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Bassam Haddad: We Have a Duty to Call for End to Killing in Syria & How We End It Matters
As the United States accuses Russia of bombing civilians in Syria, we speak with Bassam Haddad, director of the Middle East and Islamic Studies program at George Mason University. In an article headlined "The Debate over Syria Has Reached a Dead End," he argues, "There has been increasing gravitation toward two mutually exclusive narratives: (a) that of 'pure and consistent revolution,' and (b) that of 'external conspiracy.' Both narratives carry grains of truth, but both are encumbered by maximalist claims and fundamental blind spots that forfeit any common ground necessary for enduring cease-fires or potential transitions, as well as post-war reconciliation." Haddad is co-founder of Jadaliyya and director of the Arab Studies Institute.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: We begin today in Syria, where airstrikes Wednesday killed at least 22 people, most of them schoolchildren. The attacks occurred in a village in Syria’s rebel-held Idlib province. According to reports by the Syrian Civil Defense rescue workers, the raids were carried out by either Syrian or Russian warplanes and hit a residential area and a school.
SYRIAN MAN: [translated] Oh, God! Oh, God! God, please help us! Oh, God! Oh, God! You are seeing our situation!
SYRIAN GIRL 1: [translated] I want my mother. Take me to my mother.
SYRIAN GIRL 2: [translated] The plane hit us. I do not want to go to the school.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Also on Wednesday, United Nations aid chief Stephen O’Brien addressed the Security Council, saying the council has taken no action to end nearly six years of civil war in Syria. His comments sparked an angry exchange.
STEPHEN O’BRIEN: Each month, I have come before you and presented an ever-worsening record of destruction and atrocity, grimly cataloguing the systematic destruction of a country and its people. While my job is to relay to you the facts, I cannot help but be incandescent with rage. Month after month, worse and worse, and nothing is actually happening to stop the war, stop the suffering.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Russia’s ambassador to the U.N., Vitaly Churkin, responded to O’Brien, describing his remarks as "arrogant" and criticizing him for not talking about Russia halting airstrikes in Aleppo. Several councilmembers, including the United States, France and Britain, defended O’Brien’s statements. This is U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power.
SAMANTHA POWER: What is so remarkable and troubling about the presentation we’ve heard today is that what Russia really wants from the U.N. is credit. Congratulations, Russia, you’ve stopped, for a couple days, from using incendiary weapons. Thank you for not using cluster bombs in civilian areas. Thank you for staying the hand of brutality with regard to bunker buster weapons. You don’t get congratulations and get credit for not committing war crimes for a day or a week.
AMY GOODMAN: This comes as U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced a military campaign to retake the Syrian city of Raqqa from the Islamic State. Carter said the campaign will commence sometime in the next few weeks, before the likely completion of the current offensive to defeat militants in the Iraqi stronghold of Mosul.
Meanwhile, Syria continues to dominate foreign policy discussions in the presidential race. Donald Trump warned in an interview Tuesday that Hillary Clinton’s policy on Syria could lead to World War III.
DONALD TRUMP: Well, she has no plan for Syria. And, look, with her you’ll end up in World War III. She doesn’t know what she’s doing, just like with Libya, just like with everything else she’s done. So, Syria now is no longer Syria. Syria is Russia and the new Iran, that we built through the Iran deal, which is the worst—one of the worst negotiated deals I’ve ever seen.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: NATO is seeking to station more troops in eastern Europe in what’s been described as the biggest military buildup on Russia’s borders since the Cold War. As part of a U.S.-backed plan, NATO is planning to send battle groups to Poland, Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia, with forces ranging from armored infantry to drones. As tension mounts between Russia and the U.S. over the crisis in Syria, National Intelligence Director James Clapper said Tuesday he fears Russia could shoot down a U.S. aircraft if a no-fly zone were to be imposed over Syria.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, our next guest says that two mutually exclusive, competing narratives are dominating discussions around Syria—and neither is sufficient to understand what’s happening in the country. In a new article in The Nation headlined "The Debate over Syria Has Reached a Dead End," Bassam Haddad writes, quote, "There has been increasing gravitation toward two mutually exclusive narratives: (a) that of 'pure and consistent revolution,' and (b) that of 'external conspiracy.' Both narratives carry grains of truth, but both are encumbered by maximalist claims and fundamental blind spots that forfeit any common ground necessary for enduring cease-fires or potential transitions, as well as post-war reconciliation," he writes. Bassam Haddad is the director of the Middle East and Islamic Studies program at George Mason University and is director of the Arab Studies Institute.
We welcome you to Democracy Now! So, why don’t you lay out what these competing narratives are and why you call this a dead end at this point?
BASSAM HADDAD: Thank you, Amy, for having me again on the show.
I simply was trying to—tried to establish some sort of accountability on behalf of the people that push certain arguments or narratives on both of these sort of dominant sides. What I call the "pure revolution" narrative is, of course, some sort of a shortcut to a much more complex position. Both of these depictions are. But in all cases, it represents a view that assumes that, from the very beginning of the uprising or revolution, the same values that actually existed at the time have been sustained throughout the last five-and-a-half years by the rebels and so on, whereas, in reality, the actual uprising has been transformed into what we are seeing today, to avoid the nomenclature of what is exactly happening today in terms of giving it a name. And that also reveals another shortcoming regarding the actual, of course, external intervention on behalf of the opposition that has short-circuited the opposition, that has rendered it less unified, less transparent, less inclusive and, most detrimentally, less independent. They also have a problem, the proponents of a pure revolution narrative, in trying to disentangle the good rebels from the bad rebels, if you will, or the jihadists from the nationalists within the rebel groups, but it is extremely difficult to disentangle these two, as it is extremely difficult to disentangle Syria today from the problems that we are witnessing in the region.
On the other side, we also see a dominant narrative—and, of course, there are many other narratives, but these are the ones that you are always confronted with when you talk to anybody about Syria, whether it’s a family member, a policy analyst or a friend. The other narrative focuses on a conspiracy excessively, focuses on external designs on Syria excessively, as if there is no reason for Syrians to actually rise up on their own and basically struggle for ending a four-decade repressive regime, not just politically, but also economically. And it does this at the expense of Syrians, because it sees external imperialist forces, which do exist and have actually wreaked havoc in the region to the nth degree, but it only sees those forces, and internally it sees, for the most part, jihadists. And what disappears in this narrative are ordinary Syrians that are actually opposed to both. Syrians, in this narrative, become invisible.
And if you try to hold a position that rejects this sort of pure revolution narrative, which is unrealistic and difficult to accept when you are looking at what’s happening on the ground, or when you try to reject the conspiracy or external designs narratives, you are basically accused of being either a traitor to the nation or an imperialist or even a jihadist. And you’re not allowed to oppose the regime, for instance, from a perspective that is different from that of the opposition. And you’re not allowed to be in the opposition to the regime without being labeled a pro-West, pro-U.S., pro-imperialist speaker or advocate. And that puts us in a situation that prevents the development of a middle ground that—as cliché as it sounds, that puts Syria first, over and above all these designs.
What is at stake here is not what is happening now, because the regime, as we see it today and as we saw it in the past several decades, is not going to be part of Syria’s future, no matter how much everyone insists on that side that it will be. It’s actually, for the most part, a bargaining chip to use during negotiations to increase the leverage of that side of the argument. What might stay with us, however, is the new configurations that you are witnessing developing in Syria, including various groups that are externally supported and funded. These kinds of movements, in my view, will stay with us for the long haul, and this is why there’s a lot of controversy about what should not be controversial, which is a democratic uprising against a dictatorship. But things have become so complex that to actually rid the real world of this complexity and just focus on the ideals is actually counterproductive for the purposes of an uprising itself.
AMY GOODMAN: Bassam Haddad, there’s so much to discuss. We’re going to break and then come back to this, director of the Middle East and Islamic Studies program at George Mason University. This is Democracy Now! We’ll be back in a minute.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: "Ya Haif (O, Shame)" by Samih Shuqair, here on Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: We continue our look at Syria. In a Guardian opinion piecepublished earlier this month, Russia’s ambassador to the U.K. said that his country is fighting ISIS, who, quote, "brought the conflict to a new degree of barbarity and cruelty unseen since the days of Nazi Germany. Massacres, public tortures and executions, and a slave trade on an industrial scale were a daily reality in the areas held by Isis." He goes on to say, quote, "Those who fight in eastern Aleppo shamelessly use civilians as a human shield, block their passage to safety through established humanitarian corridors, and hamper the delivery of humanitarian aid."
AMY GOODMAN: Our guest is Bassam Haddad, director of the Middle East and Islamic Studies at George Mason University, co-founder of Jadaliyya and director of the Arab Studies Institute. His recent piece in The Nation is headlined "The Debate over Syria Has Reached a Dead End." He’s also author of Business Networks in Syria: The Political Economy of Authoritarian Resilience. Nermeen?
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Bassam Haddad, you were speaking earlier about all the parties who are intervening in the conflict, both on behalf—on the side of the Assad regime, as well as the opposition. So could you explain who those parties are and how they’ve impacted what started off, as you pointed out, as an uprising against the Assad regime in 2011?
BASSAM HADDAD: I mean, the actual development of the uprising early on—and there’s also debate about that, because various groups already had existed in Syria, thanks to Bashar al-Assad and his efforts to facilitate the passage of international and regional jihadists into Iraq since 2003. However, the uprising itself started as a legitimate call for democracy or for social justice or for the end of economic exploitation and corruption, against a regime that has been in power for several decades, had plenty of opportunities to turn Syria into something that actually prevent, quote-unquote, "penetration and intervention" from the outside at the scale that we have seen. But it has actually done the opposite, making its subjects, citizens, very vulnerable to its rule and setting them up to perhaps call for any external intervention to fight the regime. That, however, has been exploited by various groups in the region or various states in the region, and beyond, to use the uprising, perhaps hijack it, for its own purposes, for their own purposes, and sort of turn the Syrian question or the Syrian revolution or uprising into an arena that is used to redraw the political map of the region. That process, as well as the brutality of the regime in crushing the opposition or crushing the protests early on, escalated and exacerbated the transformation of the uprising into something that is more militant, more extremist, more—ultimately, more jihadist, in due time. And that constituted one of the tracks that needs to be taken very seriously as we speak about a future for Syria and as we speak about ways of coming out of this conflict.
The brutality that we have seen by the regime is not something new. It is not something that can be explained by addressing international intervention only. It is a manifestation of how the regime operates when it’s under threat. And it’s not just the identity of the opposition that makes the regime act this way. The regime would act this way when faced with any threat. It could be Mother Teresa or a Marxist movement; it would react in the same manner. What complicates the situation and what makes this a difficult, intractable context is the identity of the supporters of the uprising and the revolution, which includes conservative, oil-rich countries like Qatar and Saudi Arabia, and their external allies, including the United States and as well as Turkey early on, which helped actually bring in thousands of external fighters. The identity of these players, of these supporters, has turned this into a conflict that is much larger than Syria. It became a conflict that is much more than just about Syria. And if we don’t realize this development and the implications of this development, we will be—if we don’t have this diagnosis, in my view, we will be suggesting solutions that actually do not work. They might be even counterproductive.
We all, I think, have a duty, moral, political and intellectual, to call for the end of the killing. The manner in which we call for this, however, actually matters, because some of these calls are not going to be heeded. A lot of calls, for instance, address the United States as if the advocates of democracy and independence for Syria have the same interests as the United States, and they do not. The history of the United States’ involvement in the region shows otherwise. So, it is not about calling or not calling for the end of the killing. That is not an issue. The end of the killing and the end of the massacres and the end of the atrocities, committed mostly by the regime, at this point, and the Russians, especially at this point, I should say, is a no-brainer. There is no individual that will actually say, "No, let us go on," unless they are firmly on the regime’s side in a way that actually doesn’t take the interests of most Syrians into consideration. The question is: How do we go about doing that? And it’s important to actually descend from our lofty ideals and our grandstanding, you know, statements to discuss the complexities of the situation, which, actually, unfortunately, will not be to the liking of any party. But that is the problem. We are looking for a solution that satisfies one party exclusively, and it’s not going to happen, especially after fall 2015, when the Russians intervened on the side of the regime and prevented any potential collapse. We are stuck in a situation where the best option is the suboptimal outcome. This is extremely depressing in view of the killing that’s taking place. But it is not something that we can negotiate, unless there is a tectonic shift that we cannot anticipate in Syria, and especially before the elections or before the transfer of power in the United States.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Haddad, you talk about the other countries and also that you can’t solve Syria without dealing with Yemen and Iraq. I wanted you to respond to Patrick Cockburn, who made this comment that you should compare the coverage of Mosul and East Aleppo; it tells you a lot about the propaganda we consume. Your thoughts on this?
BASSAM HADDAD: I did not see that particular piece. I know the—I heard about the headline. But it is not also a—either a puzzle or it is not surprising. The coverage, whether it is by Arab satellite stations or our mainstream stations here in the United States, and perhaps in Europe, have actually approached the Syrian situation in such a manner that highlights excessively and exclusively certain atrocities, which are, in fact—and that is no, you know, surprise—which are, in fact, committed by the regime and its allies, especially Russia at this point. But when it comes to other kinds of conflicts, which involve the bombardment of civilians, as well, by those who are supporting the rebels in Syria, such as Saudi Arabia and the United States, that is fueling and refueling Saudi Air Force or jet fighters as it bombards the rebels and civilians, this sort of coverage, on Yemen, is actually not just lacking, it’s almost absent, with the exclusion of major atrocities such as we have witnessed or heard about a couple of weeks ago with the killing of several hundred civilians or Yemenis on the side of the rebels by Saudi jet fighters. As far as Mosul is concerned, it’s actually a similar issue, except, in the case of Mosul, there is a consensus against ISIS.
But the manner in which the media proceeds in producing propaganda, that completely eliminates what is being addressed or what is being argued on the other side, is actually horrendous. And this is something that has fed into this solidification of these binary narratives on Syria, the dominant ones. I mean, there are many other ways of understanding Syria, and there are ways that are more productive. It’s just that they are drowned out by propaganda, by the the sound of the—of guns and jet fighters and bombs. And it is no wonder why today even a brother and a sister within one family, in Syria or outside Syria, who care about the Syrian situation, are actually on complete opposite ends of the spectrum in addressing the problem and the solution.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, I’d like to turn to an excerpt from the book by Robin Yassin-Kassab and Leila al-Shami titled Burning Country: Syrians in Revolution and War. The authors explain how extremist groups grew to such prominence in the Syrian opposition, writing, quote, "If the FSA"—that is, the Free Syrian Army—"had been seriously supported from outside, if Assad had not been so generously armed and funded by Russia and Iran ... then the armed struggle might have lasted months rather than years, and civil activism might have quickly regained its role. But the war stretched on, and the liberated areas became death zones. This was the vacuum in which jihadism would thrive." So, Bassam Haddad, I’d like you to respond to that, as well as the claim that some make that if the U.S. hadn’t intervened and pushed for arming various groups, the Syrian opposition would not be in the state that it’s in, while others say that the U.S. didn’t support the opposition enough.
BASSAM HADDAD: Yes, I mean, it kind of goes both ways. But it’s very important, in my view, to take that position seriously, the position that, had the U.S. supported—which actually involves a readiness to support the intervention of the U.S., which has been intervening in many ways that are not discussed, as if the U.S. is just sitting on the sidelines. It is not. It has been arming groups, and it has been signaling other countries to arm groups, and it has actually engaged itself in direct combat. But it’s very important, even if one disagrees, to take this proposition seriously.
The problem with such propositions, because they are emotionally—they sound emotionally correct. The problem with these propositions is that they don’t actually gel with the political realities on the ground, and they don’t actually comport with historical experience. For instance, the idea of, had the U.S. supported the Free Syrian Army early on, things would have been different, and a vacuum wouldn’t have been grown in which the jihadists were able to fill, has two issues, has two problems, at least two problems that I can—that I can immediately think of. First, it assumes that the opposition is not a fragmented—the rebels, by late 2011 or 2012, were not already a fragmented whole, and it assumes that there is a central command that can actually take care of this sort of support and do something with it. But that’s not the most important problematic assumption. The other assumption—and if you look at the history of support for rebel groups, the other assumption is that there is consensus among all possible interventionists on supporting the rebels. But there is not. The interventionists are actually split. So, supporting the rebels early on, in however scenario we can imagine, would have actually led not to a success of a rebel movement against the entrenched, brutal, authoritarian regime; it would have led instead to an escalation and an arms race, because the supporters of the regime would have naturally came in earlier with much more viciousness, much more force, to actually respond by supporting the regime in similar, if not in more extensive, ways, for reasons that we are witnessing right now. The support of the regime so far has been much more vigorous and bold about going farther than the supporters of the opposition. So, those two assumptions do not hold. Maybe in a reality in which the rebels are supported by the most powerful possible interventionists across the region and the world, that would have actually made sense, but it actually doesn’t hold water in the real world, given Syria’s allies.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Haddad, we have to wrap up, but you mentioned the U.S. elections. What do you think will change based on who is elected president here? And do you think that Assad out, regime change in Syria, is a prerequisite for change there?
BASSAM HADDAD: I think—I think if Trump actually wins the presidency, everything is going to be OK.
No, I’m joking. No, I think we have a serious problem in the sense that we expect so much out of the elections and out of new administrations in the U.S. And I’m not saying things will not change, but I think there is a consistency in U.S. policy that will not be subverted simply by the coming to power even—even of a personality such as Donald Trump.
What will change, I think, is not necessarily the best way to look at this. The best way to look at this is: What is the state of the battlefield in Syria and the state of the international moods vis-à-vis what is happening in Syria by the time Clinton or somebody takes over? And that is why the Russians and the Syrian regime are pushing for a most brutal assault, which I think we haven’t seen yet mature, but we probably will, unfortunately. They are pushing for this assault in order to take Aleppo, control what is called "useful Syria," suriya al-mufida, and use that as a—as leverage for any kind of negotiated settlement that might take place later on, if at all. And by that time, it will actually have raised the bar so much for a U.S. intervention that it would be very difficult to do very much, perhaps besides some sort of settlement, unless an all-out confrontation or war is on the table. But it is not on the table now as a function of the problematics of enforcing, for instance, a no-fly zone, which is very close to going to war with Russia, which many policy wonks today, or in the past week, for instance, have been saying, "Oh, it’s not such a big deal. The U.S. can take out Russia," and we are underestimating how the threat of credible force by the U.S. will actually affect Russian responses. Perhaps. But also perhaps not.
The appetite, however, definitely is not there right now, and definitely not in the next few weeks, for very obvious reasons, having to do with the legacy of the Obama administration, which has been described as very problematic for various reasons. But many others differ on whether that was actually the wrong thing to do. The point is that I think that—
AMY GOODMAN: We have 30 seconds.
BASSAM HADDAD: Sure. The point is that I think that what happens on the ground in the next few weeks, in my view, is going to be horrendous. It’s going to be brutal. And it’s going to—or at least the Russians and the Syrian regimes are going to attempt to set the stage for some sort of an irreversible situation territorially. And instead of—in my view, instead of calling for the U.S. to enter into the war, the U.S. can actually place hard pressure on Russia to force its proxies to come to a negotiated settlement in which all forces—all social forces in Syria can actually have a role. And the problem is that the U.S. is probably not willing to do this. It’s not ready to do this yet, because it will have to make compromises that it hasn’t been ready to make vis-à-vis its own allies and vis-à-vis its other projects in the region, including in Yemen and elsewhere.
Shane Bauer Infiltrates Armed Militia "Hunting Mexicans" & Collaborating with U.S. Border Patrol
Mother Jones senior reporter Shane Bauer joins us to describe how he went undercover to report on America’s right-wing militia movement and what he found. Using Facebook, he joined the III% United Patriots militia, which operates in more than a dozen states. He then traveled to the U.S.-Mexico border to join the militia on a citizen vigilante mission aimed at catching undocumented immigrants. Wearing a hidden camera, he captured collaboration between the paramilitary groups and the U.S. Border Patrol. "Right now we have 270 militias across the country," Bauer notes. "A lot of states have laws that ban militia training or paramilitary training. There have been no cases of these laws being enforced."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: We turn now to a stunning new exposé for Mother Jonesmagazine looking at America’s resurgent paramilitary movement.
SHANE BAUER: We have, throughout the country, groups of armed men, mostly white men, that see themselves as a defense against the federal government.
ERIC SHAWN: Armed protesters are vowing to occupy a federal building in Oregon for as long as it takes.
TONY DOKOUPIL: Three members of a right-wing militia were arrested.
RACHEL MADDOW: Armed supporters pointing guns at federal law enforcement officers.
SHANE BAUER: A lot of these militias were born, basically, after Obama got elected. The initial movement in the ’90s died down after George Bush was elected, and as soon as we elected the first black president, membership skyrocketed.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Mother Jones senior reporter Shane Bauer went undercover to report on a right-wing militia movement. Using Facebook, he joined the III% United Patriots militia, which operates in more than a dozen states. Bauer traveled to the U.S.-Mexico border to join the militia on Operation Spring Break, a citizen vigilante mission aimed at catching undocumented immigrants. In a video accompanying the piece, Bauer explains how he landed the job using his own name and personal information, despite his years as an award-winning journalist.
SHANE BAUER: When I set up my Facebook page and whenever I reached out to these guys, I used my real name. Had they googled me, they would have seen that I was a senior reporter at Mother Jones, and they probably would not have allowed me into their organization. ...
There’s armed guards at the base, guys with AR-15s kind of patrolling it. I just kind of rolled up, had my camo on. They didn’t really ask any questions. These guys were really amped up. And a lot of them were military veterans that had served in Iraq and Afghanistan. I was always worried when I was out on these things that we’re going to actually run into somebody. My understanding was that if we did run into somebody, we were to call the base, and the base would call the Border Patrol. We’re not supposed to shoot anybody, unless somebody shoots at us. But when we’re going out on these operations, guys are talking about hunting Mexicans. I mean, the stuff they’re saying is like—it doesn’t—it’s not hard to imagine a situation in which they’re shooting somebody.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, for more, we’re going to Berkeley, California. Shane Bauer joins us to discuss this exposé. It’s headlined "Undercover with a Border Militia." It was funded in part by the Puffin Foundation.
Shane, welcome back to Democracy Now! Explain exactly where you went and who these people were.
SHANE BAUER: Thanks for having me, Amy. I, initially, actually, joined a couple of militias in California and was training with them for several months, but my main interest was on a kind of new phenomenon of nationally organized militias. The III% United Patriots is probably the largest of these groups. And I saw that they were having an operation on the border, so I traveled down to the border.
AMY GOODMAN: And explain that name, the 3 percent.
SHANE BAUER: Yeah, they’re part—the III% United Patriots are part of a larger movement that calls itself the Three Percenter movement. This movement was born after Obama’s election. And they believe that the American Revolution was won by 3 percent of the population. And the idea is that if they can get 3 percent of the population behind them, then they can restore the Bill of Rights. That’s kind of how they look at their work.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And do these paramilitary organizations tend to have a disproportionate number of military veterans? And if so, Shane Bauer, why do you think that is?
SHANE BAUER: You know, it varies from group to group. The Three Percenter groups, in particular, do have a lot of military veterans. When I was on this border operation, I had—you know, one military Marine veteran told me that he considered this therapy. He said it reminded him a lot of Afghanistan. And I had heard from a number of these guys that when they left the military, they missed the kind of sense of camaraderie that they found in the military. I kind of had the sense that they came back home and didn’t find what they had hoped, and they had felt somewhat alienated. And in the militia, they kind of, you know, have a—get a sense of what they had in the military. A lot of these guys also seemed to be pretty disillusioned with the military leadership and had a sense of loyalty to their former soldiers, but were generally very skeptical and frustrated with the federal government itself.
AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about where you went. But first I want to play this video clip that accompanies your report at Mother Jones, together with Fusion, the militia group unexpectedly meeting up with U.S. Border Patrol in the dark, after a few tense moments, recognizing one another. This is a Border Patrol agent, who identifies himself as an intelligence officer, speaking to the militia after the encounter, followed by your commentary.
BORDER PATROL AGENT: [inaudible] give you a heads-up next time you guys are going to come down? If you want to come—if you plan on coming down to the Nogales area, since you’re out in Cal—or Colorado, hitch a ride, take a trip out there, maybe give you guys an unauthorized brief.
MILITIA MEMBER: All right.
BORDER PATROL AGENT: So, you didn’t hear none of that [bleep] from me.
SHANE BAUER: I was really surprised to see how much the Border Patrol was cooperating with these guys—
BORDER PATROL AGENT: And then, when you all get down here, I’ll link up with you again.
SHANE BAUER: —to see—kind of be inside that world and see the ways that these guys are talking about hunting Mexicans and that kind of stuff—
MILITIA MEMBER: That’s what you’ve got to carry. It’s [bleep] light.
SHANE BAUER: —and then to see federal law enforcement not only tolerate them, but kind of use them in a certain way.
BORDER PATROL AGENT: I love having y’all out here, man. Like I said before, it impresses me that you guys come out to do my job for me for no pay at all.
AMY GOODMAN: Wow, so there you have it, Shane. That was a Border Patrol agent saying, "It impresses me that you’re coming here to do my job for no pay at all." Talk about what they were doing together, what the Border Patrol told them to do—for example, if they see water in the desert, bottles of water that perhaps were left for migrants, to dump it?
SHANE BAUER: Yeah. So, we were out in near Nogales, Arizona, about an hour from Nogales, way out in the middle of the desert, I mean, pretty much as remote as you can get. And I saw many interactions between the militia and the Border Patrol. The Border Patrol would come to the militia base, sometimes bring us doughnuts. And in this particular case, when we saw this man who said that he was an intelligence officer, he was directing us where to set up to find people crossing the border. He actually took us to show us the exact locations where they said that we should set up.
And I later—before publishing this story, I reached out to the leadership of the III% United Patriots, who I was with on the border, and I spoke to the leader, Mike Morris, and I asked him about his relationship with the Border Patrol. He said that he was still, now that he’s back in Colorado, was in contact with the Border Patrol on a weekly basis, and that whenever they set up an operation, they talk to the Border Patrol, and the Border Patrol will tell them when to come down and where to set up. In that particular interaction, the Border Patrol was telling us to destroy food and water that we found in the desert. And I saw that happen out in the desert.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Shane Bauer, could you talk about how militia members receive training, and by whom and what kind of training? One person you spoke to, Showtime, told you that waterboarding and tasing are part of their training. So could you say a little about that?
SHANE BAUER: Yeah, so, right now we have more than 270 militias across the country, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. These militias, you know, most of them are not doing these kind of border operations but are more kind of regionally focused. But, you know, a core part of being in a militia is doing this kind of paramilitary training. So, there—you know, guys get together at least once a month, sometimes every week, depending on the group, and do kind of small group infantry-type training.
The III% United Patriots, in particular, also have—they have their own kind of special forces within the militia. And they described to me, when I was in Arizona, some of that training, which involves a kind of 36-hour-long stretch where new members, new recruits, are put in a scenario where they’re told that they have been captured by a border cartel. They are sleep-deprived for 36 hours. They’re waterboarded. They described putting people in what they call stress boxes, and naked except for a T-shirt out in the Colorado winter, and are tased and sometimes cattle-prodded through holes in the box. They even described one instance in which a man, who they were doing this mock interrogation with, wouldn’t speak, and they brought in a female member of the militia and said if he wouldn’t speak, they would tase her. And the man who told me this story said that he proceeded to tase this woman and then cattle-prod her.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk—
SHANE BAUER: And I also witnessed them—I mean, they told the Border Patrol also about these trainings and kind of were boasting about it. And Border—this intelligence officer of the Border Patrol was just kind of laughing.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the legality of these militias and all the states that they’re operating in, how heavily armed people are.
SHANE BAUER: So, these militias, they call themselves militias because they’re associating themselves with the militia of the Revolutionary War and the kind of period after the Revolutionary War. And there have been laws that have carried over and stay on the books from that time, a time when states and the federal government were requiring every white male to be a part of the militia. They are essentially, you know, pointing to these old laws and saying that we are this militia. The issue is that a lot of states have laws that ban militia training or paramilitary training. These laws have never—there have been no cases of these laws being enforced.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, earlier this month—I want to ask about another militia—three members of a Kansas militia, known as the Crusaders, were arrested for plotting to blow up an apartment complex in Kansas that is home to many Somali refugees and houses a mosque. All three militia members were white men in their late forties. According to the FBI, the militia supported anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant and anti-government beliefs. Shane Bauer, could you say whether you think that’s representative of most militia groups? Who are they fighting against in addition to the federal government?
SHANE BAUER: Look, these militias and their members are—all have kind of different motives. The kind of common thread is that they see themselves as a defense against what they call the tyranny of the federal government. Many of them would also say their primary focus is to prepare for disasters, whether it be a natural disaster or, you know, kind of civil unrest. A lot of them will talk about Black Lives Matter. They talk a lot about Islamic terrorism. And, you know, they will say that they are not racist. They are not white supremacists in the sense that we think of. However, it is very common to hear and to see in social media anti-Muslim rhetoric and anti-immigrant rhetoric.
You know, I think most militias would distance themselves from the act that you just described. Many of them actually distance themselves from what happened in Burns, Oregon, recently. But there are a pretty large number of cases in the past five or 10 years of militia factions kind of going off and planning terrorist attacks. Many have been thwarted by the FBI. There have also been—there also was a case not very long ago in Georgia of a militia killing three people. A militia leader killed his wife for life insurance money and put that money into buying arms for his militia. And he ended—two members of the militia ended up killing two people that they believed knew too much. So, you know, the movement is very fractured, and there ends up being kind of small groups that, you know, are very isolated. And, you know, there is a risk of these smaller groups kind of going off on their own.
AMY GOODMAN: Shane, we have to leave it there, but it is a fascinating investigation, undercover operation. Shane Bauer, award-winning senior reporter at Mother Jones. We’ll link to your piece, "Undercover with a Border Militia."
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Airstrike Hits Syrian School, Killing 22, Mostly Children
At least 22 people, mostly children, have reportedly died in an airstrike on a school in the rebel-held Syrian province of Idlib. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the bombing was believed to be carried out by Russian planes. Anthony Lake of UNICEF said, "This is a tragedy. It is an outrage. And if deliberate, it is a war crime." UNICEF says the attack may be the deadliest bombing of a school since the war in Syria began more than five years ago. Meanwhile at the United Nations, U.N. emergency relief coordinator Stephen O’Brien pushed the Security Council Wednesday to take action in Syria. He said soon there may be no Syrian people or Syria to save.
The Washington Post is reporting the Pentagon has secretly expanded its global network of drone bases to include a base in Tunisia to conduct missions in Libya. The U.S. now maintains a string of drone bases across Africa, from Niger to Djibouti.
In North Dakota, the Morton County Sheriff’s Department has concluded its investigation into the use of dogs to attack Native Americans trying to protect a sacred tribal burial site from being destroyed by the construction of the $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline on September 3. The investigation finds the guards lacked the proper licensing to do security work in North Dakota. It is a Class B misdemeanor to provide private security services without a license in North Dakota, meaning some of the guards could face charges and possible jail time. The Sheriff’s Department probe began after this video recorded by Democracy Now! on September 3 went viral.
Meanwhile, in more updates from North Dakota, the Morton County Sheriff’s Department and North Dakota Highway Patrol have shut down a section of Highway 1806—the main highway leading to the resistance camps. The Federal Aviation Administration has also issued a temporary no-fly zone for the airspace above the resistance camps for all aircraft except for those used by law enforcement. This order means Native Americans can no longer fly drones to document police activity, but the police can continue to fly their surveillance drones and helicopters. This comes as water protectors report the pipeline’s construction is now only about a half-mile west of Highway 1806 and that the company is continuing to build eastward toward the highway and then to the Missouri River. On Wednesday, civil rights leader Jesse Jackson traveled to North Dakota to support the pipeline protesters.
In New York City, resistance is growing in opposition to Spectra Energy’s AIM pipeline, which is slated to carry fracked gas only hundreds of feet from the aging Indian Point nuclear power plant and then under the Hudson River. On Tuesday morning, 15 people were arrested blocking the doors to New York Senator Chuck Schumer’s office in Manhattan to demand Schumer stop the pipeline’s construction. This comes two weeks after four activists blockaded pipeline construction for more than 15 hours by crawling inside the pipeline and locking themselves to each other.
In campaign news, hacked emails from the account of Hillary Clinton’s campaign chair, John Podesta, show several of her top aides were privately concerned about how the actions of the Clinton Foundation could impact her campaign. Campaign manager Robby Mook sent one email with the subject line of "Foundation vulnerability points." In the email, he listed three points: "Money from foreign governments," "Overseas events with foreign leaders or government officials" and "Potential conflicts from overseas-owned organizations (UK and Sweeden [sic])." The Clinton Foundation raised $26 million from the Swedish government at the same time the government was lobbying Hillary Clinton’s State Department not to sanction Swedish businesses from working with Iran. The Swedish telecommunications giant Ericsson had sold Iran equipment that could be used to track its citizens. Meanwhile, another hacked email written by one of Bill Clinton’s closest aides shows how former President Clinton has personally profited from work tied to the foundation. The aide, Doug Band, writes that he helped secure $50 million in speaking fees and other ventures that went directly to Bill Clinton. In the email, Band described the for-profit activity of President Clinton as "Bill Clinton, Inc." Meanwhile, in another hacked email, Chelsea Clinton accused her father’s aides of taking "significant sums of money from my parents personally."
In other campaign news, Donald Trump took a break from the campaign trail to open a new luxury hotel in Washington, D.C., just blocks from the White House. This comes as more signs are emerging that the Republican’s presidential run may have done permanent damage to the Trump brand. In New York, more than 300 residents of the large apartment complex known as Trump Place have signed an online petition titled "Dump the Trump Name." Meanwhile in Hollywood, someone has vandalized Donald Trump’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame by smashing it to pieces using a sledgehammer and a pickax.
In other campaign news, a former Republican congressmember has threatened to grab his musket if Trump loses in the election. Former Illinois Congressmember Joe Walsh tweeted, "On November 8th, I’m voting for Trump. On November 9th, if Trump loses, I’m grabbing my musket. You in?" The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence condemned Walsh’s tweet. The group’s president, Dan Gross, said, "Joe Walsh’s continued vile and violent rhetoric has no place in our political discussion."
For the first time, the United States has abstained from a United Nations General Assembly vote on a resolution calling for an end to a U.S. economic embargo on Cuba. The resolution was passed 191 to zero, with the United States and Israel abstaining. The U.S. had opposed the measure for the past 24 years. In Havana, residents welcomed the U.N. vote.
A shocking new study by the World Wildlife Fund finds more than two-thirds of the world’s wildlife could be gone by 2020. According to WWF, there has already been a 58 percent overall decline in the numbers of fish, mammals, birds and reptiles worldwide. WWFconservation scientist Martin Taylor told CNN, "This is definitely human impact, we’re in the sixth mass extinction. There’s only been five before this, and we’re definitely in the sixth.”
Ten immigrant rights activists were arrested Tuesday morning after they chained themselves together and shut down traffic on the upper level of the George Washington Bridge during morning rush hour. The protest was organized by the Laundry Workers Center using the hashtag #SomosVisibles, or #WeAreVisible. Co-director of the Laundry Workers Center Mahoma López said, "We demand the right to vote and take part in the decisions in our communities." The group is calling for a day of action on November 7—the day before the presidential elections. Meanwhile, another group of immigrant rights activists held a march outside an immigration office in downtown Manhattan to demand "deferred action" from deportation, including a five-year work visa, for all undocumented immigrants, regardless of age or parental status. The campaign is called Saving Our Souls, a reference to Martin Luther King’s motto for the civil rights movement. It included 37 people from Mexico, Honduras, Ghana, St. Vincent, Spain and other countries who submitted their applications for deferred action.
And in Maryland, a debate between the Democratic and Republican Senate candidates was disrupted Wednesday when the Green Party’s candidate, Dr. Margaret Flowers, jumped on stage to insist she be allowed to take part. After briefly speaking on the stage, Flowers was removed by security.
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SPEAKING EVENTS
At least 22 people, mostly children, have reportedly died in an airstrike on a school in the rebel-held Syrian province of Idlib. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the bombing was believed to be carried out by Russian planes. Anthony Lake of UNICEF said, "This is a tragedy. It is an outrage. And if deliberate, it is a war crime." UNICEF says the attack may be the deadliest bombing of a school since the war in Syria began more than five years ago. Meanwhile at the United Nations, U.N. emergency relief coordinator Stephen O’Brien pushed the Security Council Wednesday to take action in Syria. He said soon there may be no Syrian people or Syria to save.Stephen O’Brien: "Each month, I have come before you and presented an ever-worsening record of destruction and atrocity, grimly cataloguing the systematic destruction of a country and its people. While my job is to relay to you the facts, I cannot help but be incandescent with rage. Month after month, worse and worse, and nothing is actually happening to stop the war, stop the suffering."
TOPICS:
U.S., Britain Pledge Troops in NATO Buildup on Russian Border
In what’s been described as the biggest military buildup on Russia’s borders since the Cold War, the United States is promising to send troops, tanks and artillery to Poland, while Britain is planning to send fighter jets to Romania and troops to Estonia next year. The pledges were made Wednesday during a NATO meeting in Brussels. In addition, Germany, Canada and other NATO allies have pledged to send forces to the region.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg: "Today we also discussed progress in strengthening NATO’s presence in the Black Sea region with a Romanian-led multinational framework brigade on land, and we are working on measures in the air and at sea. And I’m pleased to confirm that several nations indicated their willingness to contribute to our presence in the Black Sea region on land, at sea and in the air."
U.S. Adds Secret Drone Base in Tunisia
The Washington Post is reporting the Pentagon has secretly expanded its global network of drone bases to include a base in Tunisia to conduct missions in Libya. The U.S. now maintains a string of drone bases across Africa, from Niger to Djibouti.Pipeline Guards Could Face Charges for Unleashing Dogs on Protesters
In North Dakota, the Morton County Sheriff’s Department has concluded its investigation into the use of dogs to attack Native Americans trying to protect a sacred tribal burial site from being destroyed by the construction of the $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline on September 3. The investigation finds the guards lacked the proper licensing to do security work in North Dakota. It is a Class B misdemeanor to provide private security services without a license in North Dakota, meaning some of the guards could face charges and possible jail time. The Sheriff’s Department probe began after this video recorded by Democracy Now! on September 3 went viral.Water protector: "These people are just threatening all of us with these dogs. And she, that woman over there, she was charging, and it bit somebody right in the face."
Amy Goodman: "The dog has blood in its nose and its mouth."
Water protector: "And she’s still standing here threatening us.
Amy Goodman: "Why are you letting their—her dog go after the protesters? It’s covered in blood!"
TOPICS:
Authorities Shut Down Roads & Airspace Near Pipeline
Meanwhile, in more updates from North Dakota, the Morton County Sheriff’s Department and North Dakota Highway Patrol have shut down a section of Highway 1806—the main highway leading to the resistance camps. The Federal Aviation Administration has also issued a temporary no-fly zone for the airspace above the resistance camps for all aircraft except for those used by law enforcement. This order means Native Americans can no longer fly drones to document police activity, but the police can continue to fly their surveillance drones and helicopters. This comes as water protectors report the pipeline’s construction is now only about a half-mile west of Highway 1806 and that the company is continuing to build eastward toward the highway and then to the Missouri River. On Wednesday, civil rights leader Jesse Jackson traveled to North Dakota to support the pipeline protesters.Rev. Jesse Jackson: "Native Americans have been victims of protracted genocide and broken treaties and dishonored commitments. We must measure our character by how we treat Native Americans."
TOPICS:
15 Arrested at Sen. Schumer's Office Protesting Spectra Energy AIM Pipeline
In New York City, resistance is growing in opposition to Spectra Energy’s AIM pipeline, which is slated to carry fracked gas only hundreds of feet from the aging Indian Point nuclear power plant and then under the Hudson River. On Tuesday morning, 15 people were arrested blocking the doors to New York Senator Chuck Schumer’s office in Manhattan to demand Schumer stop the pipeline’s construction. This comes two weeks after four activists blockaded pipeline construction for more than 15 hours by crawling inside the pipeline and locking themselves to each other.TOPICS:
Hacked Emails Reveal Clinton Aides Worried About Foundation Activity
In campaign news, hacked emails from the account of Hillary Clinton’s campaign chair, John Podesta, show several of her top aides were privately concerned about how the actions of the Clinton Foundation could impact her campaign. Campaign manager Robby Mook sent one email with the subject line of "Foundation vulnerability points." In the email, he listed three points: "Money from foreign governments," "Overseas events with foreign leaders or government officials" and "Potential conflicts from overseas-owned organizations (UK and Sweeden [sic])." The Clinton Foundation raised $26 million from the Swedish government at the same time the government was lobbying Hillary Clinton’s State Department not to sanction Swedish businesses from working with Iran. The Swedish telecommunications giant Ericsson had sold Iran equipment that could be used to track its citizens. Meanwhile, another hacked email written by one of Bill Clinton’s closest aides shows how former President Clinton has personally profited from work tied to the foundation. The aide, Doug Band, writes that he helped secure $50 million in speaking fees and other ventures that went directly to Bill Clinton. In the email, Band described the for-profit activity of President Clinton as "Bill Clinton, Inc." Meanwhile, in another hacked email, Chelsea Clinton accused her father’s aides of taking "significant sums of money from my parents personally."TOPICS:
Hundreds of Residents of Trump Place in NYC Sign "Dump the Trump Name" Petition
In other campaign news, Donald Trump took a break from the campaign trail to open a new luxury hotel in Washington, D.C., just blocks from the White House. This comes as more signs are emerging that the Republican’s presidential run may have done permanent damage to the Trump brand. In New York, more than 300 residents of the large apartment complex known as Trump Place have signed an online petition titled "Dump the Trump Name." Meanwhile in Hollywood, someone has vandalized Donald Trump’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame by smashing it to pieces using a sledgehammer and a pickax.TOPICS:
Ex-GOP Congressmember: "If Trump Loses, I'm Grabbing My Musket"
In other campaign news, a former Republican congressmember has threatened to grab his musket if Trump loses in the election. Former Illinois Congressmember Joe Walsh tweeted, "On November 8th, I’m voting for Trump. On November 9th, if Trump loses, I’m grabbing my musket. You in?" The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence condemned Walsh’s tweet. The group’s president, Dan Gross, said, "Joe Walsh’s continued vile and violent rhetoric has no place in our political discussion."TOPICS:
For First Time U.S. Abstains from U.N. Vote Condemning Cuban Embargo
For the first time, the United States has abstained from a United Nations General Assembly vote on a resolution calling for an end to a U.S. economic embargo on Cuba. The resolution was passed 191 to zero, with the United States and Israel abstaining. The U.S. had opposed the measure for the past 24 years. In Havana, residents welcomed the U.N. vote.Yudith Rodríguez: "We really think the United States’ abstention is a step in the right direction, that proves that in the future, sometime soon, there could be an end to the blockade, given the conditions and flagrant violations of human rights that it represents."
TOPICS:
WWF: Two-Thirds of World's Wildlife Could Be Gone by 2020 in "Sixth Extinction"
A shocking new study by the World Wildlife Fund finds more than two-thirds of the world’s wildlife could be gone by 2020. According to WWF, there has already been a 58 percent overall decline in the numbers of fish, mammals, birds and reptiles worldwide. WWFconservation scientist Martin Taylor told CNN, "This is definitely human impact, we’re in the sixth mass extinction. There’s only been five before this, and we’re definitely in the sixth.”TOPICS:
Ten Immigrant Rights Activists Arrested After Chaining Themselves to GW Bridge
Ten immigrant rights activists were arrested Tuesday morning after they chained themselves together and shut down traffic on the upper level of the George Washington Bridge during morning rush hour. The protest was organized by the Laundry Workers Center using the hashtag #SomosVisibles, or #WeAreVisible. Co-director of the Laundry Workers Center Mahoma López said, "We demand the right to vote and take part in the decisions in our communities." The group is calling for a day of action on November 7—the day before the presidential elections. Meanwhile, another group of immigrant rights activists held a march outside an immigration office in downtown Manhattan to demand "deferred action" from deportation, including a five-year work visa, for all undocumented immigrants, regardless of age or parental status. The campaign is called Saving Our Souls, a reference to Martin Luther King’s motto for the civil rights movement. It included 37 people from Mexico, Honduras, Ghana, St. Vincent, Spain and other countries who submitted their applications for deferred action.TOPICS:
Green Party Senatorial Candidate in Maryland Disrupts Debate After Being Excluded
And in Maryland, a debate between the Democratic and Republican Senate candidates was disrupted Wednesday when the Green Party’s candidate, Dr. Margaret Flowers, jumped on stage to insist she be allowed to take part. After briefly speaking on the stage, Flowers was removed by security.Dr. Margaret Flowers: "I think it’s important for voters to understand the differences between myself and Congressman Van Hollen and Delegate Szeliga; otherwise, they don’t really know. I mean, you say you’re a public university, and you want to educate the public, but without having a full public discussion, that doesn’t actually happen. So, how does this serve democracy or serve the public if I’m excluded from this discussion when I’m on the ballot?"
Police officer: "Ms. Flowers, you’re going to have to leave now."
Dr. Margaret Flowers: "It’s Dr. Flowers. I’m a candidate for U.S. Senate in Maryland. And this is how you’re treating a candidate?"
After Margaret Flowers was removed from the stage, the debate went on between Democratic nominee Chris Van Hollen and Republican Kathy Szeliga.
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SPEAKING EVENTS
"AT&T, Time Warner and the Death of Privacy" by Amy Goodman and Denis MoynihanIt has been 140 years since Alexander Graham Bell uttered the first words through his experimental telephone, to his lab assistant: “Mr. Watson—come here—I want to see you.” His invention transformed human communication, and the world. The company he started grew into a massive monopoly, AT&T. The federal government eventually deemed it too powerful, and broke up the telecom giant in 1982. Well, AT&T is back and some would say on track to become bigger and more powerful than before, announcing plans to acquire Time Warner, the media company, to create one of the largest entertainment and communications conglomerates on the planet. Beyond the threat to competition, the proposed merger—which still must pass regulatory scrutiny—poses significant threats to privacy and the basic freedom to communicate.
AT&T is currently No. 10 on the Forbes 500 list of the U.S.‘s highest-grossing companies. If it is allowed to buy Time Warner, No. 99 on the list, it will form an enormous, “vertically integrated” company that controls a vast pool of content and how people access that content.
Free Press, the national media policy and activism group, is mobilizing the public to oppose the deal. “This merger would create a media powerhouse unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. AT&T would control mobile and wired internet access, cable channels, movie franchises, a film studio and more,” Candace Clement of Free Press wrote. “That means AT&T would control internet access for hundreds of millions of people and the content they view, enabling it to prioritize its own offerings and use sneaky tricks to undermine net neutrality.”
Net neutrality is that essential quality of the internet that makes it so powerful. Columbia University law professor Tim Wu coined the term “net neutrality.” After the Federal Communications Commission approved strong net neutrality rules last year, Wu told us on the Democracy Now! News hour, “There need to be basic rules of the road for the internet, and we’re not going to trust cable and telephone companies to respect freedom of speech or respect new innovators, because of their poor track record.”
Millions of citizens weighed in with public comments to the FCC in support of net neutrality, along with groups like Free Press and The Electronic Frontier Foundation. They were joined by titans of the internet like Google, Amazon and Microsoft. Arrayed against this coalition were the telecom and cable companies, the oligopoly of internet service providers that sell internet access to hundreds of millions of Americans. It remains to be seen if AT&T doesn’t in practice break net neutrality rules and create a fast lane for its content and slow down content from its competitors, including the noncommercial sector.
Another problem that AT&T presents, that would only be exacerbated by the merger, is the potential to invade the privacy of its millions of customers. In 2006, AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein revealed that the company was secretly sharing all of its customers’ metadata with the National Security Agency. Klein, who installed the fiber-splitting hardware in a secret room at the main AT&T facility in San Francisco, had his whistleblowing allegations confirmed several years later by Edward Snowden’s NSA leaks. While that dragnet surveillance program was supposedly shut down in 2011, a similar surveillance program still exists. It’s called “Project Hemisphere.” It was exposed by The New York Times in 2013, with substantiating documents just revealed this week in The Daily Beast.
In “Project Hemisphere,” AT&T sells metadata to law enforcement, under the aegis of the so-called war on drugs. A police agency sends in a request for all the data related to a particular person or telephone number, and, for a major fee and without a subpoena, AT&T delivers a sophisticated data set, that can, according to The Daily Beast, “determine where a target is located, with whom he speaks, and potentially why.”
Where you go, what you watch, text and share, with whom you speak, all your internet searches and preferences, all gathered and “vertically integrated,” sold to police and perhaps, in the future, to any number of AT&T’s corporate customers. We can’t know if Alexander Graham Bell envisioned this brave new digital world when he invented the telephone. But this is the future that is fast approaching, unless people rise up and stop this merger.
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50 Years After Founding of Black Panther Party, Some Members Still Locked Up As Political Prisoners
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