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A debate is intensifying in the United States over quarantining healthcare workers who return from West Africa but do not show signs of Ebola. On Wednesday, Maine’s governor said that he would seek legal authority to enforce a 21-day home quarantine on Kaci Hickox, a nurse who has tested negative for Ebola after treating patients in Sierra Leone. Hickox made national headlines when she publicly criticized New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for quarantining her in a tent outside the hospital. Hickox said she would challenge Maine’s restrictions just as she did in New Jersey. "I completely understand that the state’s purpose is to protect the state of Maine,” Hickox said last night. “I have worked in public health for many years, and that has always been my purpose, as well, but we have to make decisions on science, and I am completely healthy.” To discuss the debate, we speak to Lawrence Gostin, professor and faculty director at the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University. He is also the director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Center on Public Health Law.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: The World Health Organization says Liberia, the country worst hit by an Ebola epidemic, may be seeing a decline in the spread of the virus. While the number of burials and new admissions has fallen in Liberia, World Health Organization Assistant Director-General Dr. Bruce Aylward said the international community must continue to step up its response to the virus that’s killed around 5,000 people in West Africa.
DR. BRUCE AYLWARD: It would be a huge mistake for anybody to think, "Oh, great, we’re getting in front of this virus, we can scale back on some of the investments planned." I mean, you know, these are wily viruses. They’re waiting for you to make that kind of a mistake. And as you’ve seen in places, you know, in Guinea, you’ve seen in Guéckédou, this thing will go on for a very, very long time at lower rates of transmission. So, you’ve got to exploit those opportunities as they arise, step up your game. And if anything, this should be really a sign that, look, make those investments because this can be turned around, this virus can be stopped eventually, but it’s going to take a very, very aggressive program of work to capitalize on those opportunities.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Dr. Bruce Aylward, assistant director-general of the World Health Organization. This comes as a debate intensifies in the United States over quarantining healthcare workers who return from West Africa but don’t show signs of Ebola. On Wednesday, Maine’s governor said that he would seek legal authority to enforce a 21-day home quarantine on Kaci Hickox, a nurse who has tested negative for Ebola after treating patients in Sierra Leone. Hickox made national headlines when she publicly criticized New Jersey Governor Chris Christie for quarantining her in a tent outside the hospital. Hickox said she would challenge Maine’s restrictions, just as she did in New Jersey. Last night, Hickox spoke outside her boyfriend’s home in Maine.
KACI HICKOX: I completely understand that the state’s purpose is to protect the state of Maine. I have worked in public health for many years, and that has always been my purpose, as well. But we have to make decisions on science. And I am completely healthy. You know, you could hug me, you could shake my hand. There is no way that I would give you Ebola. If I develop symptoms—and there’s even some evidence that, you know, in the beginning periods there’s not enough virus in your blood, that you’re shedding virus. It’s, you know, still not perfect science, because we don’t know everything we need to know about Ebola, because it’s a rare enough disease. But, you know, I don’t want to hurt anyone in the public, but I don’t think this is an acceptable line to be drawn.
AMY GOODMAN: As Hickox spoke on her boyfriend’s doorstep, he had his arm around her the whole time. Maine Health and Human Services Commissioner Mary Mayhew said the state is filing a court order to keep Kaci Hickox isolated at home until November 10th.
MARY MAYHEW: We will make it mandatory. It is certainly in everyone’s best interest to just cooperate and work with us to minimize contact. It is very difficult, outside of that voluntary agreement to stay at home, to monitor someone who may come into contact with many individuals, that if that individual then becomes symptomatic, we will have to work with every single one of those individuals to quarantine those individuals.
AMY GOODMAN: On Wednesday, President Obama held an event at the White House to honor American doctors, nurses and healthcare workers returning from West Africa.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Like our military men and women deploying to West Africa, they do this for no other reason than their own sense of duty, their sense of purpose, their sense of serving a cause greater than themselves. So we need to call them what they are, which is American heroes. They deserve our gratitude. And they deserve to be treated with dignity and with respect.
AMY GOODMAN: To talk more about the debate over quarantining healthcare workers, we’re joined by Lawrence Gostin, university professor and faculty director at the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University, also the director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Center on Public Health Law.
You’re one of the leading experts, Dr. Gostin, on the issue of quarantine. This showdown is only getting hotter in this country, and it’s not just about this one crusading nurse, Kaci Hickox. But can you talk about what it is she’s saying, why she objected to being held in the hospital in New Jersey, and then went home to Maine and was told she had to stay there, why she feels she shouldn’t be there for 21 days?
LAWRENCE GOSTIN: Well, I really don’t think she should be there for 21 days. I, like her, believe—and I’ve spent my entire life defending the public’s health. And if I actually thought that she or any of the other health workers coming from the region were a risk to the public, I would support a quarantine. But the Supreme Court has said that if you confine somebody who has committed no crime, it’s, quote, "a massive deprivation of liberty." It’s not a trivial thing. We have to make sure that we balance civil liberties with public health. In this case, all the public health experts are telling us that it’s unnecessary—the CDC, the World Health Organization. There’s no organization that I know of that believes it’s right to quarantine for three weeks somebody that really is, as President Obama said, is a hero. They’ve sacrificed. They’ve done things that most of us wouldn’t do. They’ve put themselves at risk, gone in a compassionate way. And I do think we need to treat them better than we are. This is self-defeating. We think that we’re actually decreasing our risk by quarantining her, but actually we’re increasing it, because if we impede people from going to the region, then the epidemic there will spin out of control, and that is where our risk lies.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, I want to turn to comments made by NBC cameraman and Ebola survivor Ashoka Mukpo. He was asked about the mandatory quarantine being imposed on Kaci Hickox. He also talked about Dr. Craig Spencer, who’s being treated for Ebola in New York. He was speaking on CNN. Let’s just go to a clip.
ASHOKA MUKPO: She’s earned a right to, you know, have a sense of her own safety and her own risk factor to others. And I don’t think that Dr. Spencer endangered anyone. My feeling is—and, you know, again, I’m not an expert, this is just my own view on the exposure that I’ve had to Ebola—is I think that Governor Christie is playing politics right now. It seems to me that it’s an effort to, you know, work with public opinion rather than listen to the advice of the experts. And I just think that it’s counterproductive. You know, these are people who have gone and endangered their lives to work with people who have very limited resources and are dying in relatively large numbers. So, to make it more difficult and to treat them as if they’re a potential problem as opposed to a public asset, I just think it’s a shame, and I don’t think it’s the right way to act.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: That was Ebola survivor Ashoka Mukpo speaking on CNN. So, Lawrence Gostin, can you explain why it is people are so fearful? They’ve have been so critical, many people, of Kaci and of Dr. Craig Spencer, for what they claim was endangering the lives of the public. Could you explain why that’s not really been the case?
LAWRENCE GOSTIN: You know, it really isn’t the case. We know from science and epidemiology that if a person is completely symptom-free, if they haven’t had any known exposure, with their skin or anything else, they have no temperature, and if the health department would proactively monitor them—I’m all in favor of that—then if they want to get in their car, or if they want to have a walk on the street, they’re endangering no one at all. And as I say, from a matter of law, the doctrine of quarantine requires that you have an individual assessment of significant risk. And it doesn’t exist here. The CDC itself does not put her in a category that would warrant quarantine. They have guided the states in that way. They’ve asked the states to behave in a way that comports with science. And unfortunately, we’re coming up to elections. Politicians are wanting to follow the polls. They’re basing their decisions on fear rather than science. And while sometimes that might be an OK thing to do, not if you’re depriving somebody of liberty, and not if you’re really making a situation in West Africa worse than it is.
AMY GOODMAN: Maine Governor LePage is one of the most conservative governors in the country. And his Health and Human Services secretary spoke yesterday. What they didn’t explain, they have police outside of the home where Kaci is staying. They have not directly said what they’re going to do to her if she goes outside. But if they’re saying she’s contagious, right—the New Jersey governor, Christie, said she’s "obviously ill," which was obviously wrong—
LAWRENCE GOSTIN: Clearly wrong.
AMY GOODMAN: Are they going to be wearing moon suits and tackle her? They will not explain what they’re going to do to her.
LAWRENCE GOSTIN: No, and in fact, unless they’ve actually issued a formal quarantine order under the state’s public health law, the police actually have no authority over her. She has committed no crime. There has been no assessment that she actually, from a scientific point of view, poses any risk to anyone. I don’t see that they’ve got any authority. Now, if they get a court order, they’re going to have to convince a judge that their decision is based upon rationality and science. And I don’t see how they can do that when the entire scientific community disagrees. And they’re just—they’re fanning the fear in the public. The public are wondering, "Why are we getting all these confusing messages?" The president’s saying one thing, the governor’s saying another thing, the WHO and CDC have their own position.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, there—
LAWRENCE GOSTIN: We have to have a consistent position.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Gostin, there are mixed messages.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: On Wednesday, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced that all U.S. troops returning from the Ebola zone in West Africa must spend 21 days in quarantine. Let’s go to a clip.
DEFENSE SECRETARY CHUCK HAGEL: What I signed this morning was a memorandum to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in response to the memorandum of recommendation I received from the chairman and the chiefs yesterday to go forward with a policy of essentially 21-day incubation for our men and women who would be returning from West Africa.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: That was Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel speaking on Wednesday. So, Larry Gostin, can you explain the discrepancy in policy? Because on the one hand, the Obama administration seems to be saying that quarantine is not required for health workers, and now we have Chuck Hagel, the defense secretary, saying, but for the military, it is. And presumably healthcare workers are in much closer proximity to those suffering from Ebola in West Africa.
LAWRENCE GOSTIN: I mean it’s a complete contradiction in terms. I was very proud of the United States for sending military troops into West Africa. I actually wish that the military troops could provide direct patient care. But President Obama ruled that out because he didn’t want them to be exposed to any risk—for political reasons. I can understand that. But now, when they’ve not had any patient contact—they may have had no exposure whatsoever—and then come back, and every single one of them will be quarantined 21 days, it defies rationality. Why would you want to do that?
The other thing is, is that we have people coming and going to West Africa all the time. We have U.N. diplomats, high-level American officials, high-level World Bank officials, that will be coming to and from New York City and other places. Do we intend to quarantine them all?
AMY GOODMAN: I mean, the U.S. ambassador—
LAWRENCE GOSTIN: We have no consistent—
AMY GOODMAN: —to the United Nations, Samantha Power, just went to all three nations that are hardest hit.
LAWRENCE GOSTIN: Absolutely.
AMY GOODMAN: She said she’ll abide by the law. But this goes even beyond Ebola. I wanted to turn to Steve Hyman, an attorney for the nurse, Kaci Hickox.
STEVEN HYMAN: There’s no basis to arrest her. There’s no basis to detain her. And such action would be illegal and unconstitutional. And we would seek to protect Kaci’s rights as an American citizen under the Constitution. The fact is, she seems to be doing well. She’s now certainly better than she was when she was in the isolation tent, courtesy of Governor Christie, in New Jersey. She is feeling fine—hopefully, she stays that way—and is monitoring herself, as required by the protocols, and is staying in touch with the Maine public health officials. There is no legal basis under Maine law or under the U.S. Constitution to restrain her because she went to Africa to help people get better.
AMY GOODMAN: And this is what else Kaci Hickox’s attorney, Steve Hyman, had to say.
STEVEN HYMAN: In the AIDS crisis, they were trying to do the same thing. People were supposed to be isolated because of AIDS and the fear that ran through the community. And that proved to be totally wrong. And people were subjected to the same thing that’s happening to Kaci by this hysteria that somehow there’s contagion, because of some myth as to how it’s transmitted.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Steve Hyman, an attorney for Kaci Hickox. And I wanted to ask you, Dr. Lawrence Gostin—I was just watching a Mount Sinai Hospital doctor, infectious disease doctor, today on television, who was responding to the question, you know, more than 80 percent of Americans want people quarantined, so how do you deal with that? And he said, you know, if you had asked them if they wanted Ryan White, the boy who had AIDS—
LAWRENCE GOSTIN: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: —if you wanted him quarantined, not to go to school, they would have said the same thing. That doesn’t make it right. How do you deal with this, Dr. Gostin?
LAWRENCE GOSTIN: Well, I mean, I think you need to deal with it with clear information. I mean, we didn’t, in the end, quarantine people with AIDS, thank goodness, but we did harass them, discriminate against them. Ryan White, a poor little young boy who had HIV infection, was embarrassed, kick out of school. These are not humane, compassionate ways of dealing with things. Unfortunately, you know, epidemics, particularly fearful ones, bring the worst out in society and civilization and humanity. But we need to find the better parts of ourselves and treat human beings with compassion, and only restrict them if it’s absolutely necessary for the public welfare. And in this case, it clearly is not.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, on Wednesday, representatives of the Centers for Disease Control joined health officials from 31 other countries from the Americas in Cuba for a conference on Ebola. The meeting was convened by ALBA, a regional alliance of Latin American and Caribbean countries. This is Cuban Health Minister Roberto Morales.
DR. ROBERTO MORALES OJEDA: [translated] We hope that this meeting creates a concerted course of action to continue perfecting our national plans, that it ratifies the commitment we have to the most vulnerable people as an expression of the principles of solidarity, genuine cooperation and integration between our countries.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: The U.S. presence in Cuba is the latest show of cooperation between the two countries on the Ebola crisis. This is Nelson Arboleda of the CDC.
DR. NELSON ARBOLEDA: [translated] I think that this is an international emergency and that we must all work together and cooperate in this effort.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Larry Gostin, according to the World Health Organization, Cuba is by far the largest provider of doctors and healthcare workers to West Africa in dealing with this Ebola crisis. So could you talk about what you think the U.S. ought to be doing more to deal with the crisis there in West Africa?
LAWRENCE GOSTIN: Yeah, well, before I do that, I mean, one—when I just had said that epidemics bring out the worst in us, but here’s a case of where epidemics can bring out the best in us, where it can bring us together, which shouldn’t be a Democrat-Republican issue. It shouldn’t be a Cuba-American issue. It’s a global issue for all of mankind and humankind.
What America needs to do is really ramp up the response in West Africa. We need to be training a reserve work core of experienced doctors and nurses, putting them into the region, supporting them, treating them with respect. And we need to be providing money. And more than anything, we need to mobilize the international community. At least the U.S. has troops there. There are a lot of countries that don’t. I’m really astounded at the delay and the lack of attention that’s been given to what is really one of the worst crises I’ve seen since the AIDS epidemic.
AMY GOODMAN: MSF, Médecins Sans Frontières, Doctors Without Borders, is really suffering now. They’re saying that—
LAWRENCE GOSTIN: They are.
AMY GOODMAN: —because of this controversy over the quarantining of healthy people, that it means that they are getting less recruits, fewer doctors, nurses, health workers offering to go abroad. President Obama almost had tears in his eyes yesterday as he surrounded himself—I think the visual was more important than anything he said, being very close to hugging people who had been in West Africa. What is your—what is the single most important thing you feel needs to happen right now as the U.S. focuses on this debate over local quarantine? What’s brought Liberia’s infection rate down?
LAWRENCE GOSTIN: Well, you know, first, we have to stop being so insular and just thinking about ourselves and our own—we have a few very isolated cases. In West Africa, they will have tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands, of people with Ebola. So we’ve got to put it in perspective. And we have to really all come together, as Americans and as an international community, and put our focus in West Africa. You know, if we don’t, and for some reason it jumps to another populous city like Delhi or Beijing, then we could have a global catastrophe, something that would really come back to haunt us. So, this is in our self-interest, but more than that, it’s in our shared humanity, that we really need to focus our attention, resources, human resources and engineering to really build up hospitals, doctors and public health systems. And we have to learn from this lesson. We have to learn what to do in the future. And what that is, is to build the health systems up in low- and middle-income countries so that these things don’t spin out of control.
AMY GOODMAN: Lawrence Gostin, we want to thank you for being with us, university professor, faculty director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University—
LAWRENCE GOSTIN: Thanks for having me.
AMY GOODMAN: —also director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Center on Public Health Law. Thank you. This is Democracy Now! When we come back, we’re going to be looking at the Red Cross, not around the issue of Ebola today, but it’s the second anniversary of Superstorm Sandy. "Where were they?" people asked all over the East Coast. We’ll look at their own internal documents to find out why they were not present. Stay with us.
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This week marks the second anniversary of Superstorm Sandy hitting the New York City region, becoming one of the most destructive storms in the nation’s history. A new joint investigation by ProPublica and NPR contends the American Red Cross bungled its response to Superstorm Sandy by caring more about its image and reputation than providing service to those in need. It alleges the organization diverted vehicles and resources to press conferences instead of using them to deliver services. And it estimates the Red Cross wasted an average of 30 percent of the meals it was producing in the early days of its Sandy response effort. We speak to ProPublica reporter Justin Elliott and Richard Rieckenberg, former disaster expert with the Red Cross — he oversaw aspects of the organization’s efforts to provide food, shelter and supplies after the 2012 storms. We also air an official Red Cross response to their investigation.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: This week marks the second anniversary of Superstorm Sandy hitting the New York region, becoming one of the most destructive storms in the nation’s history. After first pummeling Cuba, Jamaica and the Dominican Republic, Sandy made its way up the East Coast. On October 29th, the hurricane blasted New York City with a record storm surge as high as 13 feet. The storm also heavily hit the Jersey Shore and parts of New England. Sandy ultimately killed 159 people along the East Coast and damaged more than 650,000 homes. The storm caused $70 billion in damage across eight states. Millions were left without power, some for weeks.
Well, a new investigation by ProPublica and NPR says there were actually two disasters during Sandy: the hurricane itself and the ensuing relief effort by the Red Cross. This is a clip from a video accompanying the investigation headlined "The Red Cross’ Secret Disaster."
LAURA SULLIVAN: It’s October 2012. Superstorm Sandy barrels up the Eastern Seaboard from Florida to Maine. The storm leaves millions in the cold and dark. Dozens die. A star-studded relief effort helps the Red Cross rake in more than $300 million in donations. This is the untold story of that Red Cross relief effort, how one of the nation’s most revered charities bungled its mission and misled the public.
GAIL McGOVERN: I think that we are near flawless so far in this operation. I’m just so proud of everything that we are doing on the ground. It is incredible.
LAURA SULLIVAN: But confidential documents and insider accounts paint a different picture.
RICHARD RIECKENBERG: They lost confidence in their ability to do the right thing, and so they did the next best thing, which is, what can we do to make people think that we’re doing the right thing?
NERMEEN SHAIKH: That was a clip from a video accompanying the new joint investigation by ProPublica and NPR called "The Red Cross’ Secret Disaster." The report contends that the American Red Cross bungled its response to Superstorm Sandy by caring more about its image and reputation than providing service to those in need. It alleges the organization diverted vehicles and resources to press conferences instead of using them to deliver services. And it estimates the Red Cross wasted an average of 30 percent of the meals it was producing in the early days of its Sandy response effort.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, for more, we’re joined now by two guests. Here in New York, Justin Elliott, reporter for ProPublica and one of the lead authors of their new investigation, "The Red Cross’ Secret Disaster." And in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Richard Rieckenberg joins us, former disaster expert with the Red Cross who oversaw aspects of the organization’s efforts to provide food, shelter and supplies after the 2012 storms.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Justin Elliott, just lay out your findings.
JUSTIN ELLIOTT: Sure. So, this investigation is based, as you mentioned, on the Red Cross’s internal documents, some of their after-action reports, emails from the time, and also interviews with a lot of officials that were involved in the Sandy response, as well as victims in New York and New Jersey. And we found, first of all, that the Red Cross botched the key elements of its mission to provide relief after the storm. And I think most disturbingly, we found that one of the reasons for that was that the Red Cross’s leadership has become so obsessed with burnishing the brand and public relations that it’s actually undermined the disaster relief efforts and undermined some of the people on the ground, like Richard, who were trying to, you know, actually accomplish the mission of delivering aid.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, could you give us an example of how it is that the Red Cross diverted resources to maintain its image or for public relations purposes, rather than providing resources to those in need?
JUSTIN ELLIOTT: Sure. So, one example, after Sandy hit New York a couple years ago, several officials on the—Red Cross officials on the ground told us that there were issues where the Red Cross’s emergency response vehicles, which are sort of these van truck vehicles where there’s a window and they’re used to deliver food and relief items to people in affected areas, were diverted by leadership to instead be backdrops at press conferences and in photo ops. And this was done at a level that was actually hurting the relief effort. And this is not just drawn from accounts of people at the time. We also published on ProPublica a "Lessons Learned" presentation by the Red Cross, where there’s a slide that says, "hindrances to service delivery," and the first bullet point is national headquarters. And then, under that, it says national headquarters was "diverting assets for public relations purposes."
AMY GOODMAN: You talked about the Hurricane Isaac even before Sandy, the two of them, when Red Cross ordered 80 trucks and emergency response vehicles to leave the lot empty, drive around Mississippi, to make it look like they were doing something.
JUSTIN ELLIOTT: That’s right. We’ve talked to multiple people who either observed or actually took part in that incident. I spoke with one of the emergency response vehicle drivers, who is a volunteer, like most Red Cross workers, had driven from North Carolina to respond to Isaac, which hit the Gulf Coast a couple months before Sandy, and told me that the Red Cross effort was actually worse than the storm. And in particular, there was this incident where he was told to take his emergency response vehicle out and just drive around to make it look like they were doing something.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, yesterday Democracy Now! spoke with Laura Howe, vice president of public relations for the American Red Cross. We asked her if the Red Cross diverted these vehicles and resources to press conferences, like, you know, Heidi Klum, in Staten Island to be the backdrop instead of using them to deliver services. This is how she responded.
LAURA HOWE: This is just patently untrue. The Red Cross didn’t host any press conferences during the first month of Sandy. We participated in a limited number of press events that were hosted by other people. Most of those took place for about 15 minutes or so. And the important thing to remember is they took place in places where service delivery was already happening, so our trucks were already there, our people were already there, and there were—there was a response happening in those locations. So, we had hundreds of requests from media outlets to see our services. And part of what we have to do is inform the public about how to get help from us. And so, it stands to reason that we would do that.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Laura Howe, vice president of public relations for the American Red Cross. Again, we had hoped that she would be on with our guests today, but they refused. We’re also joined by Richard Rieckenberg, the former disaster expert with the Red Cross who oversaw aspects of its efforts to provide food during the—after the storms. Your response to the Red Cross, Richard Rieckenberg?
RICHARD RIECKENBERG: Response specifically to what? What Laura Howe said?
AMY GOODMAN: Yes.
RICHARD RIECKENBERG: I think I can understand Laura’s position, that public relations is important. The issue that I saw in Isaac and Sandy, for the first time that I worked with the Red Cross, is that public relations became more important than mass care. I like to paraphrase something that Bob Scheifele said, who’s the senior mass care chief in the country: Is it more important to feed a person or more important to tell the world that you fed a person? And Sandy was my 26th disaster relief operation, and Isaac and Sandy were the first time that I worked with the Red Cross that I felt it was more important for the Red Cross to tell the world they fed a person than it was to feed them.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Richard Rieckenberg, what do you think accounts for this change in the focus of the work of the Red Cross? It was the 26th—Sandy was the 26th emergency operation that you worked for with the Red Cross, and Isaac and Sandy were the first times that you witnessed this emphasis on public relations rather than the provision of services. What accounts for the shift?
RICHARD RIECKENBERG: I think a couple of things. I think the restructuring of the Red Cross really hurt the ability of the Red Cross to do disaster relief. They had been closing down a lot of the small local chapters around the country. And when you start to do that, consolidating them into bigger chapters and also consolidating resources in Washington, D.C.—when you start to do that, you start to lose your expertise and your contact with the local community, and you start to lose the volunteers who have got a lot of experience in disaster relief. I think—
AMY GOODMAN: Well, let me go back to Laura Howe, the spokesperson, who talked directly about you, Richard Rieckenberg, saying you had "a very limited view" of the Red Cross’s response to Hurricane Sandy.
LAURA HOWE: Mr. Rieckenberg was one of 79 chiefs that served in a similar role on the Sandy operation. So, given that, he had a very limited view of the operation, and that limited view lasted just a few weeks. So he reported into a much larger, much broader chain of command, and the people above him, the people that spoke to ProPublica and spoke to NPR on the record on behalf of the Red Cross, had a much, much broader view of what was happening within the organization.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Laura Howe of the Red Cross. Richard Rieckenberg, your response?
RICHARD RIECKENBERG: Well, my response is that I was the mass care planning chief, first in Washington, D.C., and then I decided to go to New York City. As such, I was the senior mass care person at the scene. Laura is right in that I can only speak about mass care. But mass care is the bulk of what the Red Cross did, the bulk of what they do for all—for the beginning of all disasters. And so, the bulk of the Red Cross workers there are mass care workers, and I’m the one that was planning the mass care efforts.
AMY GOODMAN: Justin Elliott?
JUSTIN ELLIOTT: I just want to make a point here. I mean, I just think it’s sad that the Red Cross’s position here is trying to sort of cast doubt on Richard’s accounts. I mean, first of all, the point that he makes is obviously true. Our reporting shows that he was a high-level person responding to both Isaac and Sandy. But also, everything we reported that Richard told us was confirmed by other officials, and in almost all cases is actually also corroborated by Red Cross documents, that we encourage people to look at on our website at ProPublica. I mean, again, there is a Red Cross—it’s called a "Lessons Learned" presentation, that says, "a hindrance to service delivery," national headquarters diverting aid, diverting disaster relief assets, like trucks, "for public relations purposes." So, again, that’s in black and white, a Red Cross document that came out of headquarters. And as we were doing our reporting and interviewing Richard and several other officials who were on the ground, they all said that that was totally true.
And one point on the press conference is, there’s actually pictures of the CEO of the Red Cross, Gail McGovern, giving—participating in a press conference out on Staten Island a few days after Sandy, again, published on our website, where you can see in the background emergency response vehicles being used as backdrops, just like Richard says. And one other point, since the story was published yesterday, I’ve since heard from another person who was involved in that effort who confirmed the entire account that we published, which we already knew was true, but, I mean, yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: Talking about the CEO, McGovern, she went on NBC and said the Red Cross’s response was "near flawless" to Sandy. Talk about your meeting minutes that you got from the Red Cross.
JUSTIN ELLIOTT: Right. I mean, this, in some ways, was kind of one of the most shocking things we found in the course of our reporting. As you mentioned, about two or three weeks after Sandy, the CEO of the Red Cross, Gail McGovern, went on national television, NBC, because there were some questions sort of anecdotally on the ground of sort of "Where was the Red Cross?" And she said, our response effort so far has been, quote, "near flawless."
Just a few weeks later, there was a meeting of Red Cross executives, at the sort of vice-president level, which is the highest position in the organization below CEO, and they’re just painting a totally, starkly different picture, saying things like—and again, we published this—"We didn’t have the sophistication for this size job," "multiple systems failed," you know, our "biggest challenge" is the "skillset ... possessed by our workforce," which gets at something that Richard mentioned, which was—I mean, sort of a little bit of a backstory here—there’s been restructurings and layoffs in recent years, and a lot of experienced disaster responders have left. So, the sort of public version of what happened, that was given by the CEO, compared to just a couple weeks later, the behind-closed-doors version, were just utterly at odds with each other.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Richard Rieckenberg, when you first noticed the failings of the Red Cross while you were still employed there, you raised some of your concerns with your colleagues and your superiors. Could you explain what you did and what kind of response, if any, you received?
RICHARD RIECKENBERG: Yes, I was very upset about the response to Hurricane Isaac, because I think we made some very important decisions that were fundamentally against our principles. I mean, in my mind, they were fundamentally immoral decisions. Bob Scheifele and I—I was, with Hurricane Isaac, in Florida, and then I went to Mississippi, where we really weren’t prepared for a hurricane that we should have been very easily prepared for. So Bob Scheifele, who was in Louisiana, and I contacted the vice president of the Red Cross, Trevor Riggen. I sent him an email, and I sent him my travel report from Mississippi and Florida and said that we’re very upset about what we saw there, and we asked to meet with him and two other vice presidents in Washington, D.C., which he agreed to do. So we ended up flying to Washington, D.C., in October and presenting him with our concerns.
AMY GOODMAN: This goes back to—I mean, it can go back before, but, Justin Elliott, for example, Hurricane Katrina. What was the Red Cross’s response there? And what ultimately most shocked you in your reporting?
JUSTIN ELLIOTT: Sure. I mean, the Red Cross has had a tough past sort of decade and a half. There were scandals involving financial mismanagement after—actually, after September 11th, when they raised a lot of money, I believe over a billion dollars, and then after Katrina. One interesting thing about the Red Cross is it’s actually created by Congress, so there’s some congressional oversight, and Congress actually forced an overhaul after Katrina. The new CEO, Gail McGovern, was brought in a couple years after Katrina, and sort of publicly it seemed like things had stabilized a little bit. But, I mean, just in general, the thing that sort of was most surprising is that behind the scenes, again, talking to many, many officials, who either used to or currently work at the Red Cross, have lost faith in the leadership. And part of that has to do with sort of basic issues of competence in responding to disasters, but part of it also has to do with the sort of values of the management, that at this point seem to prioritize public relations and sort of the brand above the actual hard work of disaster—
AMY GOODMAN: They get $300 million from one superstar concert. And you have Occupy Sandy. Talk about that, the offshoot of Occupy Wall Street—
JUSTIN ELLIOTT: Right.
AMY GOODMAN: —and what happened on the ground with people who had almost nothing.
JUSTIN ELLIOTT: Right, so, I mean, the $300 million is actually the Red Cross’s overall fundraising for Sandy, part of which was from this celebrity concert. But yeah, there were some volunteer sort of groups, including Occupy Sandy, which was a sort of offshoot of Occupy Wall Street, that sprang into action after Sandy. And some of those people are quoted in my piece, where those groups were, for example, in the Rockaways, one of the most devastated areas out in Queens, and they didn’t really see the Red Cross until a couple weeks after the storm. So, you know, and they were sort of operating on a shoestring budget.
I mean, I think one of the reasons we thought that this was so important to do is, as you say, when there’s a big disaster, most Americans, you know, they’re seeing these terrible images on their television screen, and they want to do something, and they give money to the Red Cross. And to be clear, you know, I believe that it’s an incredibly important institution, and there’s a lot of good people that have worked there and do work there, like Richard, who are trying to—who are real experts who are trying to do disaster relief. So, it’s very unfortunate that a lot of—you know, a lot of that money was squandered.
AMY GOODMAN: We want to thank you very much, and we’ll certainly link to your reports at ProPublica, Justin Elliott, reporter for ProPublica and one of the lead authors for this new investigation, "The Red Cross’ Secret Disaster." Richard Rieckenberg, thanks so much also for joining us, former disaster expert with the Red Cross who oversaw aspects of the Red Cross efforts to provide food, shelter and supplies after Hurricanes Isaac and Sandy. He was speaking to us from Santa Fe, New Mexico.
This is Democracy Now! When we come back, money in judicial elections. Stay with us.
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With the 2014 midterm elections just days away, we look at how anonymous donors are reshaping judicial races by pouring millions of dollars in "dark money" into races. Some donors see giving to the campaigns of judicial candidates as a way to get more influence, for less money than bankrolling legislative campaigns. A new investigation by Mother Jones magazine is headlined "Is Your Judge for Sale?: Thanks to Karl Rove and Citizens United, judicial elections have been overtaken by secretive interest groups, nasty ads, and the constant hustle for campaign cash." We speak to Andy Kroll, senior reporter for Mother Jones.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: We turn now to the 2014 midterm elections, which take place Tuesday, and the increasingly outsized role played by groups that don’t disclose their donors. A new investigation zeroes in on this year’s judicial races, which have drawn unprecedented attention from dark-money donors that seek more influence, for less money, than bankrolling legislative campaigns.
AMY GOODMAN: The story is headlined "Is Your Judge for Sale?: Thanks to Karl Rove and Citizens United, judicial elections have been overtaken by secretive interest groups, nasty ads, and the constant hustle for campaign cash." We’re joined by its author, Andy Kroll, senior reporter for Mother Jones magazine.
Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Andy. You only have a few minutes. Lay out what you found.
ANDY KROLL: Well, what we’ve seen is that judicial elections have become another playground for the same kind of business interests and huge spenders and anonymous donors that we’re seeing in presidential races and congressional races up and down the ticket. And our judicial elections used to be a more sleepy corner of American politics, and obviously the dynamic is different, if we’re electing the arbiters of the law. But times have changed, and Citizens United has really begun to change the landscape in this place.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And could you explain, Andy Kroll, why these judicial races are so important?
ANDY KROLL: Well, there’s a lot at stake, obviously. I mean, these Supreme Court justices and other state-level justices decide judgments against business interests. They have a role in social issues like marriage equality. And as large forces from corporate America, like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, for instance, have gotten more involved, they have tried to tilt the courts in a way that are more pro-business to try to avoid these multi-hundred-million-dollar or billion-dollar judgments that can be handed down against businesses around the country.
AMY GOODMAN: Andy Kroll, talk about the role of Karl Rove.
ANDY KROLL: Karl Rove is, you know, really one of the pioneers, if you will, when it comes to judicial elections in Texas. In the late ’80s and ’90s, Rove helped flip the Texas Supreme Court from being a traditionally Democratic bench to a fervently Republican one. Rove was also sort of the mind behind the so-called tort reform effort, this effort saying that plaintiffs were sort of out of control, the hot-coffee incident, which has become more of a myth, really, than reality. Rove helped create that model, show how business interests could flip a Supreme Court in Texas. It was exported to Alabama some years later and then has since become a playbook around the country.
AMY GOODMAN: What most shocked you in your reporting, if you can give us a few quick examples of the role in money in judicial races?
ANDY KROLL: Sure. One example in 2004 in Illinois that sticks out, the insurance company State Farm is hit with a more than a billion-dollar judgment. And then, in the years that follow, the company and its allies, its tort reform, again, allies, you know, allegedly—it appeared to have vetted, picked out a candidate for a Illinois Supreme Court race, and funded to the tune of millions of dollars this candidate, got him elected. And then, when State Farm’s appeal of this billion-dollar judgment gets to the Supreme Court, this justice casts the vote overturning that incredibly big judgment.
Another finding that really stood out was how we are seeing—potentially seeing the use of soft-on-crime attack ads in judicial races, I mean, and how—I mean, this is a common bludgeon against candidates in races, even when the business interests are the main players—soft on crime, weak on the death penalty. And what we’ve seen, and what Justice—Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor has written about, is that this is perhaps having an effect on judges in states around the country who are more inclined to, say, overturn jury ruling, like in a state like Alabama, and approve the death penalty, and less inclined to overturn a death penalty judgment. So judges being—thinking about, you know, "They’re going to be weak on crime, so I’m going to be tougher with death penalty."
AMY GOODMAN: Andy Kroll, we have to leave it there, but we’re going to link to your piece. Andy Kroll is senior reporter for Mother Jones. "Is Your Judge for Sale?" is his piece.
I’ll be speaking in Oslo, Norway, on Saturday. Check our website at democracynow.org for our special election coverage Tuesday night.
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Number of Ebola Cases Jumps to 13,700; Liberia Sees Decline
The World Health Organization says the number of reported Ebola cases has jumped to more than 13,700 — a rise of more than 30 percent over a four-day period. The rise has been attributed to underreporting. But the World Health Organization also says Liberia, the country worst hit by the epidemic, may be seeing a decline in Ebola. Assistant Director-General Bruce Aylward said he is cautiously optimistic.
Dr. Bruce Aylward: "The actual number of newly reported cases is beginning to decline in Liberia, and the government is really driving a multipronged investigation looking at multiple strands of evidence to try and understand is this real, is this a reporting phenomena, or is it even a care-seeking phenomena that’s changing. And so far, based on the information received today, and again, most of you are somewhat aware of this, it appears that the trend is real in Liberia."
Nurse Kaci Hickox Vows to Defy Ebola Quarantine in Maine
A nurse who was quarantined in New Jersey after returning from Sierra Leone despite showing no signs of Ebola has said she will defy quarantine restrictions in her home state of Maine. State officials are seeking a court order to force Kaci Hickox to remain in her home, even though she has tested negative for Ebola. Speaking to NBC’s Today show, Hickox said she would go to court to fight for her freedom.
Kaci Hickox: "I remain appalled by these home quarantine policies that have been forced upon me, even though I am in perfectly good health and feeling strong and have been this entire time completely symptom-free. I’m thankful to be out of the tent in Newark, but I find myself in yet another prison, just in a different environment."
U.S. Drone Strike Kills 4 in Pakistan
A U.S. drone strike has killed four people in the Pakistani village of Nargas in South Waziristan, near the border with Afghanistan. Security officials say the target was a militant compound and those killed were fighters.
Sri Lanka: 190 Missing After Landslide
In Sri Lanka, 190 people remain missing after torrential rains caused a massive landslide that hit a village in a tea-growing area. At least 10 bodies have been recovered. An official told Reuters there are likely no survivors.
Burkina Faso: Protesters Set Parliament on Fire
In the West African nation of Burkina Faso, protesters have set fire to parliament to protest a possible extension of the president’s rule. Parliament was set to consider changing the constitution to let President Blaise Compaoré run for re-election. He first seized power in a coup in 1987.
Israel Closes Al-Aqsa Mosque Compound After Shooting of Far-Right Activist
Israel has shut down the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in the Old City of Jerusalem for the first time in 14 years following the shooting of an Israeli far-right activist. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the closure as a "declaration of war on the Palestinian people." The site, known by Jews as the Temple Mount, houses both the mosque and the Dome of the Rock. Jamal Tawfiq, a resident of Jerusalem, said he was turned away after arriving for his morning prayers.
Jamal Tawfiq: "This is a collective punishment [for something] we had nothing to do with. This is injustice. There’s no fair government here. Justice should be the basis for governance. But there is no justice here. A problem happens with a person over there, they close the mosque here. Why is it OK to allow Jews to go pray at the Wailing Wall without any harassment, while a Palestinian is killed every day? Every day, a Palestinian is killed. Every day, holy olive trees are burned and pulled out because they belong to Arab Palestinians. Why are we the ones being punished?"
On Wednesday night, U.S.-born activist Yehuda Glick was shot and wounded outside a conference on promoting Jewish access to the Al-Aqsa site, where he and others want to build a Jewish temple. Hours later, Israeli police shot and killed a Palestinian suspect in the shooting, who they said resisted arrest.
U.N. Holds Emergency Meeting on Illegal Israeli Settlements
The latest tensions came as the United Nations held an emergency meeting on Israel’s plans to build 1,000 new settlements in occupied East Jerusalem. The settlements in an area which Palestinians seek as part of any future state are considered illegal under international law. Earlier this week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to press ahead with construction.
Sweden Recognizes State of Palestine in First for EU
Sweden has officially recognized the state of Palestine, becoming the first member of the European Union to do so. In a newspaper op-ed, Swedish Minister of Foreign Affairs Margot Wallstrom called the move "an important step that confirms the Palestinians’ right to self-determination," adding, "Some will say today’s decision comes too soon. I’m afraid, rather, that it is too late."
Malala Yousafzai to Donate $50,000 for Gaza Schools
Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai has promised to donate $50,000 to rebuild schools in Gaza that were damaged by this summer’s Israeli offensive. After receiving the World Children’s Prize in Sweden, Yousafzai said she would donate all the prize money to the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees.
Malala Yousafzai: "This money will totally go to the rebuilding of schools for children in Gaza. So I think it will definitely help those children to continue their education, to get quality education, and it will help them to continue their life and to know that people are supporting them and they’re not alone. And I’m really happy that this funding will help in the rebuilding of 65 schools in Gaza."
SodaStream to Move West Bank Settlement Factory After Boycott
The company SodaStream has announced plans to move its factory out of an Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank following an international boycott. SodaStream said its move was "purely commercial." But supporters of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement have claimed the move as a victory, saying their efforts caused SodaStream’s share prices to drop as retailers were pressured to abandon their products.
U.N. Votes 188 to 2 Against Embargo of Cuba; U.S., Israel Only Dissenters
The United Nations General Assembly has voted nearly unanimously to condemn the U.S. embargo on Cuba for the 23rd year in a row. Just like last year, the vote was 188 to 2 with only Israel joining the United States. Three countries abstained: Palau, Micronesia and the Marshall Islands.
Mexican President Meets with Parents of 43 Missing Students; Activists Highlight U.S. Role
Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto has met with the parents of 43 students who have been missing from the state of Guerrero for more than a month after a police ambush. Authorities suspect police turned the students over to a local drug gang with close ties to the fugitive mayor of Iguala and his wife, who are accused of ordering the attack. Another mass grave has been found in the area, but the remains have not yet been identified. Human rights activists are highlighting the U.S. role in supporting corrupt police and military forces after it has poured an estimated $3 billion into the so-called war on drugs in Mexico. Maria Luisa Aguilar called for the United States to hold the forces that receive the funds accountable.
Maria Luisa Aguilar, advocacy coordinator for Tlachinollan: "The problem is the lack of accountability. What’s happened with all that money that was invested in the police, at the federal level, at the state level, at the municipal level? After the training, after the substantial investment in these security forces, who is making sure that there will be accountability? That their work is lawful, within a framework that respects human rights?"
In northern Mexico, four bodies have been found near the border city of Matamoros. The remains could belong to three American siblings from Texas who went missing from the area two weeks ago. They were reportedly captured by armed men identified as members of a Matamoros police unit.
Federal Reserve Ends Quantitative Easing Program
The Federal Reserve is ending the economic stimulus program known as quantitative easing. Since 2008, the Fed has spent trillions of dollars on mortgage and Treasury bonds in a bid to boost the economy. The Fed now says the program is no longer necessary due to economic improvements.
Report: Number of Billionaires Has Doubled Since Financial Crisis
The number of billionaires worldwide has more than doubled since the financial crisis. A new report by Oxfam International finds the richest 85 people saw their collective wealth increase at a rate of nearly half a million dollars a minute from 2013 to this year. Hundreds of millions of people, meanwhile, live without access to clean drinking water and sufficient food.
Woman Shown in Viral NYC Street Harassment Video Gets Rape Threats
A woman who appeared in a viral video documenting street harassment in New York City has begun receiving rape threats online. Shoshana Roberts experienced more than 100 acts of verbal street harassment over a 10-hour period while being filmed with a hidden camera. The video, posted as a public service announcement for the anti-harassment group Hollaback, received more than 15 million views on YouTube, where some users began posting rape threats in the comments section.
Global Actions Show Solidarity with Columbia University Rape Survivor
College students around the world carried mattresses on Wednesday in a global day of action against sexual assault and in solidarity with Columbia University student Emma Sulkowicz. Earlier this year, Sulkowicz vowed to carry her mattress everywhere on campus until the student who she says raped her in her dorm room is either expelled or leaves of his own accord. To see our interview with her go to democracynow.org.
Denmark: Pirate Bay Founder Found Guilty of Hacking
In Denmark, the founder of the video file-sharing website the Pirate Bay has been found guilty in the biggest hacking case in the country’s history. Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, known as Anakata, and his Danish co-defendant were found guilty of hacking computer mainframes run by the U.S. IT firm CSC. Warg has already been imprisoned for 11 months after being extradited from Sweden.
Texas: Antonio Buehler Acquitted in Trial for Filming Police
In a follow-up to our story from yesterday, a jury in Texas has found Antonio Buehler not guilty in a case that centered on the right to film police officers. Buehler used his phone to take photos of a woman crying out for help as police arrested her on New Year’s Day in 2012. Police then arrested him, and he was ultimately charged with failing to obey their order to put his hands down as he took photos. After more than five hours of deliberation, a jury acquitted Buehler on Wednesday evening.
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"The Republicans’ Profane Attack on the Sacred Right to Vote" by Amy Goodman
There is a database housed in Arkansas with your name in it ... that is, if you live in one of the 28 states participating in the Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck Program. It’s one of the growing components of an aggressive drive across the U.S. by Republicans to stop many Americans from voting.Early voting has already begun in many states in the 2014 U.S. midterm elections. Control of the U.S. Senate hangs in the balance, as do many crucial governorships, congressional races and ballot initiatives. One question looming over this election is just how significant will be the impact of the wholesale, organized disenfranchisement of eligible voters.
I spoke with Dolores Internicola in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., ground zero for the voter-purge efforts of embattled Republican Gov. Rick Scott. She lost her husband, Bill, recently. He was in the news in 2012, when, at the age of 91, Bill received an official notice in the mail that his citizenship was in question, and he would have to prove it or be kicked off the voter rolls. As a World War II veteran who fought in the Battle of the Bulge, the native New Yorker was upset to hear that he couldn’t participate in the vote that he helped defend against Nazi Germany. “It was terrible,” his widow recalled. Bill did get to vote in the 2012 elections, but millions are now threatened with similar, arbitrary disenfranchisement this year.
Investigative journalist Greg Palast, along with documentary filmmaker Richard Rowley, crisscrossed the country, documenting the impact of the Crosscheck Program. His critical investigative reporting of the now-legendary electoral debacle in Florida in 2000 helped expose how Florida’s then-Secretary of State Katherine Harris oversaw massive, erroneous voter purges there, giving the presidency to George W. Bush in what remains the most controversial presidential election in U.S. history.
“Now, it’s a decade and a half later, and I’m hearing the cry of ‘voter fraud. There’s a million people committing voter fraud.’ Is there really this big crime wave?” Palast asks in his two-part special on alleged “double voting” produced for Al-Jazeera America.
The Crosscheck system described by Palast started with Kansas Republican Secretary of State Kris Kobach. It takes electronic records of voters from participating states, collects them in a centralized database in Arkansas and attempts to match individual voters who might have voted in more than one state. This “double voting” was responsible, according to conservative commentator Dick Morris, for 1 million fraudulent votes for Barack Obama, allowing him to “steal the election” in 2012. Yet, as Palast reports, there has not been a single successful prosecution of electoral fraud as a result of the Crosscheck system. Rather, Crosscheck has led to massive purges of eligible voters from the rolls, often based on sloppy data.
Purging of the voter rolls is just one way that Republicans are working to limit the vote. Key court decisions in recent weeks have all but guaranteed that tens of thousands of voters will be denied access to their right to vote. Texas just passed a highly restrictive photo-identification law. The U.S. Supreme Court decided not to rule on the substance of it until after the election in order to avoid confusion. In her dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote, “The greatest threat to public confidence in elections in this case is the prospect of enforcing a purposefully discriminatory law, one that likely imposes an unconstitutional poll tax and risks denying the right to vote to hundreds of thousands of eligible voters.”
Restrictive voter identification and other obstructions have been allowed to move forward as well in Wisconsin and North Carolina. It has been long acknowledged that photo-ID requirements disproportionately impact poor people and people of color, two groups that tend to vote for the Democratic Party.
In the fall of 1980, Paul Weyrich, a conservative activist who went on to found such right-wing institutions as The Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority and the American Legislative Exchange Council, addressed a conference in Dallas. “I don’t want everybody to vote,” he said. “Elections are not won by a majority of people, they never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.” Weyrich’s wish back in 1980 has become a grim reality in 2014. The right to vote is sacred, and its protection is the responsibility of us all.
Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.
Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on more than 1,200 stations in North America. She is the co-author of “The Silenced Majority,” a New York Times best-seller.
© 2014 Amy Goodman
Distributed by King Features Syndicate
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