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We Need to Fix Our Democracy: Lawrence Lessig Weighs Presidential Run to Rid Money from Politics
The 2016 presidential race is shaping up to be the most expensive political race in history. Experts predict as much as $10 billion could be spent by candidates, parties and outside groups on the campaign. A recent analysis by The New York Times shows fewer than 400 families are responsible for almost half the MONEY raised to date. The vast majority of the $388 million raised so far has been channeled to super PACs which can accept unlimited donations in support of candidates. According to the Times, the political network overseen by the conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch plans to spend close to $900 million on the 2016 campaign. That figure dwarfs how much the Republican National Committee and the party’s two congressional campaign committees spent in the 2012 election. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton has a set a fundraising goal of $2.5 billion. Today we are joined by a law professor who is considering challenging Clinton in the Democratic primary. His platform is simple: Get money out of politics. Harvard professor Lawrence Lessig says that if he won the presidency, he would serve only as long as it takes to pass SWEEPING campaign finance reform. Then, he says, he would resign.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: The 2016 presidential race is shaping up to be the most expensive political race in history. Experts predict as much as $10 billion could be spent by candidates, parties and outside groups on the presidential campaign. A recent analysis by The New York Times shows fewer than 400 families are responsible for almost half the money raised to date. The vast majority of the $388 million raised so far has been channeled to super PACs, which can accept unlimited donations in support of candidates. According to The New York Times, the political network overseen by the conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch plans to spend close to $900 million on the 2016 campaign. That figure dwarfs how much the Republican National Committee and the party’s two congressional campaign committees spent in the 2012 election. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton has set a fundraising goal of $2.5 billion.
Today we’re joined by a law professor who’s considering challenging Clinton in the Democratic primary. His platform is simple: Get money out of politics. Harvard professor Lawrence Lessig says if he won the presidency, he would serve only as long as it takes to pass sweeping campaign finance reform legislation. Then, he says, he would resign. In 2012, Lawrence Lessig launched Rootstrikers to fight the corrupting influence of money in politics. He’s a legendary figure in the world of cyberlaw, credited with helping to create Creative Commons, an alternative copyright system.
Lawrence Lessig, welcome back to Democracy Now! Are you announcing your candidacy for president of the United States?
LAWRENCE LESSIG: Well, what we’ve said is that if by Labor Day, September 7th, two weeks from today, we’ve raised the initial million dollars that we’re kickstarting to fund this campaign, then I would run. And I would run on a platform not of campaign finance reform, which is kind of like referring to an alcoholic as someone with a liquid intake problem; I would run on a platform of fundamental citizen equality, because what we’ve allowed to happen in this democracy is a radical inequality in the way citizens are represented. And since—the way we fund campaigns is just one example, but it’s the most grotesque example, of why we don’t have a democracy that works.
AMY GOODMAN: So, explain the problem right now. Talk about the amount of money that is going into this election, and put it in some kind of historical and global context.
LAWRENCE LESSIG: Well, you set it up perfectly, Amy. I mean, the point is, when you have a system that raises its money from such a tiny, tiny fraction of the public—400 families for all of the money raised or 130 families for half the money that’s been raised in the Republican Party—that tiny, tiny number have enormous influence inside of our political system. And the influence they have is not some rational influence of the elite; it’s a completely destructive vetocracy that they create, veto-ocracy, where they’re able to block any kind of reform. So if you want climate change legislation, what we know is we won’t have climate change legislation until we fix this corrupted inequality. If you want to deal with the problem of Wall Street, we’re not going to deal with the largest contributor to congressional campaigns until we change the way campaigns are funded. Every important issue gets tied to the way we are finding these campaigns, this inequality. And what I’ve said is, until we address that first, all of these other things that people are talking about, things that excite us, things that especially excite us progressives, all of them are a fantasy. And we’ve got to stop with the fantasy politics and address the reality that we have to fix our democracy if we’re going to have a democracy that works.
AMY GOODMAN: So how do you do it? And how do you deal with money being equated with free speech?
LAWRENCE LESSIG: Well, the reforms that I’ve proposed, in what we’re calling the Citizen Equality Act, do not trigger any of the concerns the Supreme Court has talked about. What the Supreme Court has said is you can’t be restricting speech. So the step, the first step, that we’re describing is a way to dilute that incredible concentration of funders. So, by increasing bottom-up, citizen-funded elections, either through vouchers, which you could give to every voter that they could use to fund elections, or matching funds, the way John Sarbanes from Maryland has described, all of these would radically change the way campaigns are funded, and radically disempower the lobbyists and the special interests inside of our political system. That’s the first step.
And so, what we need is a mandate strong enough to get that first step. And what I’ve said is that none of the other candidates, even if they’re talking about the right issues, which I think only Bernie and Martin O’Malley are even getting close to talking about the right issues—even if they’re talking about it, they can’t begin to describe a process, a plan for them to have the mandate to actually get this enacted. They have a great plan for getting elected, but they don’t have a plan for actually getting us a democracy back.
AMY GOODMAN: How would you do it, if you were elected?
LAWRENCE LESSIG: So if I were elected, what I’ve said is I would serve only until we passed this thing we’ve called the Citizen Equality Act, which would establish citizen-funded elections, number one. Number two, it would end the political gerrymandering that creates an incredible disempowerment for a vast number of Americans because of the way we design districts. And number three, it would end the ridiculous systems that try to disempower or disable people from being able to vote. That would get us the first steps of a democracy back. And when that’s passed, I would resign. And the vice president, the elected vice president, would become president.
But the point of this mandate is it would be a referendum on this reform, and this reform for citizen equality is the kind of equality that all of Americans should affirm. I mean, I agree with Bernie about the need to deal with wealth inequality, and there are many in the progressive left who agree with Bernie about that. But what I know is that America is not yet of the view that we should become Sweden. And the fact is, we can’t rally America unanimously to this—to that idea. But I think the idea of citizen equality, and the idea which is at the core of what representative democracy is, is an idea we could rally people to, and if we did, we could build a mandate powerful enough to begin to get us the democracy we deserve.
AMY GOODMAN: Since you say, Lawrence Lessig, if you became president, you would resign after you achieved your goal, your vice president would be particularly important. Who would you choose?
LAWRENCE LESSIG: Well, I personally would love to see a vice president that excites the Democratic base to create the kind of passion and energy that would be necessary to get elected. People like Bernie have done that, Elizabeth Warren have done that. But what I’ve also said is that the referendum president, which I’m describing here, trying to create, actually should have different power for picking the vice president from a regular president. You know, a regular nominee selects the vice president assuming or hoping that vice president is never president. But I want to select a vice president who I want to be president the very next day after I am inaugurated. So this person is a much more significant person in the traditional balance. And I think that means that the convention, the party, has a much more significant role in selecting and deciding who that person should be. So we would select based on what the party ratifies as the values of the party, based on also what they think is most likely to succeed in November.
AMY GOODMAN: Have you spoken, for example, with Bernie Sanders or any of the presidential candidates about your possible bid, your run for the presidency?
LAWRENCE LESSIG: Well, I tried to reach out to Bernie before I announced. I haven’t had a chance to connect with him about that. But that’s the only person I’ve tried to reach out to, because Bernie is somebody who I have enormous respect for. He’s been a hero in the movement for the right kind of change for many, many years. And I had worked with him in trying to describe what kind of change would make his campaign credible. So I tried to reach out to him, but I haven’t had a chance to talk to him yet.
But I think the critical thing is to recognize that as much as people love what he is saying—and for good reason, they should love what he is saying—what we need is a way to make what he is saying possible. And what we don’t have right now is a way to make this change or any change, frankly, possible. And so that’s what I’m trying to focus this campaign on.
AMY GOODMAN: Earlier this month, 10 leading Republican presidential candidates faced off in the first debates of the 2016 presidential election. During the debate, Donald Trump defended his record of donating to Democratic candidates in previous races but admitted that the election system is broken.
DONALD TRUMP: I will tell you that our system is broken. I gave to many people. Before this, before two months ago, I was a businessman. I give to everybody. When they call, I give. And you know what? When I need something from them, two years later, three years later, I call them, they are there for me. And that’s a broken system.
CHRIS WALLACE: So what did you get? So what did you get from Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi?
DONALD TRUMP: Well, I’ll tell you what. With Hillary Clinton, I said, "Be at my wedding," and she came to my wedding. You know why? She had no choice, because I gave. I gave to a foundation that, frankly, that foundation is supposed to do good. I didn’t know her money would be used on private jets going all over the world. It was.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Donald Trump. Lawrence Lessig, your response?
LAWRENCE LESSIG: So I think Donald Trump has been the biggest gift to this movement since the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United, because what it’s done is crystallize a recognition that this system is deeply corrupted. You know, there he is, pulling back the curtain on the way the system works, making it possible, even in the Republican primary, for people to begin to talk about the corruption of the system. And I agree with him absolutely: This system is deeply corrupted. The difference between Donald Trump and me—well, there’s $10 billion in difference, at least—but in addition to $10 billion, the difference is that Donald Trump’s solution is that we elect billionaires, and my solution is that we actually have the representative democracy our framers gave us. The idea of electing billionaires was what we fought a revolution about, and Donald Trump’s side in that revolution lost.
AMY GOODMAN: Earlier this year, Hillary Clinton talked about campaign finance reform when she kicked off her bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.
HILLARY CLINTON: We need to build the economy of tomorrow, not yesterday. We need to strengthen families and communities, because that’s where it all starts. We need to fix our dysfunctional political system and get unaccountable money out of it once and for all, even if that takes a constitutional amendment. And we need to protect our country from the threats that we see and the ones that are on the horizon. So, I’m here in Iowa to begin a conversation about how we do that.
AMY GOODMAN: Lawrence Lessig, how do we do that? And what is your response to Hillary Clinton’s approach to campaign finance reform?
LAWRENCE LESSIG: Well, we haven’t seen a lot. She’s talked about a constitutional amendment, which of course I support the idea of a constitutional amendment, but I think we have to recognize that that’s not going to be a solution in the short run. And in the short run, we have a critical number of problems we have to have the ability to solve. She’s also pushed the idea of disclosure. In that statement, she said "unaccountable money." But I’m not sure what accountable money does. I don’t know why it’s any better to have billions of dollars that we can account for than billions of dollars that we can’t account for. I mean, of course I want to account for it, but still it’s the billions of dollars that’s calling the shots. What we need is to change the way elections are funded. We need a commitment to a very simple idea, that we, in a democracy, in a representative democracy, need to be represented equally. And she has not yet articulated any plan that would get us that in any time short of when we need to get there to deal with the critical problems that we face as a nation.
AMY GOODMAN: Lawrence Lessig, I wanted to get your response to Mark Schmitt, the senior fellow at the Roosevelt Institute and former editor of The American Prospect. He was on Democracy Now! explaining why he’s opposed to a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United.
MARK CHMITT: I view it as a real distraction from some real progress that we can make on money in politics, because while you can build a movement around these various—there are like 17 different versions of the amendment. While you can build a movement around this concept, the message it sends is: We can’t do anything until we have a constitutional amendment. And under the current circumstances, "We can’t do anything until we have a constitutional amendment" is exactly the same as saying, "We can’t do anything." And so, I think that’s just sending the wrong signal to people and overlooking the tremendous progress that’s actually being made.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Mark Schmitt at the Roosevelt Institute. Your response, Lawrence Lessig?
LAWRENCE LESSIG: I think he’s completely right. I think the talk about constitutional amendments has excited an incredible base, and I think the movements that have pushed that have done enormous good to our democracy by getting people to recognize the fundamental problem we have to address. But the truth is, we can address a vast majority of that problem tomorrow in a statute. And so, when I talk about passing the Citizen Equality Act, that is a statute, that’s not amending the Constitution. It’s a first step that would have an enormous impact on the ability of democracy to actually function.
And I think if we can give people a sense of what’s possible, we can excite an incredible amount of energy. We, in 2013, did a poll and found 96 percent of Americans believe it important to reduce the influence of money in politics. But 91 percent didn’t think it was possible. So that is the politics of resignation. And if you constantly talk about the constitutional amendment, or you make it sound like that’s what’s necessary to win, then those resigned people will stay resigned. They won’t show up to try to change the system. And that’s exactly the resignation we have to find a way to thaw.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, people are resorting to all sorts of efforts to change the system. Earlier this year, the U.S. mailman Doug Hughes made national headlines when he flew a tiny personal aircraft, known as the gyrocopter, onto the lawn of the U.S. Capitol in an act of civil disobedience. He was carrying letters to every member of Congress urging them to address corruption and to pass campaign finance reform. The letter began with a quote from John Kerry’s farewell speech to the Senate: quote, "The unending chase for money I believe threatens to steal our democracy itself," Kerry wrote. In April, Democracy Now! spoke to Doug Hughes and asked him to elaborate on the message he hoped to convey.
DOUG HUGHES: What my letter actually said to the Congress critters was they’ve got to decide whether they’re going to deny that corruption exists, or they’re going to pretend that they’re doing something about it, or they’re going to really roll up their sleeves and be a part of reform. But I’m looking to the local media, particularly the print media, OK, at the local level, to hold the candidates’ feet to the fire and force them to take a stand on real reform and whether or not they’re going to vote for it or whether or not they’re going to try and take a halfway, mealy-mouthed stand on it, which means they’re going to try and preserve the status quo. The idea is, the voters can decide well if they’re informed. The national media can’t and won’t inform the voters about where the candidates stand. But the local media, which has been, you know, very weak and impotent in the political process, can really take the ball, and they can be the moving force in informing the voters.
AMY GOODMAN: And earlier this year, activists carried out a rare protest inside the Supreme Court chamber to oppose the ruling in McCutcheon v. FEC, a case critics call the "next Citizens United." In a 5-to-4 vote last year, the court’s conservative justices eliminated a longstanding limit on how much donors can give in total to federal candidates, party committees and political action committees in a two-year election cycle. Without any aggregate limit, a donor can now give millions of dollars directly to candidates and parties. In early April, the five activists with the group 99 Rise stood up inside the court to call on justices to reverse their decision.
99 RISE PROTESTER: Justices, is it not your duty to protect our right to self-government? Reverse McCutcheon! Overturn Citizens United. One person, one vote!
AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s the five activists with the group 99 Rise. And then you’ve got Doug Hughes. I believe he’s going to trial—he wouldn’t take any plea deal. A lot of the media didn’t even report he was doing this for campaign finance reform; they just said he flew a gyrocopter onto the grounds of the Capitol. Lawrence Lessig, talk about what groups are doing.
LAWRENCE LESSIG: I think there’s been an incredible amount of creative protest that’s been focused on this issue. Doug Hughes is a hero. We just opened up a kickstarter on Indiegogo to raise money for his legal defense fund. We said we needed to raise $10,000 in 30 days. In one day, we raised the money that he needs to defend himself against the felony charges that he’s now facing. And 99 Rise has done an extraordinary job raising the attention of this issue in a lot of contexts, not just in the Supreme Court.
ut what I tink we need to do is to raise the level of the debate. This is not just about telling some people they can’t speak or trying to silence the ability of certain interests to be in the political process. This is about achieving the fundamental equality of our democracy. And I think that if we raise the level of the debate so we’re not talking about campaign finance, which is just one corner of this problem, and instead talk about the commitment of a representative democracy, as Madison said, one that would, quote, "be not where the rich would have no more power than the poor in this democracy," we could build the political movement we have to build to win, because that’s what this has got to be a fight about, not in the court, not in the—not in the court at the Supreme Court, not in a court that’s deciding whether a protester should go to jail, but in the court of public opinion, where if the public is reminded of this commitment of equality in our democracy, they could see how we could get a democracy that could work again. And if we did, then these problems that all of us roll our eyes about, of climate change or the debt or student debt or Wall Street or gun control, all of these problems would be problems we could actually solve. We could actually have a democracy that’s responsive again, because this inequality, this corrupted inequality, has been removed. And it wouldn’t be a world where you’ve got to stand and say, "Black lives matter," because we would have an equality in this system where that statement would be crazy to even imagine the necessity of uttering.
AMY GOODMAN: So, Lawrence Lessig, again, to summarize, your timetable on when you will announce your candidacy for president of the United States, under what conditions?
LAWRENCE LESSIG: So we’ve just crossed—we’re at about $550,000 of the million dollars that I said we needed to raise within two weeks. And if we get there and the two—the major candidates have not said this would be their primary focus, then I will enter the race. And I will enter the race, and we will also try to recruit 50 referendum representatives to also run, to make it so that on day one of 2017, of the administration in 2017, we would have the majority necessary to pass this equality act. So, as of—in two weeks, we’ll know whether this race will happen. And if it does happen, I’m going to give it every ounce of my energy to make it possible for this democracy to utter the words that are so obvious and self-evident, that in a democracy all of us should be treated equal.
MY GOODMAN: Professor Lawrence Lessig, I want to thank you for being with us.
LAWRENCE LESSIG: Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: Lawrence Lessig is considering running for the Democratic nomination for president in order protest money in politics, professor at Harvard Law School. His most recent book, Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress—and a Plan to Stop It.
This is Democracy Now! When we come back, Sarah Shourd joins us. She was in solitary confinement in Iran for more than a year. She’s going to comment on the Iran nuclear deal and also talk about solitary confinement in the United States. Stay with us.
In Guatemala, Protests Threaten to Unseat President, a U.S.-Backed General Implicated in Mass Murder
We turn now to Guatemala, where President Otto Pérez Molina is attempting to hold onto his office despite growing calls demanding for his resignation. The president has faced months of massive protests amid a multimillion-dollar corruption scandal in which importers paid bribes to Tax Authority officials to obtain DISCOUNTS. Over the weekend, most of Pérez Molina’s Cabinet STEPPED down. The scandal has also led to the arrest of top officials, including Vice President Roxana Baldetti, who was arrested on Friday on corruption charges. On Saturday, crowds rallied outside the presidential palace chanting "Resign now!" and waving Guatemalan flags. On Sunday, the Roman Catholic Church joined in calling for the president’s resignation. Hours later, Otto Pérez Molina announced he would not resign. We go to Guatemala to speak with journalist and activist Allan Nairn about the current corruption scandal and Pérez Molina’s history as a U.S.-backed general implicated in the mass murder of indigenous Mayans during the country’s dirty war in the 1980s.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We turn to Guatemala, where the president, Otto Pérez Molina, is attempting to hold onto his office despite growing calls demanding his resignation. The president has faced months of massive protests amidst a multimillion-dollar corruption scandal in which importers paid bribes to Tax Authority officials to obtain discounts. Over the weekend, President Pérez Molina’s Cabinet stepped down. The scandal has also led to the arrest of top officials including the former vice president, Roxana Baldetti, who was arrested Friday on corruption charges. On Saturday, crowds rallied outside the presidential palace chanting "Resign now!" and waving Guatemalan flags. On Sunday, the Roman Catholic Church joined in calling for the president’s resignation. Hours later, President Otto Pérez Molina announced he would not resign.
PRESIDENT OTTO PÉREZ MOLINA: [translated] I declare categorically that I reject any link to the scandal or having received money from that money-defrauding operation. My conscience, in that sense, is at peace. I will show my face and show before the institutions, that by law is required, through the necessary process, that I have not been a part, and even less a receptor, of those ill-gotten funds against the Guatemalan people.
AMY GOODMAN: We go now to Guatemala to speak with journalist Allan Nairn.
Allan, welcome back to Democracy Now! Can you tell us what’s taking place in Guatemala right now?
ALLAN NAIRN: Well, there’s a popular uprising that may bring down the president, General Pérez Molina. It’s based on corruption, but Pérez Molina was also involved in mass murder during the 1980s, when he was the field commander in the Ixil zone for the Ríos Montt program of slaughter against the indigenous Mayan population. Pérez Molina was also on the payroll of the CIA when he served as chief of intelligence for the G2. The program of massacre by Ríos Montt was backed by the United States, by the Reagan administration. They got arms from the U.S. They got arms from Israel with U.S. help. Reagan said that that government was getting a bum rap on human rights. And this is as they were sweeping through the mountains decapitating, raping, slicing open pregnant women with their machetes, executing whole villages at point-blank range. They were the ISIS of their day. And now, one of the field commanders for that slaughter is the president, and there’s a chance he could be brought down, but on other grounds.
Ríos Montt, who was the dictator at the time, was brought to trial by a Guatemalan court as a result of popular pressure and some brave prosecutors and judges. He was convicted of genocide. He was sentenced to 80 years. The oligarchy demanded that that sentence be set aside. But tomorrow, Ríos Montt’s trial is due to resume. He’s trying to dodge accountability, claiming health problems. It’s a moment where the entire system of Guatemala is shaking. And in some senses, Guatemala is leading the world. They’ve achieved a level of civilization far higher than that of the U.S. It’s inconceivable that the U.S. could bring an American president to trial in an American court for mass murder of civilians. But Guatemala has done that. And now the people who are in the streets demonstrating are trying to take it farther by bringing down a sitting president.
AMY GOODMAN: Allan, for our radio listeners, I wanted to describe, and TV listeners—viewers, as well, we were showing images of you speaking to—well, it’s turned out that it is the current Guatemalan president, Otto Pérez Molina. But it was what? How many years ago? And where were you?
ALLAN NAIRN: That was September of 1982 in the Ixil triangle in the mountains of Guatemala, one of the many zones where the population is indigenous Mayan. In that video, that’s for a film that I worked on with Mikael Wahlforss and Jean-Marie Simon. And Pérez Molina at that time was using an alias. I didn’t know Pérez Molina was his name. He was calling himself "Mayor Tito," Major Tito. And he told me that all the families here are with the guerrilla. His men, those below him, described in detail how they would go into villages, strangle civilians, execute them on the spot, return and bomb their villages, chase fleeing people into the hills and kill them. And then, some of the people who we were able to speak to on the side, some of the survivors who had been placed in army concentration camps, they verified these accounts by the soldiers. And that man, Pérez Molina, later rose to become chief of intelligence, on the payroll of the CIA, and now is president of Guatemala.
AMY GOODMAN: Let’s turn to the Guatemalan attorney general, Thelma Aldana.
THELMA ALDANA: [translated] The documentation seized in the raids, together with the available telephone interception, leads us to consider as probable that the president of the republic had participated in a commission with the same punishable conduct by those who have been accused of being part of the criminal organization, La Línea.
AMY GOODMAN: So, the Guatemalan attorney general, Thelma Aldana, is implicating the president. He held a—he spoke on national television last night, said he won’t go. Allan, you have 10 seconds. What is going to happen now, do you believe?
ALLAN NAIRN: The U.S. is trying to prop up Pérez Molina. They told him not to resign, and he’s refusing to resign. But it’s unclear what’s going to happen. People are in the streets. A new election is scheduled for September 6th. People are calling for a postponement. They’re calling—
AMY GOODMAN: We just lost Allan, but that’s the end of the show. Allan Nairn, journalist, speaking to us from Guatemala City, Guatemala. And we’ll keep you updated on what happens there.
Sarah Shourd, Hiker Jailed in Iran, Says Nuclear Deal Could Lead to Release of Detained Americans
As members of Congress CONTINUE to debate the historic Iran nuclear DEAL ahead of next month’s vote, more attention is being paid to the three—possibly four—Americans imprisoned in Iran: Washington Post REPORTER Jason Rezaian, Saeed Abedini, Amir Hekmati and Robert Levinson, whose whereabouts are in question. During a recent press conference, President Obama defended his decision not to tie the nuclear negotiations to the release of the hostages, saying it would have encouraged Iran to use hostages perhaps to get additional concessions from the United States. We speak to Sarah Shourd, one of the three American hikers imprisoned in Iran for more than a year in solitary confinement. She was captured, along with her two companions, Shane Bauer and Joshua Fattal, in July 2009 while hiking near the unmarked Iran-Iraq border in semi-autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan during a week-long trip from her home in Damascus, Syria.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman. As members of Congress continue to debate the historic Iran nuclear deal ahead of next month’s vote, more attention is being paid to the three, possibly four, Americans imprisoned in Iran: Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian, Saeed Abedini, Amir Hekmati and Robert Levinson, whose whereabouts are in question. President Obama was recently questioned by CBS reporter Major Garrett about the imprisoned Americans.
MAJOR GARRETT: As you well know, there are four Americans in Iran, three held on trumped-up charges, ACCORDING to your administration, one whereabouts unknown. Can you tell the country, sir, why you are content, with all the fanfare around this deal, to leave the conscience of this nation and the strength of this nation unaccounted for in relation to these four Americans?
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: I’ve got to give you credit, Major, for how you craft those questions. The notion that I am content as I celebrate with American citizens languishing in Iranian jails? Major, that’s nonsense. And you should know better. I’ve met with the families of some of those folks. Nobody is content. And our diplomats and our teams are working diligently to try to get them out.
AMY GOODMAN: President Obama went on to say he did not tie these negotiations to the release of the hostages because essentially it would encourage Iran to use hostages to perhaps get additional concessions from the U.S.
Joining us now is Sarah Shourd, one of three American hikers imprisoned in Iran for more than a year in solitary confinement. She was captured, along with her two companions, Shane Bauer and Joshua Fattal, in July of 2009 while hiking near the unmarked Iran-Iraq border in the semi-autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan while on a week-long vacation trip from her home in Damascus, Syria. Sarah was held incommunicado in solitary confinement for 410 days before being released, without a trial or any evidence shown against her, by then-Iranian President Ahmadinejad on compassionate grounds. Since her release, Sarah Shourd’s work has focused largely on exposing and condemning the cruelty and overuse of solitary confinement in U.S. prisons. And she just wrote a play about solitary confinement in the U.S. It was performed here in New York on Thursday night at an event hosted by the Fortune Society in New York before an audience of many who had been in solitary confinement.
Sarah, welcome back to Democracy Now! It’s great to have you with us. First, comment on the Iran nuclear deal. Are you for it or against it?
SARAH SHOURD: I think it’s a great deal. I think it’s more than we could have ever hoped for. Not only does it weaken the hardliner position in Iran and ease tension between our two countries, it could lead to cooperation to combat ISIS. I also think that it is good for the Americans that are currently detained there. I think it actually gives the Iranian government less incentive to use hostage taking as a tactic.
AMY GOODMAN: So, I want to go back to the Iran nuclear deal—
SARAH SHOURD: Sure.
AMY GOODMAN: —because those who are opposed to it, Democrats and Republicans, say you can’t trust Iran. Now, certainly, you are evidence of this. You were imprisoned by Iran.
SARAH SHOURD: Sure.
AMY GOODMAN: You were held in solitary confinement for more than a year. Do you trust them?
SARAH SHOURD: Well, I mean, there’s been a lot of distrust on both sides for a very long time. We’ve been locked in this relationship of animosity that’s gone nowhere, that’s benefited no one. I think that I trust this deal because I think it’s a good deal for both sides, and I think that anything other than this deal will inevitably lead to war, which is a terrifying prospect.
AMY GOODMAN: So, I want to ask you about why you feel that those Americans who are imprisoned in Iran have more of a shot at release if this deal is signed. It’s certainly not what others are saying. They’re saying it’s a sign of John Kerry and Obama’s weakness that they could not include the hostage release in this deal.
SARAH SHOURD: Right. Well, because of the diplomats that I worked with—I was released after a year being held as a political hostage, and my husband, Shane Bauer, and my friend, Josh Fattal, were there for another year. And I was right in the center of negotiations for their release between the U.S. government; the Omani government, which negotiated my release and eventually also brought Shane and Josh home; the Venezuelan government was involved; the Iraqi government. These diplomats convinced me that although it’s ridiculous to say that these political hostages are not tied to larger issues such as the nuclear deal, because that’s why they’re being held in the first place. They’re collateral. They’re like money in the bank for the Iranian government that they’re going use to assert pressure on whatever issues that are important to them that involve the United States.
AMY GOODMAN: Explain back when you—before you were released, how deals, you feel, led to your release, deals that you were not included in.
SARAH SHOURD: Sure, yeah. Well, I was sitting in my cell in 2010 when—I had a small television that was all Iranian state-run news, but the ticker at the bottom was in English, and that’s how I got the only information I had from the outside world. And I learned about the Tehran declaration, when Turkey and Brazil came up with an amazing deal that would have—that would have, you know, gone very far to solve the nuclear issue with Iran. There was all kinds of excitement. I was dancing and laughing in my cell, because I had no doubt in my mind that my release and Shane and Josh’s release would be carefully calibrated with the temperature of U.S.-Iranian relations. So, if the temperature is good, it looks better for the hostages. That deal was shot down by the U.S. government the very next day, and another round of sanctions were put on the Iranian government, which made me—made it quite clear to me that I was going to be in there for at least a while longer, if not a very long time.
So, I think that probably—I know that, from my experience inside, word travels fast inside Evin Prison, that, whether they have televisions or not, there’s whispers down the hall. There are the guards that are sympathetic. Most likely, Jason Rezaian, Saeed and Amir have heard about this deal, and they’re feeling very hopeful, but also very worried that it’s not going to go through.
AMY GOODMAN: Explain who these four men are.
SARAH SHOURD: Saeed Abedini is a Christian pastor. None of them have done anything wrong. There’s been absolutely no evidence shown against them—I mean anything, you know, that has been in any way demonstrated by the Iranian government. Jason Rezaian works for The Washington Post, and he’s Iranian-American, and he was working in the country. All of them have been subjected to very long periods of solitary confinement, as I was. And Jason just had a trial, and his family is awaiting the results. Yeah, all of these people, by all accounts, are just being used as pawns.
AMY GOODMAN: And the other two men?
SARAH SHOURD: Amir Hekmati was actually picked up just weeks after Shane and Josh were released, which made it a very sort of clear revolving door. He’s also a U.S. citizen. And like I said, if there’s any evidence against these people, the Iranian government would have shown it a long time ago, just as they never showed any evidence against us.
AMY GOODMAN: And the final man?
SARAH SHOURD: Yes, Levinson has been missing. He disappeared while he was visiting the Kish islands. And for a long time it’s been suspected that the Iranian government knows where he is. And—but he’s really just been completely missing. No one knows anything. There was a video released by his captors a few years ago.
Opening the Box: After Being Jailed in Iran, Sarah Shourd Examines Solitary Confinement in U.S.
Since her 2010 release from an Iranian prison, Sarah Shourd’s work has focused largely on exposing and condemning the cruelty and overuse of solitary confinement in U.S. prisons. She has just written a play about solitary confinement in the United States titled "Opening the Box." It was performed Thursday at an event HOSTED by the Fortune Society in New York City, before an audience of many who had been in solitary.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: You have been focusing on solitary confinement since you left. I mean, many in YOUR circumstance would get as far away as they could of the circumstances that you lived through when you were in Iran, but you’ve actually really drilled down into it and looked here in the United States. Talk about your project.
SARAH SHOURD: Sure. Well, when I was imprisoned in solitary confinement, any chance I would get to see my captors, I would say, "What you’re doing is torture. What you’re doing is illegal. I can feel that—I know that something is happening to my brain. I can no longer focus on a book for more than a few minutes without getting frustrated, because I have to read the same paragraph again and again."
AMY GOODMAN: Which means? Why did you have to read the whole—
SARAH SHOURD: I mean, scientific STUDIES are really still not—there haven’t been enough of them, but there have been studies that show, after just two or three days, your brain starts to shift towards delirium and stupor. Being in that kind of isolation is—you start to lose sense of who you are, of your values. Our identity as people is in relation to other people, through conversations, through work that we do in the world. In that kind of isolation, it’s very easy to just completely succumb to depression. And that’s why suicide in solitary confinement is twice as high as in the rest of the prison population in this country.
AMY GOODMAN: So talk about Opening the Box.
SARAH SHOURD: Well, it’s been several years now. I started researching—really, it was part of my own—when I got out and I saw that solitary confinement doesn’t just happen in places like Iran. Actually, in this country we have far more people in solitary confinement than any country in the world per capita and any country in history for far longer periods of time. So, I was in isolation for 410 days. The U.N. special rapporteur against torture says that 15 days can cause permanent, lasting damage. People in this country are held for years, for decades in some cases. And one of the most important things for me in my own—in moving forward in an empowering way was to talk to other survivors, was to find out that, you know, talking to yourself, naming your body parts, having—you know, feeling an emotional connection to an insect that happens to make its way into your cell is not strange at all, that we all experience these kinds of horrors. And so, talking to other people led to interviews, and I started to collect these stories. And I wove them into this play, Opening the Box.
AMY GOODMAN: So you traveled across the country, speaking to people in solitary confinement?
SARAH SHOURD: I did, yeah. The first six months, I had 12 very in-depth letter correspondences. I was writing multiple letters a day and found some of the most incredibly creative, amazing people that expressed themselves so eloquently, in many cases, through the written word, because that’s their only method of communicating with the outside world, so just pouring their souls into these letters. And I tried to visit as many as I could, as many as I could get permission to—New York; New Jersey; of course, Pelican Bay in California I went to many times—and developed these amazing relationships and wove them into a fictional account of resistance behind bars.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to the reading of your new play, Opening the Box. This is a clip from the event last week, Thursday night, hosted by Fortune Society in New York, which helps people re-enter society after they get out of prison. So that was the audience. Many in the audience had been in prison. Many had been in solitary. This is a scene with a character by the name of Rocky, a young prisoner, and this is his reaction when he just learns that he has been remanded to solitary confinement for 18 months.
ROCKY: I’d rather be somebody else. I’ve always felt that way, a different guy on a whole different planet. I sit here hating all the people that have what I’ve never had. It’s like I’m a virus no one can touch. I mean, like a tree in a forest thing. Who says I even exist? My brain is like oatmeal. My brain is a piece of [bleep]! What do I have left? My finger touching another finger, the color red when the lights hit the back of my eyes, words on repeat and repeat. I think of my Julia every minute, and every [bleep] time there’s a pain in my chest like being stabbed. I’d cut off a finger to see her. I’d cut my whole [bleep] hand. Why do I sit here in pain asking for more pain? This [bleep] toilet! This [bleep] bed! How can they be so lucky? They can’t feel nothing! I can hit them. I can kick them. They don’t feel nothing! I’d swear I’d rather be punched in the face every minute of the day than have to sit here just feeling! Get me out of here! Get me out of this [bleep] skin!
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Rocky from Opening the Box, Sarah Shourd’s play. Tell us about Rocky and who he’s based on.
SARAH SHOURD: Well, he was—so I had got access to recordings of Herman Wallace from the Angola Three, part of what was recorded for the film Herman’s House. And one of the characters—one of the people that—
AMY GOODMAN: Herman Wallace, of course, a man who was held more than 40 years in solitary confinement, ultimately died a few days after—he was dying of cancer, which is why he was released from prison and ultimately died a free man.
SARAH SHOURD: Yeah. And it was incredible to be able to get these recordings and just immerse myself in his voice and create this character. So, Rocky is based on a young man that Herman Wallace helped inside. That was a large part of his identity. Whenever a new young person would come into the pod, he would reach out to them, give them advice on how to cope, tell them, you know, basically the rules, how this pod works. And that’s the relationship between Rocky and the character of Ray Duval in my play.
AMY GOODMAN: And who played Rocky here?
SARAH SHOURD: Oh, he is a friend of a friend. He came out of the woodwork. He’s a wonderful young actor. I actually really hope that I can get him to come to the premiere in San Francisco.
AMY GOODMAN: And what are you hoping to do with Opening the Box? That was just one performance. You’re performing it in different places around the country, excerpts of it?
SARAH SHOURD: Yeah, yeah. We are working towards production. It’s going to premiere—the world premiere will be in San Francisco next July, July 2016, at Z Space. And so, I mean, I think that there’s been a lot of attention, you know, comparatively speaking, on solitary confinement in the last five years. Momentum has been building. People know the facts. But I feel like there’s still a lack of actual stories of who the people are that end up in the deep end of our prison system, in the worst punishment that we mete out. And so, I feel like these—that’s a role that I can play. I mean, the high-profile nature of my case meant that I got a tremendous amount of attention. When we performed at the Fortune Society, it was for an audience of people, many of which has—no one has ever asked them what it was like for them. No one has ever asked them to talk about what happened to them in there.
Facebook Accused of Censoring Hundreds of Prisoners by Purging Profile Pages Without Cause
In a recent article for The Daily Beast, "Facebook Now a Place for Prisoners, Too," Sarah Shourd looked at the growing debate on prisoners using social media. Facebook has been accused of being too willing to delete profile pages of prisoners at the request of U.S. authorities. The company recently changed its policy after complaints from the ELECTRONIC Frontier Foundation and other groups.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, this is on a completely different issue, but you also happen to be a columnist at The Daily Beast, and you wrote a very interesting piece about Facebook and prisoners, and prisons telling Facebook they want prisoners’ pages taken down. Can you explain what’s going on?
SARAH SHOURD: Yeah. Well, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the ACLU partnered up, and they did a lot of investigating. They FOIAd Facebook to see why Facebook was taking down inmate pages. And what they found is that Facebook was taking these pages down, just no questions asked. If a prisoner administration said, "This is a prisoner. Take this page down," they would just do it. And it’s not against Facebook’s policy for a prisoner to have a page. So, really, they were doing—a private company was doing a prison’s bidding. And oftentimes it was actually helping the prison ADMINISTRATORS find who had contraband cellphones, so it was really doing the prison’s work for them. They’ve since, under this pressure from EFF and the ACLU, changed their policy so that they do push back and ask, "Why is this prisoner a risk? Who are they a danger to? Are they harassing someone? What Facebook rules are they actually breaking?"
And EFF, importantly, pointed out that this is an issue of censorship, because it’s taking down Facebook pages of prisoners and all of their content—and, of course, not just prisoners, but also free citizens that have commented on these pages. And I think that in a time where we are questioning how to reduce our system of mass incarceration, this is a really important piece to look at, because we don’t just need to let people out, as important as that is, low-level—not just low-level offenders, but violent offenders that have been in far too long, but we need to talk about how to help them stay out and reduce recidivism. And when prisoners have—all of their ties to their families have been severed, when they get out, they have far less chance of success of getting a job, getting an apartment. They have no security net. And that’s why many prisoners go back to crime and end up back in prison.
AMY GOODMAN: Sarah Shourd, I want to thank you for being with us, journalist, playwright, University of California, Berkeley, visiting scholar. She spent 410 days in solitary confinement while held as a political hostage by the Iranian government from 2009 to '10. Since her release from prison five years ago, Sarah Shourd's work has focused largely on exposing and condemning the cruelty and overuse of solitary confinement in the United States.
This is Democracy Now! When we come back, we go to Guatemala City. Will the Guatemalan government fall? Will the Guatemalan president resign? Stay with us.
Headlines:
Global Stocks Falling as China’s Markets Plummet on "Black Monday"
China is calling it "Black Monday." Global stocks are falling as China’s markets saw their sharpest daily fall since the global financial crisis in 2007. The Shanghai STOCK EXCHANGEplunged 8.5 percent Monday, sending shock waves throughout Asian and European markets. Today’s fall comes after weeks of decline in the Chinese markets, which led the Dow Jones to plummet by more than 500 points on Friday. The decline also caused oil prices to plunge to their lowest levels in almost six years.
4 Honored for Thwarting Train Attack; Gunman Denies Terrorism Motives
French President François Hollande has awarded the Legion of Honor, France’s highest award, to three Americans and one British citizen on Monday for their role in thwarting an attack in a high-speed TRAIN traveling to Paris from Amsterdam on Friday. No one died. The three Americans, two of them servicemembers, tackled and disarmed the suspected gunman, a 26-year-old Moroccan man, Ayoub el-Khazzani, whom police say European authorities suspected of being an Islamist militant, although he was not being tracked. The lawyer for the suspected gunman says her client denies that the attack was motivated by terrorism, and that he was only a poor man intending to rob train travelers because he was hungry.
Sophie David: "I asked him whether he knows what he is being accused of. It is the first thing we do to see if they understand what their rights are. He replied, 'Yes.' But when I reminded him of why he was there, he was stunned by the terrorist nature which is being given to his actions."
Judge Declares Mistrial for Officer Who Killed Black College Student
In news from North Carolina, protests erupted at the Charlotte courthouse after a judge declared a mistrial in the case of a white police officer who fatally shot an unarmed African-American college student who was seeking help after a car crash in 2013. Randall Kerrick, the police officer, faced charges of voluntary manslaughter for shooting 24-year-old Jonathan Ferrell. According to prosecutors, THE COLLEGE student had sought help from a homeowner after a car crash, but the woman had called the police because she believed she was being robbed. When officers arrived, one pointed the laser of his taser at Ferrell’s chest. Ferrell fled in fear and attempted to hide between the two police cars. This brought Ferrell close to Officer Kerrick, who then opened fire, striking Ferrell 12 times. On Friday, the jury said it was deadlocked on whether to convict the officer.
Ohio: Legislation to Ban Abortions in Cases of Down Syndrome
In Ohio, anti-choice activists are pushing for a new law that would make it illegal for a doctor to perform an abortion if a woman is terminating the pregnancy because the fetus has tested POSITIVE for Down syndrome. The bill is being pushed by the National Right to Life Committee. The Legislature is expected to approve the measure. Ohio Republican Governor John Kasich, who is running for president, has not said whether he supports the bill, although he has signed a slew of anti-choice legislation since taking office in 2010.
Right-Wing Activists Clash with Police Outside German Migrant Shelter
In Germany, right-wing protesters clashed with police over the weekend during demonstrations against a newly opened migrant shelter in a small town outside of Dresden. Pro-immigration activists staged a counter-protest, holding signs that read "Refugees Welcome." The demonstrations followed the interior minister’s announcement that Germany could receive as many as 800,000 asylum seekers this year, the biggest influx since the Second World War.
Italian Coast Guard Rescues 4,440 Migrants at Sea in Single Day
Meanwhile, the Italian Coast Guard says it rescued 4,400 migrants at sea in over 22 operations on Saturday alone. This comes as thousands of other migrants resume their journeys north through Macedonia after the country reopened its border with Greece after declaring a state of emergency and sealing the border last week.
Guatemala: President Rejects Calls to Resign amid Growing Scandal
Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina rejected calls to step down Sunday night, following the resignation of the majority of his Cabinet over the weekend. The president has faced months of massive protests amid a growing corruption scandal, which has led to arrests of top officials, including the former vice president. The government is accused of running a multimillion-dollar scheme in which importers paid bribes to Tax Authority officials to obtain DISCOUNTS. On Sunday, the Roman Catholic Church called for the president’s resignation, but Pérez Molina rejected those calls.
Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina: "I declare categorically that I reject any link to the scandal or having received money from that money-defrauding operation. My conscience, in that sense, is at peace. ... I reaffirm that I will not resign, and will fully submit myself to the legal process. Good night, and may God bless you."
Lebanon: One Protester Dies During Anti-Government Demonstrations
Meanwhile, in Lebanon, at least one protester has died as massive demonstrations against government ineptitude rocked the capital Beirut. Riot police fired water cannons, rubber bullets and tear gas at the thousands of protesters. The Red Cross says at least 40 people have been hospitalized. The growing campaign, which is dubbed "You Stink," began as a protest against the massive piles of garbage that the government has failed to collect. It has now become a cry for the government’s fall.
Yemen: Two U.S. Drone Strikes Kill 7; U.S.-Backed Strikes Kill Dozens
In Yemen, tribal sources and local officials say two apparent U.S. drone strikes killed seven people over the weekend. In both attacks, the dead are being described by officials as suspected al-Qaeda militants. Meanwhile, dozens of people have died following U.S.-backed, Saudi-led airstrikes on Friday on the southwestern city of Taiz.
Afghanistan: 3 American Contractors and 9 Others Killed in IED Attack
In news from Afghanistan, at least 12 people have died following a suicide car bomb in the capital Kabul on Saturday. Officials say the target of the attack was a NATO convoy. Three Americans working for private contractors were killed, along with nine others.
Syria: 50 Die in Gov’t Airstrikes; ISIL Destroys Ancient Temple
At least 50 people have died in Syria following government airstrikes Saturday on a residential area of Douma, a city northeast of Damascus. Meanwhile, the self-proclaimed Islamic State has destroyed the ancient Baalshamin Temple in the Syrian city of Palmyra. News agencies reported the destruction occurred Sunday, although the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says the temple was destroyed by ISIL last month.
Somalia: 21 Killed in Two Suicide Car Bomb Attacks
At least 21 people have died in Somalia following two suicide car bomb attacks on Saturday. The first attack struck a training base for government troops, killing 16 soldiers. The second attack struck an intersection on the capital Mogadishu, killing five. The militant group al-Shabab has claimed responsibility for the attack on the training base.
Malaysia: Police Unearth Mass Graves of Human Trafficking Victims
In Malaysia, police say they have unearthed the mass graves of more than 20 people who are believed to be human trafficking victims. The graves were found along the border with Thailand in a region known as a transit point for human smuggling. The site was close to where authorities found a mass grave containing the remains of 26 bodies in May.
Bernie Sanders Holds First Campaign Rally in South Carolina
Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders held his first campaign rally in South Carolina Friday night. The move was seen as an attempt by Sanders to court black voters, who still overwhelmingly support former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. At the event, Sanders invoked the names of men and women who have been killed in police or jail custody in recent years.
Sen. Bernie Sanders: "We must be clear that when we’re talking about racism, we are talking about Sandra Bland, Michael Brown, Rekia Boyd. We are talking about Eric Garner. We’re talking about Walter Scott, Freddie Gray and many others, many, many others over the years whose names we do not know. And these people died unnecessarily and wrongly at the hands of police officers or in police custody. That must change."
VP Joe Biden Increasingly Expected to Join Presidential Race
In more news from the campaign trail, Vice President Joe Biden is increasingly expected to join the race as a Democratic candidate. Biden met with Massachusetts Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren on Saturday to discuss economic policy.
Donald Trump Responds to Anti-Immigrant Attack in Boston
Meanwhile, Donald Trump has responded to the case of two brothers in Boston accused of attacking a 58-year-old Hispanic man with a metal pole and urinating on his face. Police say that when the brothers were arrested, he told them, "Donald Trump was right — all these illegals need to be deported." On Friday, Trump tweeted, "Boston incident is terrible. We need energy and passion, but we must treat each other with respect. I would never condone violence." Trump drew 20,000 people at his speech on Friday night in Mobile, Alabama, although campaign organizers had expected as many as 35,000. Bernie Sanders still holds the record for audience size at campaign rallies in the 2016 race.
Saudi Arabia: Women Registering to Vote for First Time
And women in Saudi Arabia are registering to vote for the first time in the nation’s history ahead of upcoming municipal elections in December. Women will also be permitted to register as candidates and run for office in the December elections. The shift implements the late King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz’s 2011 decision to grant women the right to vote and run for office
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