s an unfair situation that they’re going through. They’re living under occupation. They have no human rights. They have no rights to anything that we enjoy here as Americans."
Muhammed Chaudhry: "At least we’ve got to take the first step, though, a ceasefire, no more violence, no more killing of the innocent, from both parties."
•Obama Presses GOP to Back Funding Request for Border Crisis
President Obama is urging Republicans to back his funding request for the migrant crisis on the Mexico border. Obama has asked Congress for $3.7 billion to speed up deportations and improve care for tens of thousands of detained children. On Wednesday, Obama met with Republican Gov. Rick Perry during a fundraising trip to Texas. Obama repeated his plea that Central American parents not send their children to the border, and called on Republicans to approve the funding.
President Obama: "While we intend to do the right thing by these children, their parents need to know that this is an incredibly dangerous situation and it is unlikely that their children will be able to stay. And I’ve asked parents across Central America not to put their children in harm’s way in this fashion. Congress has the capacity to work with all parties concerned to directly address this situation. They’ve said they want to see a solution. The supplemental offers them the capacity to vote immediately to get it done."
More than 52,000 unaccompanied children fleeing violence and poverty in Central America have been seized since October. The United Nations has called on the United States to consider treating them as refugees following a report finding close to 60 percent of those detained could be entitled to refugee protections under international law.
•U.S. Drone Strikes Kill 6 in Pakistan
U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan have killed at least six people. The attack hit a compound and a vehicle in a village in the North Waziristan tribal region. It is the fourth U.S. drone strike in Pakistan since the Obama administration ended a six-month pause last month.
•White House Orders Review over Anti-Muslim Racial Slurs Revealed in Snowden Leak
The White House has ordered a review of all intelligence training documents after leaks from Edward Snowden uncovered racial bias. The news website The Intercept has revealed the National Security Agency spied on five innocent Americans apparently due to their Muslim background and ties to Muslim causes or individuals. The report also reveals language in an NSA training manual that lists the generic name for a potential target as "Mohammed Raghead." That’s in place of the common term used for generic names, "John Doe." In a letter to the White House, several dozen rights groups voiced concern about a pattern of "discriminatory and abusive surveillance," and urged "strengthened protections against the infringement of civil liberties and human rights." We’ll have more on this story later in the broadcast.
•Germany Probes 2nd Official over U.S. Spy Claims
Germany is investigating a new suspect on allegations of spying for the U.S. just days after the arrest of an intelligence official on similar charges. The German government says it is probing claims an official in the Defense Ministry spied for the United States. The first suspect, detained last week, reportedly admitted to passing on documents to a U.S. contact. The alleged espionage is said to entail a U.S. effort to monitor a German parliamentary probe of the initial revelations of National Security Agency spying in Germany exposed by whistleblower Edward Snowden. Reports based on Snowden’s leaks revealed vast NSA operations in Germany, including the bugging of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cellphone.
•6 Dead, Including 4 Children, in Houston Shooting; Weekend Chicago Toll at 14
At least six people have been killed in a shooting near Houston, Texas. Four of the dead were children, along with two adults. Another adult was left critically wounded. The suspect was detained after a standoff with police. The killings reportedly resulted from a domestic dispute. Meanwhile in Chicago, the death toll from shootings over the July 4 holiday weekend has reached 14. Two of the victims were killed by police.
•Colorado Same-Sex Marriage Ban Overturned; Utah Appeals Marriage Equality Ruling to Supreme Court
A district court judge has struck down Colorado’s ban on same-sex marriage, saying it violates due process and equal protection guarantees under the Constitution. It is the 16th time a U.S. court has ruled against a state gay marriage ban since last year’s Supreme Court decision ordering federal recognition of same-sex marriages. The ruling has been stayed pending an appeal. Utah, meanwhile, has appealed a decision striking down the state’s gay marriage ban to the Supreme Court. The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently upheld a lower court ruling that the ban is unconstitutional. Utah is skipping an appeal to the 10th Circuit in favor of going directly to the Supreme Court. More than 1,000 LGBT couples tied the knot in December during a brief window when a district court struck down Utah’s ban.
•Truck Drivers Strike at California Ports in Rare Open-Ended Action
Dozens of independent truck drivers have gone on strike this week at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. The workers are protesting three large firms for classifying them as independent contractors instead of as employees. Workers say this has allowed the companies to impose long hours for low pay, dock paychecks for expenses, and avoid offering workplace protections. The two ports handle nearly half of all U.S. cargo. The workers have vowed to stay off the job for as long as it takes, making it one of the few open-ended U.S. strikes in recent years. On Wednesday, the guitarist Tom Morello of the group Rage Against the Machine joined the striking workers on the picket line to perform a few songs.
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