WEBVTT 1 00:00:15.390 --> 00:00:18.780 From Pacifica, this is Democracy Now! 2 00:00:18.780 --> 00:00:22.300 We’re seeing more and more where we believe significant evidence 3 00:00:22.300 --> 00:00:25.530 is on that phone or on that laptop, and we can’t crack the password. 4 00:00:26.300 --> 00:00:27.760 If this becomes the norm, 5 00:00:28.520 --> 00:00:31.380 I suggest to you that homicide cases could be stalled, 6 00:00:31.380 --> 00:00:37.260 suspects walk free, child exploitation not discovered and prosecuted. 7 00:00:37.260 --> 00:00:40.850 Justice may be denied because of a locked phone or an encrypted device. 8 00:00:40.850 --> 00:00:45.860 As the FBI and NSA demand special access to encrypted communication, 9 00:00:45.860 --> 00:00:48.280 a group of leading security technologists 10 00:00:48.280 --> 00:00:52.540 warn government overreach could have devastating consequences. 11 00:00:52.540 --> 00:00:54.810 We’ll speak with security guru 12 00:00:54.810 --> 00:00:57.800 Bruce Schneier, author of Data and Goliath: 13 00:00:57.800 --> 00:00:59.330 The Hidden Battles 14 00:00:59.330 --> 00:01:02.650 to Capture Your Data and Control Your World. 15 00:01:02.650 --> 00:01:06.910 Then, Eric Holder goes home to Covington & Burling, 16 00:01:06.910 --> 00:01:08.930 the corporate law firm 17 00:01:08.930 --> 00:01:11.650 that represents many of the Wall Street giants 18 00:01:11.650 --> 00:01:14.270 he refused to prosecute as attorney general. 19 00:01:14.270 --> 00:01:16.870 We’ll speak with Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi. 20 00:01:16.870 --> 00:01:18.270 And to Gaza. 21 00:01:18.270 --> 00:01:22.030 It’s been one year since the Israeli assault on Gaza 22 00:01:22.030 --> 00:01:25.000 that killed over 2,200 Palestinians. 23 00:01:25.000 --> 00:01:28.670 We’ll speak with journalist Mohammed Omer in Gaza City. 24 00:01:29.610 --> 00:01:33.110 The damages is beyond imagination in Gaza. 25 00:01:33.110 --> 00:01:35.590 I believe Gaza will need several years 26 00:01:35.590 --> 00:01:42.100 to fix or reconstruct the damages that are caused by the Israeli military. 27 00:01:42.760 --> 00:01:44.650 All that and more, coming up. 28 00:01:49.340 --> 00:01:52.170 Welcome to Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, 29 00:01:52.170 --> 00:01:53.400 The War and Peace Report. 30 00:01:53.400 --> 00:01:54.520 I’m Amy Goodman. 31 00:01:54.520 --> 00:01:58.670 European creditors have given Greece five days to reach a deal 32 00:01:58.670 --> 00:02:00.720 to bail out its floundering economy. 33 00:02:00.720 --> 00:02:04.740 On Sunday, Greek voters overwhelmingly rejected further budget cuts 34 00:02:04.740 --> 00:02:07.080 and tax hikes in exchange for the bailout. 35 00:02:07.080 --> 00:02:09.120 As Greek banks remain closed, 36 00:02:09.120 --> 00:02:12.050 European leaders have given Greece until the end of Thursday 37 00:02:12.050 --> 00:02:15.150 to present a detailed reform plan ahead of a summit in Brussels 38 00:02:15.150 --> 00:02:16.180 this coming Sunday. 39 00:02:16.180 --> 00:02:19.060 Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, 40 00:02:19.060 --> 00:02:21.370 said this week’s deadline is final. 41 00:02:21.910 --> 00:02:25.050 Donald Tusk: "The stark reality is that we have only five days 42 00:02:25.050 --> 00:02:28.120 left to find the ultimate agreement. 43 00:02:28.860 --> 00:02:33.030 Until now, I have avoided talking about deadlines, 44 00:02:33.680 --> 00:02:36.740 but tonight I have to say it loud and clear, 45 00:02:36.740 --> 00:02:40.570 that the final deadline ends this week. 46 00:02:41.640 --> 00:02:43.920 All of us are responsible for the crisis, 47 00:02:43.920 --> 00:02:47.380 and all of us have a responsibility to resolve it." 48 00:02:47.380 --> 00:02:49.310 Iran and world powers 49 00:02:49.310 --> 00:02:52.850 have extended talks on a nuclear deal for another few days 50 00:02:52.850 --> 00:02:55.410 after missing a self-imposed deadline Tuesday. 51 00:02:55.410 --> 00:02:59.060 U.S. officials are still hoping to secure a deal by Thursday, 52 00:02:59.060 --> 00:03:02.650 the last day before a mandatory congressional review period jumps 53 00:03:02.650 --> 00:03:05.040 from 30 days to 60 days. 54 00:03:05.040 --> 00:03:09.900 The talks have already been extended past a previous deadline of June 30. 55 00:03:09.900 --> 00:03:14.360 The White House says a deal is close but differences remain. 56 00:03:14.970 --> 00:03:19.350 U.S. drone strikes have killed up to 49 people in Afghanistan. 57 00:03:19.350 --> 00:03:23.860 The strikes reportedly took place in an area along the Pakistani border 58 00:03:23.860 --> 00:03:27.200 where the Taliban and militants with the self-described Islamic State 59 00:03:27.200 --> 00:03:28.460 have been clashing. 60 00:03:28.460 --> 00:03:31.730 Local sources put the death toll as high as 49 61 00:03:31.730 --> 00:03:33.870 and said the victims were militants. 62 00:03:33.870 --> 00:03:37.910 A spokesperson for the Afghan spy agency claimed the second-highest figure 63 00:03:37.910 --> 00:03:40.820 loyal to ISIL in Afghanistan, Gul Zaman, 64 00:03:40.820 --> 00:03:43.210 was killed in an airstrike in the area. 65 00:03:43.210 --> 00:03:45.190 Meanwhile, Afghan government officials 66 00:03:45.190 --> 00:03:48.680 and Taliban representatives met in Pakistan Tuesday, 67 00:03:48.680 --> 00:03:52.930 marking the first known talks between the two sides. 68 00:03:52.930 --> 00:03:57.460 In Kenya, at least 14 people were killed when the militant group al-Shabab 69 00:03:57.460 --> 00:04:00.870 attacked a residential compound with guns and grenades. 70 00:04:00.870 --> 00:04:03.360 The victims were mostly quarry workers 71 00:04:03.360 --> 00:04:06.000 who lived in the compound near the Somali border. 72 00:04:06.000 --> 00:04:08.450 Al-Shabab has staged a series 73 00:04:08.450 --> 00:04:12.680 of attacks in Kenya following Kenya’s 2011 invasion of Somalia. 74 00:04:12.680 --> 00:04:17.630 The massacre comes just weeks before President Obama is due to visit Kenya. 75 00:04:18.940 --> 00:04:20.710 Defense Secretary Ash Carter 76 00:04:20.710 --> 00:04:23.490 has acknowledged the Obama administration’s program 77 00:04:23.490 --> 00:04:25.990 to train and equip "moderate 78 00:04:25.990 --> 00:04:30.300 " Syrian rebels currently has just 60 vetted candidates. 79 00:04:30.300 --> 00:04:32.570 Speaking before the Senate Armed Services Committee, 80 00:04:32.570 --> 00:04:36.530 Carter said the trainees have been subjected to intense screening. 81 00:04:37.190 --> 00:04:39.700 Ash Carter: "We’re also in the early stages of our train-and-equip mission 82 00:04:39.700 --> 00:04:41.000 in Syria. 83 00:04:41.000 --> 00:04:44.000 Three months into our program, training is underway, 84 00:04:44.000 --> 00:04:49.090 and we are working to screen and vet almost 7,000 volunteers 85 00:04:49.090 --> 00:04:51.440 to ensure that they are committed to fighting ISIL, 86 00:04:51.440 --> 00:04:53.670 pass a counterintelligence screening 87 00:04:54.490 --> 00:04:58.790 and meet standards prescribed by U.S. law regarding the law 88 00:04:58.790 --> 00:05:02.800 of armed conflict and necessitated by operations. 89 00:05:02.800 --> 00:05:06.880 As of July 3rd, we are currently training about 60 fighters. 90 00:05:06.880 --> 00:05:10.040 This number is much smaller than we had hoped for at this point, 91 00:05:10.640 --> 00:05:14.220 partly because of the vetting standards I just described." 92 00:05:14.220 --> 00:05:16.490 The Syrian rebel training program 93 00:05:16.490 --> 00:05:19.740 cost $500 million for this year. 94 00:05:20.300 --> 00:05:23.880 The South Carolina Senate has given final approval to a measure 95 00:05:23.880 --> 00:05:27.660 to remove the Confederate battle flag from the Capitol grounds. 96 00:05:28.640 --> 00:05:31.120 The final tally was 36 to 3. 97 00:05:31.120 --> 00:05:36.880 The vote came 20 days after the massacre of nine African-American churchgoers 98 00:05:36.880 --> 00:05:40.970 in Charleston by a white suspect who embraced the Confederate flag. 99 00:05:40.970 --> 00:05:43.150 The wife of one of the massacre victims, 100 00:05:43.150 --> 00:05:46.690 South Carolina state Senator Reverend Clementa Pinckney, 101 00:05:46.690 --> 00:05:50.350 visited the Senate chambers after the measure passed. 102 00:05:50.350 --> 00:05:53.830 State Senator Gerald Malloy addressed the family. 103 00:05:54.530 --> 00:05:57.070 Sen. Gerald Malloy: "As you know, Ms. Pinckney, this state 104 00:05:57.070 --> 00:05:59.170 loved Senator Pinckney. 105 00:06:00.660 --> 00:06:04.110 And this state loves you and your girls, 106 00:06:05.070 --> 00:06:08.070 and they love the entire Pinckney family. 107 00:06:08.780 --> 00:06:15.090 And we will keep our arms wrapped around you and this family forever. 108 00:06:15.810 --> 00:06:19.130 It’s the least that we can do for our brother, Clementa. 109 00:06:19.650 --> 00:06:22.980 And we hope to have you back here soon when we hang his portrait 110 00:06:22.980 --> 00:06:27.270 and so that he’ll be sharing this spot with us forever." 111 00:06:27.270 --> 00:06:29.710 The Confederate flag’s fate 112 00:06:29.710 --> 00:06:32.320 now rests with the South Carolina House. 113 00:06:32.320 --> 00:06:35.680 Meanwhile, activists from Charleston and a nephew of massacre victim 114 00:06:35.680 --> 00:06:39.740 Myra Thompson are heading to the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., 115 00:06:39.740 --> 00:06:44.880 today to press lawmakers to approve legislation on gun control. 116 00:06:45.640 --> 00:06:49.550 In the Spanish capital Madrid, the new leftist city council 117 00:06:49.550 --> 00:06:54.770 has announced plans to remove all names relating to former Spanish dictator 118 00:06:54.770 --> 00:06:58.470 General Francisco Franco from city squares and streets. 119 00:06:58.470 --> 00:07:04.660 Despite a 2007 law aimed at replacing symbols of Franco’s decades-long rule, 120 00:07:04.660 --> 00:07:09.630 about 170 Madrid streets still bear the names of regime figures. 121 00:07:09.630 --> 00:07:12.290 Madrid’s new mayor, Manuela Carmena, 122 00:07:12.290 --> 00:07:15.170 is a retired judge who worked as a labor lawyer 123 00:07:15.170 --> 00:07:18.190 defending worker-rights activists 124 00:07:18.190 --> 00:07:21.620 detained under Franco’s Fascist dictatorship. 125 00:07:22.230 --> 00:07:25.940 In Guatemala, government-backed experts have declared former dictator 126 00:07:25.940 --> 00:07:30.690 Efraín Ríos Montt mentally incompetent to stand trial for genocide. 127 00:07:30.690 --> 00:07:34.290 The National Institute of Forensic Sciences says Ríos Montt, 128 00:07:34.290 --> 00:07:38.300 who is 89, cannot understand the charges against him. 129 00:07:38.300 --> 00:07:42.360 The declaration could potentially derail attempts to retry Ríos Montt 130 00:07:42.360 --> 00:07:45.960 for overseeing the killings of nearly 2,000 Ixil Mayans 131 00:07:45.960 --> 00:07:48.770 under his rule in the 1980s. 132 00:07:48.770 --> 00:07:51.740 Ríos Montt was found guilty in 2013, 133 00:07:51.740 --> 00:07:56.090 but a court annulled his 80-year sentence less than two weeks later. 134 00:07:56.930 --> 00:08:01.470 FBI Director James Comey is set to testify against encryption 135 00:08:01.470 --> 00:08:04.170 before the Senate Intelligence Committee today. 136 00:08:04.170 --> 00:08:07.630 Encryption refers to the scrambling of communications 137 00:08:07.630 --> 00:08:11.580 so they can’t be intercepted and read without a key or password. 138 00:08:11.580 --> 00:08:13.570 The FBI and British intelligence 139 00:08:13.570 --> 00:08:16.780 have been pushing for expanded access to encrypted data. 140 00:08:16.780 --> 00:08:20.240 Fourteen of the world’s pre-eminent cryptographers, 141 00:08:20.240 --> 00:08:23.140 computer scientists and security specialists 142 00:08:23.140 --> 00:08:25.800 have issued a paper opposing the push; 143 00:08:25.800 --> 00:08:27.880 we’ll speak with one of them, 144 00:08:27.880 --> 00:08:30.640 Bruce Schneier, later in the broadcast. 145 00:08:31.170 --> 00:08:32.970 Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren 146 00:08:32.970 --> 00:08:36.940 and progressive allies have reportedly stalled President Obama’s plans 147 00:08:36.940 --> 00:08:40.340 to nominate a financial regulator with ties to Wall Street. 148 00:08:40.340 --> 00:08:45.340 Politico reports Obama was planning to tap corporate attorney Keir Gumbs 149 00:08:45.340 --> 00:08:48.100 to fill a Democratic seat on the Securities 150 00:08:48.100 --> 00:08:49.470 and Exchange Commission. 151 00:08:49.470 --> 00:08:51.930 But activists protested Gumbs’ record, 152 00:08:51.930 --> 00:08:55.630 including his work representing the American Petroleum Institute 153 00:08:55.630 --> 00:08:57.360 before the SEC. 154 00:08:57.360 --> 00:09:01.030 Gumbs is a partner at the corporate law firm Covington & Burling — 155 00:09:01.030 --> 00:09:02.520 the same firm to which 156 00:09:02.520 --> 00:09:04.380 former Attorney General Eric Holder 157 00:09:04.380 --> 00:09:08.090 has just returned after leaving the Justice Department. 158 00:09:08.090 --> 00:09:11.160 Earlier this year, Gumbs and colleagues at the firm 159 00:09:11.160 --> 00:09:14.810 wrote a guide advising corporations on how to avoid 160 00:09:14.810 --> 00:09:18.060 disclosing their political spending to shareholders. 161 00:09:18.060 --> 00:09:23.060 Senator Warren wants the SEC to require companies to disclose such spending. 162 00:09:23.580 --> 00:09:28.470 Protests by her and others have now reportedly delayed Gumbs’ nomination, 163 00:09:28.470 --> 00:09:30.180 at least until August. 164 00:09:30.180 --> 00:09:32.730 We’ll talk more about Holder, 165 00:09:32.730 --> 00:09:38.100 Gumbs and their law firm with Matt Taibbi later in the broadcast. 166 00:09:38.100 --> 00:09:41.160 At least nine people were arrested Tuesday as hundreds took part 167 00:09:41.160 --> 00:09:43.620 in direct actions against oil and gas extraction 168 00:09:43.620 --> 00:09:45.670 in Vermont and upstate New York. 169 00:09:45.670 --> 00:09:48.730 Protesters blockaded trucks carrying fracked gas 170 00:09:48.730 --> 00:09:50.190 in Addison County, Vermont; 171 00:09:50.190 --> 00:09:53.760 blocked construction on a fracked gas pipeline in Williston; 172 00:09:53.760 --> 00:09:57.860 and staged a lake flotilla in Ticonderoga, New York. 173 00:09:57.860 --> 00:10:00.850 Using the slogan, "Not by truck, not by rail, 174 00:10:00.850 --> 00:10:04.240 not by pipeline," organizers denounced attempts 175 00:10:04.240 --> 00:10:05.750 to make the Champlain Valley 176 00:10:05.750 --> 00:10:07.600 into an oil and gas corridor. 177 00:10:07.600 --> 00:10:11.670 The events are part of a week of action marking the second anniversary 178 00:10:11.670 --> 00:10:14.820 of the Lac-Mégantic oil train derailment, 179 00:10:14.820 --> 00:10:18.790 which killed 47 people in Quebec. 180 00:10:19.450 --> 00:10:20.890 New York Governor Andrew Cuomo 181 00:10:20.890 --> 00:10:23.410 has announced plans to appoint a special prosecutor 182 00:10:23.410 --> 00:10:26.360 to investigate police killings of unarmed civilians. 183 00:10:26.360 --> 00:10:30.110 Cuomo said Tuesday he will appoint New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman 184 00:10:30.110 --> 00:10:32.100 under a one-year executive order. 185 00:10:32.100 --> 00:10:34.490 The move will make New York the first state 186 00:10:35.010 --> 00:10:37.100 to institute an independent prosecutor 187 00:10:37.100 --> 00:10:38.250 for police killings, 188 00:10:38.250 --> 00:10:41.370 a step recommended by President Obama’s task force 189 00:10:41.370 --> 00:10:42.580 on policing. 190 00:10:42.580 --> 00:10:46.330 Cuomo’s move came the same day mothers of New Yorkers killed by police 191 00:10:46.330 --> 00:10:48.680 rallied outside his New York City office 192 00:10:48.680 --> 00:10:50.940 to accuse him of backtracking on a promise 193 00:10:50.940 --> 00:10:52.400 to appoint the special prosecutor 194 00:10:52.400 --> 00:10:54.690 if state lawmakers did not take action. 195 00:10:54.690 --> 00:10:56.690 Gwen Carr, mother of Eric Garner, 196 00:10:56.690 --> 00:10:59.270 who died after a police chokehold in Staten Island, 197 00:10:59.270 --> 00:11:01.050 said all cases should be investigated, 198 00:11:01.050 --> 00:11:04.250 not just those where police acknowledge the victim was unarmed. 199 00:11:04.250 --> 00:11:08.220 She also urged Governor Cuomo to appoint the special prosecutor 200 00:11:08.220 --> 00:11:09.470 for more than a year. 201 00:11:10.050 --> 00:11:13.720 Gwen Carr: "We want justice for all, not for just some 202 00:11:13.720 --> 00:11:15.270 and just with the one year. 203 00:11:15.270 --> 00:11:17.090 One year is not enough. 204 00:11:17.090 --> 00:11:20.500 But he promised us that he would broaden the scope. 205 00:11:20.500 --> 00:11:21.980 It wouldn’t only be for one year; 206 00:11:21.980 --> 00:11:24.440 he would renew it after one year. 207 00:11:24.440 --> 00:11:27.430 And it wouldn’t be just for unarmed killings, 208 00:11:27.430 --> 00:11:30.570 because we know how things go. 209 00:11:30.570 --> 00:11:34.330 It’s not only — sometimes they’ll say the person was armed, 210 00:11:34.330 --> 00:11:36.080 and the person was not armed. 211 00:11:36.080 --> 00:11:38.360 We’ve seen South Carolina. 212 00:11:38.360 --> 00:11:40.100 We’ve seen different cases. 213 00:11:40.100 --> 00:11:42.300 But thank God for the videotape." 214 00:11:42.300 --> 00:11:44.590 That’s Gwen Carr, mother of Eric Garner, 215 00:11:44.590 --> 00:11:46.650 who died almost exactly one year ago, 216 00:11:46.650 --> 00:11:48.270 on July 17, 217 00:11:49.620 --> 00:11:54.340 after police pulled him to the ground in a chokehold 218 00:11:54.340 --> 00:11:55.960 and piled on top of him while he said, 219 00:11:55.960 --> 00:11:57.930 "I can’t breathe," 11 times. 220 00:11:57.930 --> 00:12:01.100 A grand jury declined to indict Officer Daniel Pantaleo, 221 00:12:01.100 --> 00:12:03.000 who put Garner in the chokehold. 222 00:12:03.000 --> 00:12:05.460 The prosecutor in the case, Daniel Donovan, 223 00:12:05.460 --> 00:12:08.050 was recently elected to Congress. 224 00:12:08.050 --> 00:12:10.870 Garner’s death was caught on video by Ramsey Orta, 225 00:12:10.870 --> 00:12:13.850 who has been arrested repeatedly since Garner’s death. 226 00:12:13.850 --> 00:12:16.620 He alleges police harassment. 227 00:12:16.620 --> 00:12:21.460 New York City is announcing a plan today to end cash bail payments 228 00:12:21.460 --> 00:12:25.690 for thousands of people accused of low-level or nonviolent crimes. 229 00:12:25.690 --> 00:12:29.290 The city has faced calls for reform after a mentally ill homeless man 230 00:12:29.290 --> 00:12:32.050 died in a sweltering cell at Rikers Island jail 231 00:12:32.050 --> 00:12:35.890 because he couldn’t make a $2,500 bail payment. 232 00:12:35.890 --> 00:12:40.440 Protests increased after the recent suicide of 22-year-old Kalief Browder, 233 00:12:40.440 --> 00:12:42.990 who spent three years at Rikers 234 00:12:42.990 --> 00:12:44.600 as a teenager, 235 00:12:44.600 --> 00:12:47.780 after he was accused of stealing a backpack 236 00:12:47.780 --> 00:12:51.180 and couldn’t pay $3,000 bail. 237 00:12:51.180 --> 00:12:53.410 He maintained he was innocent, 238 00:12:53.410 --> 00:12:56.760 and the charges were ultimately dropped. 239 00:12:56.760 --> 00:13:00.400 The plan, described by the Associated Press ahead of today’s announcement, 240 00:13:00.400 --> 00:13:06.080 will replace bail for low-level suspects with daily check-ins and other measures. 241 00:13:06.080 --> 00:13:09.260 And New York City has announced it will hold a ticker-tape parade 242 00:13:09.260 --> 00:13:11.290 for the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team 243 00:13:11.290 --> 00:13:13.060 over their World Cup victory, 244 00:13:13.060 --> 00:13:16.160 a rare honor for a team not based in New York. 245 00:13:17.520 --> 00:13:21.430 Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer had urged Mayor Bill de Blasio 246 00:13:21.430 --> 00:13:23.320 to hold the parade, writing, 247 00:13:23.320 --> 00:13:27.200 "New York City has a strong history of honoring sports achievements ... 248 00:13:27.200 --> 00:13:30.520 but has never held a parade to honor a women’s team. 249 00:13:30.520 --> 00:13:34.280 Our newest soccer champions represent an opportunity for New York 250 00:13:34.280 --> 00:13:38.040 to recognize that heroes and role models come in all genders." 251 00:13:38.910 --> 00:13:40.620 The last time New York City honored 252 00:13:40.620 --> 00:13:44.930 a group of national athletes was in 1984. 253 00:13:44.930 --> 00:13:47.610 And those are some of the headlines this is Democracy Now, 254 00:13:47.610 --> 00:13:50.330 Democracynow.org, the War and Peace Report. 255 00:13:50.330 --> 00:13:51.460 I’m Amy Goodman. 256 00:13:55.870 --> 00:14:01.200 JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We turn now to the latest sign of the revolving door 257 00:14:01.200 --> 00:14:02.940 between Wall Street and Washington. 258 00:14:02.940 --> 00:14:07.700 Recently retired U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is returning home— 259 00:14:07.700 --> 00:14:10.080 to the corporate law firm Covington & Burling, 260 00:14:10.080 --> 00:14:12.010 where he worked for eight years 261 00:14:12.010 --> 00:14:15.640 before becoming head of the Justice Department. 262 00:14:15.640 --> 00:14:17.440 During his time at Covington, 263 00:14:17.440 --> 00:14:23.160 Holder’s clients included UBS and the fruit giant Chiquita. 264 00:14:23.160 --> 00:14:27.130 The law firm’s client list has included many of the big banks 265 00:14:27.130 --> 00:14:29.820 that the Justice Department under Holder’s leadership 266 00:14:29.820 --> 00:14:35.060 failed to criminally prosecute for their role in the financial crisis, 267 00:14:35.060 --> 00:14:36.760 including Bank of America, 268 00:14:36.760 --> 00:14:38.140 JPMorgan Chase, 269 00:14:38.140 --> 00:14:39.940 Wells Fargo and Citigroup. 270 00:14:39.940 --> 00:14:42.710 AMY GOODMAN: In a new interview with The National Law Journal, 271 00:14:42.710 --> 00:14:47.250 Eric Holder said his, quote, "appropriately aggressive," unquote, 272 00:14:47.250 --> 00:14:49.500 challenges to financial and corporate fraud 273 00:14:49.500 --> 00:14:53.390 could mean certain institutions "might not want to work with me," 274 00:14:53.390 --> 00:14:56.190 he said, "and ... that’s fine," unquote. 275 00:14:56.190 --> 00:15:00.750 However, in 2013, Holder testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee 276 00:15:00.750 --> 00:15:04.070 and suggested some banks are too big to jail. 277 00:15:04.970 --> 00:15:07.050 ATTORNEY GENERAL ERIC HOLDER: I am concerned that the size 278 00:15:07.050 --> 00:15:08.970 of some of these institutions 279 00:15:08.970 --> 00:15:10.540 becomes so large 280 00:15:10.540 --> 00:15:14.900 that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them 281 00:15:14.900 --> 00:15:20.330 when we are hit with indications that if you do prosecute, 282 00:15:20.330 --> 00:15:22.580 if you do bring a criminal charge, 283 00:15:22.580 --> 00:15:26.020 it will have a negative impact on the national economy, 284 00:15:26.020 --> 00:15:28.130 perhaps even the world economy. 285 00:15:28.130 --> 00:15:30.160 And I think that is a function of the fact 286 00:15:30.160 --> 00:15:33.900 that some of these institutions have become too large. 287 00:15:33.900 --> 00:15:35.850 Again, I’m not talking about HSBC; 288 00:15:35.850 --> 00:15:37.640 this is just a more general comment. 289 00:15:37.640 --> 00:15:39.630 I think it has an inhibiting influence— 290 00:15:39.630 --> 00:15:41.860 impact on our ability 291 00:15:41.860 --> 00:15:47.260 to bring resolutions that I think would be more appropriate. 292 00:15:47.260 --> 00:15:49.490 AMY GOODMAN: Well, for more, we’re joined by Matt Taibbi, 293 00:15:49.490 --> 00:15:51.990 award-winning journalist with Rolling Stone magazine, 294 00:15:51.990 --> 00:15:54.660 who writes about Eric Holder’s time at Covington & Burling 295 00:15:54.660 --> 00:15:56.830 and much more in his book, The Divide: 296 00:15:56.830 --> 00:15:58.100 American Injustice 297 00:15:58.100 --> 00:15:59.860 in the Age of the Wealth Gap, 298 00:15:59.860 --> 00:16:01.130 which is now out in paperback. 299 00:16:01.130 --> 00:16:02.710 It’s great to have you back, Matt. MATT TAIBBI: Good morning. 300 00:16:02.710 --> 00:16:04.690 AMY GOODMAN: So you were tweeting up a storm yesterday 301 00:16:04.690 --> 00:16:08.000 as this news came of the former attorney general, Eric Holder, 302 00:16:08.000 --> 00:16:09.880 going back to Covington & Burling. 303 00:16:09.880 --> 00:16:12.050 Talk about the significance of this. 304 00:16:12.050 --> 00:16:15.960 MATT TAIBBI: Yeah, I mean, I think this is probably the single biggest example 305 00:16:15.960 --> 00:16:17.770 of the revolving door that we’ve ever had. 306 00:16:17.770 --> 00:16:20.410 And we’ve had some whoppers in our past. 307 00:16:20.410 --> 00:16:22.200 I think previously the worst one 308 00:16:22.200 --> 00:16:26.050 was probably Louisiana Congressman Billy Tauzin 309 00:16:26.050 --> 00:16:29.780 leaving Congress and taking a $2-million-a-year job with PhRMA, 310 00:16:29.780 --> 00:16:32.760 right after he helped pass the prescription drug benefit bill. 311 00:16:33.290 --> 00:16:35.440 But what Holder just did just blows Tauzin away. 312 00:16:35.440 --> 00:16:40.790 I mean, he spent six years essentially guiding all of these Wall Street firms, 313 00:16:40.790 --> 00:16:44.580 which many of them are clients of this company 314 00:16:44.580 --> 00:16:45.790 that he’s now working for— 315 00:16:45.790 --> 00:16:47.670 he guided them all back to profitability. 316 00:16:47.670 --> 00:16:49.790 He allowed bankers to escape prosecution. 317 00:16:49.790 --> 00:16:51.720 And now he’s going right back to that firm, 318 00:16:51.720 --> 00:16:53.810 where he’s going to enjoy a very lucrative partnership, 319 00:16:53.810 --> 00:16:55.710 whether he ever works again, 320 00:16:55.710 --> 00:16:57.660 you know, for the rest of his life. 321 00:16:57.660 --> 00:17:01.900 JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Holder also sort of became a point person for these, 322 00:17:01.900 --> 00:17:04.390 quote, "extrajudicial settlements." MATT TAIBBI: Right. 323 00:17:04.390 --> 00:17:07.290 JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Could you explain what those are and how they worked? 324 00:17:07.290 --> 00:17:10.280 MATT TAIBBI: Yeah, Holder, in general, pioneered a number of different ways 325 00:17:10.280 --> 00:17:14.760 that essentially a lot of these too-big-to-fail companies 326 00:17:14.760 --> 00:17:16.530 were allowed to buy their way out of trouble. 327 00:17:16.530 --> 00:17:18.850 And one of the most notorious, I think, 328 00:17:19.450 --> 00:17:22.470 was that he concluded a number of the biggest settlement deals 329 00:17:22.470 --> 00:17:27.980 with banks like JPMorgan Chase in ways that were not reviewed by a judge. 330 00:17:27.980 --> 00:17:31.490 Because we did have some instances during this time period 331 00:17:31.490 --> 00:17:33.290 where pesky judges— 332 00:17:33.290 --> 00:17:36.040 I think one of the most infamous, 333 00:17:36.040 --> 00:17:37.620 in the eyes of Wall Street, 334 00:17:37.620 --> 00:17:41.230 was Jed Rakoff, who threw out a settlement with Citigroup 335 00:17:41.230 --> 00:17:43.110 because he thought it wasn’t harsh enough— 336 00:17:43.110 --> 00:17:45.260 well, to fix that problem, Holder 337 00:17:45.260 --> 00:17:48.820 just started striking deals and not submitting them for judicial review. 338 00:17:48.820 --> 00:17:52.340 So he did a $13 billion settlement with JPMorgan Chase 339 00:17:52.340 --> 00:17:54.070 where no judge signed off on the deal. 340 00:17:54.070 --> 00:17:55.610 The whole thing was done in secret. 341 00:17:55.610 --> 00:17:58.040 He essentially institutionalized the back room. 342 00:17:58.040 --> 00:18:00.170 This was just a deal where a bunch of bankers 343 00:18:00.170 --> 00:18:03.020 got together with a bunch of Justice Department officials, 344 00:18:03.020 --> 00:18:04.880 money changed hands, and that was it. 345 00:18:04.880 --> 00:18:07.180 The whole—all of their criminal problems went away. 346 00:18:07.180 --> 00:18:08.220 This is a very different way 347 00:18:08.220 --> 00:18:10.340 of doing business than what we’ve ever seen before, 348 00:18:10.340 --> 00:18:12.550 and it’s very dangerous, I think. 349 00:18:12.550 --> 00:18:14.940 JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And he also took the term 350 00:18:14.940 --> 00:18:18.580 "collateral damage" into the financial world 351 00:18:18.580 --> 00:18:20.510 out of the military world, 352 00:18:20.510 --> 00:18:21.710 didn’t he, as well? MATT TAIBBI: Right, yeah. 353 00:18:21.710 --> 00:18:26.140 He actually predated the collateral damage idea back 354 00:18:26.140 --> 00:18:29.740 when he was a lawyer in the Clinton Justice Department. 355 00:18:29.740 --> 00:18:31.360 He wrote a memo that—you know, 356 00:18:31.360 --> 00:18:33.090 it’s now known as the Holder Memo, 357 00:18:33.090 --> 00:18:34.770 where he outlined a policy 358 00:18:34.770 --> 00:18:37.190 that is called "collateral consequences, 359 00:18:37.190 --> 00:18:39.670 " and basically all this says is that if you’re a prosecutor 360 00:18:39.670 --> 00:18:43.710 and you’re worried about prosecuting a company that employs a lot of people 361 00:18:43.710 --> 00:18:46.230 and you’re concerned that innocent people 362 00:18:46.230 --> 00:18:48.670 might suffer as the result of a prosecution, 363 00:18:48.670 --> 00:18:53.800 you may pursue noncriminal remedies when you go after this company. 364 00:18:53.800 --> 00:18:55.620 The problem was that when— 365 00:18:55.620 --> 00:18:59.130 by the time he became attorney general, the economic landscape 366 00:18:59.130 --> 00:19:03.000 was dotted all over with these enormous, too-big-to-fail companies, 367 00:19:03.000 --> 00:19:05.970 and there was a real threat that if you prosecuted these firms, 368 00:19:05.970 --> 00:19:09.770 that it might cause serious damage to the overall economy. 369 00:19:09.770 --> 00:19:12.130 Obviously we saw what happened with Lehman Brothers, for instance. 370 00:19:12.130 --> 00:19:15.030 So this became sort of the unofficial policy of the United States. 371 00:19:15.030 --> 00:19:18.300 We started taking companies that had done very bad things— 372 00:19:18.300 --> 00:19:20.820 you know, HSBC is probably the biggest example, 373 00:19:20.820 --> 00:19:22.750 laundering money for drug dealers— 374 00:19:22.750 --> 00:19:25.030 and instead of throwing people in jail 375 00:19:25.030 --> 00:19:28.640 and extracting huge individual penalties from the guilty parties, 376 00:19:28.640 --> 00:19:32.530 we just got the banks to pony up a big fine that shareholders paid, 377 00:19:32.530 --> 00:19:34.170 and they got to stay in business. 378 00:19:35.360 --> 00:19:38.310 AMY GOODMAN: As you were tweeting your criticism yesterday, 379 00:19:38.310 --> 00:19:43.020 a lot of Obama supporters were also on social media pushing the line 380 00:19:43.020 --> 00:19:47.910 that Holder did not send anyone to jail because there were no laws broken. 381 00:19:47.910 --> 00:19:50.040 MATT TAIBBI: Right, yeah, and this is—this comes, 382 00:19:50.040 --> 00:19:51.560 I think, directly from something 383 00:19:51.560 --> 00:19:54.120 that Barack Obama himself said on 60 Minutes once. 384 00:19:54.120 --> 00:19:59.150 He said some of the worst behavior on Wall Street was not illegal, 385 00:19:59.150 --> 00:20:02.200 some of the least ethical behavior was not illegal. 386 00:20:02.200 --> 00:20:04.100 But he crafted that phrase very carefully. 387 00:20:04.100 --> 00:20:06.010 He didn’t say all of it was not illegal. 388 00:20:06.010 --> 00:20:08.350 He said some of the worst behavior, and that’s true. 389 00:20:08.350 --> 00:20:09.900 But some of it was very illegal. 390 00:20:09.900 --> 00:20:12.710 And again, just to go back to some of the worst cases, 391 00:20:12.710 --> 00:20:17.290 HSBC admitted to laundering $880 million 392 00:20:17.290 --> 00:20:20.070 for a pair of Central and South American drug cartels, 393 00:20:20.070 --> 00:20:21.760 including the Sinaloa drug cartel, 394 00:20:21.760 --> 00:20:25.350 which is infamous all over the world for these torture videos. 395 00:20:25.350 --> 00:20:27.150 So, we have HSBC, 396 00:20:27.150 --> 00:20:30.470 Europe’s largest bank, is washing hundreds of millions of dollars 397 00:20:30.470 --> 00:20:33.420 for people who chop people’s heads off with chainsaws. 398 00:20:33.420 --> 00:20:34.760 That’s a crime. I mean, there’s no— 399 00:20:34.760 --> 00:20:37.280 that’s the worst crime that a bank can possibly commit. 400 00:20:37.280 --> 00:20:39.980 And anybody who thinks that Holder didn’t send people to jail 401 00:20:39.980 --> 00:20:41.380 because they didn’t commit crimes 402 00:20:41.380 --> 00:20:44.000 is not really paying attention to what went on during this time. 403 00:20:44.000 --> 00:20:48.350 AMY GOODMAN: Also at Covington & Burling, Eric Holder 404 00:20:48.350 --> 00:20:50.490 will be reunited with Lanny Breuer. 405 00:20:50.490 --> 00:20:54.270 Explain who he was and the significance of them together. 406 00:20:54.270 --> 00:20:57.230 MATT TAIBBI: Well, Lanny Breuer worked at Covington & Burling 407 00:20:57.230 --> 00:20:58.280 along with Eric Holder. 408 00:20:58.280 --> 00:21:01.040 He went to Holder to become his deputy 409 00:21:01.040 --> 00:21:03.590 for the early part of his tenure as attorney general. 410 00:21:03.590 --> 00:21:05.260 He was the head of the Criminal Division. 411 00:21:05.780 --> 00:21:08.190 Lanny, from the sources 412 00:21:08.190 --> 00:21:11.780 that I spoke to while I was researching all this material, 413 00:21:12.290 --> 00:21:15.150 was terrified of going to court 414 00:21:15.150 --> 00:21:18.470 when he didn’t have an absolute, guaranteed, sure victory. 415 00:21:18.470 --> 00:21:20.760 And so, what happened very early in their tenure 416 00:21:20.760 --> 00:21:23.710 together was that they did take one case to trial. 417 00:21:23.710 --> 00:21:26.550 They went to trial against a pair of guys from Bear Stearns 418 00:21:26.550 --> 00:21:28.700 who were accused of defrauding their clients. 419 00:21:28.700 --> 00:21:29.940 And they lost. 420 00:21:29.940 --> 00:21:31.560 It ended in an acquittal, 421 00:21:31.560 --> 00:21:34.290 even though they had very solid documentary evidence. 422 00:21:34.290 --> 00:21:36.980 From that point forward, they didn’t take anybody to court. 423 00:21:36.980 --> 00:21:40.340 And all of these cases involving all of these banks, 424 00:21:40.340 --> 00:21:42.120 they went the settlement route instead, 425 00:21:42.120 --> 00:21:45.070 presumably because they were afraid of going into a courtroom. 426 00:21:45.070 --> 00:21:47.610 They were worried that juries didn’t understand this material. 427 00:21:47.610 --> 00:21:49.570 They were worried that it was too complicated. 428 00:21:49.570 --> 00:21:53.380 And so, rather than risk losing and getting a bad headline, 429 00:21:53.380 --> 00:21:56.840 they let off all of these people who had done very, very bad things, 430 00:21:56.840 --> 00:22:00.030 and so we have this legacy of cash instead of punishment. 431 00:22:00.030 --> 00:22:03.490 JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Can you talk also about how the Justice Department 432 00:22:03.490 --> 00:22:08.460 and other regulatory groups have changed the composition of the staffing, 433 00:22:08.460 --> 00:22:09.560 the high-level staffing, 434 00:22:09.560 --> 00:22:11.930 of these agencies during this period 435 00:22:11.930 --> 00:22:13.570 when Holder has been there? MATT TAIBBI: Yeah. 436 00:22:13.570 --> 00:22:16.730 This is something that I heard over and over again over the years, 437 00:22:16.730 --> 00:22:19.560 which is that a certain kind of person 438 00:22:19.560 --> 00:22:21.830 who used to work in the regulatory agencies, you know, 439 00:22:21.830 --> 00:22:24.300 who was a kind of a career civil servant, 440 00:22:24.300 --> 00:22:26.030 particularly the law enforcement types, 441 00:22:26.030 --> 00:22:28.230 the people who grew up through the ranks, you know, 442 00:22:28.230 --> 00:22:31.200 just trying to get the criminal at all costs— 443 00:22:31.200 --> 00:22:36.860 they’re primarily motivated by trying to extract justice from wrongdoers— 444 00:22:36.860 --> 00:22:38.210 that kind of person 445 00:22:38.210 --> 00:22:42.190 is gradually disappearing from the ranks of the regulatory bodies, 446 00:22:42.190 --> 00:22:43.600 and they are being replaced, 447 00:22:43.600 --> 00:22:46.050 increasingly, particularly at the higher levels, 448 00:22:46.050 --> 00:22:48.390 by people from the corporate defense community. 449 00:22:48.390 --> 00:22:52.450 And Holder was very profoundly a symbol of that kind of person. 450 00:22:52.450 --> 00:22:53.880 And the difference was, 451 00:22:53.880 --> 00:22:56.720 when you have people who come from the corporate defense world, 452 00:22:56.720 --> 00:22:58.670 like Holder, like Lanny Breuer, 453 00:22:59.190 --> 00:23:02.880 they tend to approach these settlements not to get a pound of flesh 454 00:23:02.880 --> 00:23:03.880 out of the wrongdoers, 455 00:23:03.880 --> 00:23:07.490 but instead they want to emerge with a settlement 456 00:23:07.490 --> 00:23:10.120 that leaves everybody happy when they walk out of the room. 457 00:23:10.730 --> 00:23:13.650 But that’s really not a good approach to fighting crime. 458 00:23:13.650 --> 00:23:14.800 That’s not the kind of attitude 459 00:23:14.800 --> 00:23:17.260 you want in your top crime fighter in the country. 460 00:23:17.260 --> 00:23:20.300 And as a result, that’s how we got so many of these settlements, 461 00:23:20.300 --> 00:23:22.200 which, again, were concluded in secret, 462 00:23:22.200 --> 00:23:23.470 in the back room. 463 00:23:23.470 --> 00:23:26.470 And people like Jamie Dimon were walking out of these settlements, 464 00:23:26.470 --> 00:23:27.780 saying, "Well, this wasn’t so bad." 465 00:23:27.780 --> 00:23:29.650 And their share price would go up the day 466 00:23:29.650 --> 00:23:31.420 after these settlements were concluded. 467 00:23:31.420 --> 00:23:34.610 That’s really not what we want from the top cop in the country. 468 00:23:34.610 --> 00:23:38.280 AMY GOODMAN: And this goes to the central theme of your book, 469 00:23:38.280 --> 00:23:39.590 Matt Taibbi, The Divide: 470 00:23:39.590 --> 00:23:41.910 American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap. 471 00:23:41.910 --> 00:23:46.490 I mean, Attorney General Eric Holder was hailed as a great civil rights hero. 472 00:23:46.490 --> 00:23:48.790 After Ferguson, he actually went to Ferguson. 473 00:23:48.790 --> 00:23:51.490 I was in the Selma church on the 50th anniversary 474 00:23:51.490 --> 00:23:53.830 of the Selma march just a few months ago, 475 00:23:53.830 --> 00:23:55.820 when he gave a powerful speech 476 00:23:55.820 --> 00:23:57.110 about young black men— 477 00:23:57.110 --> 00:23:59.180 his own son, Eric Holder III, 478 00:23:59.180 --> 00:24:02.580 in the front row—being killed, 479 00:24:02.580 --> 00:24:04.620 and kept repeating that. 480 00:24:05.700 --> 00:24:10.260 It reminds me of Reverend Barber in North Carolina, head of the NAACP, 481 00:24:10.260 --> 00:24:15.050 who, after Dylann Roof was arrested, 482 00:24:15.050 --> 00:24:16.710 the alleged shooter 483 00:24:16.710 --> 00:24:18.920 in the Charleston church, said, 484 00:24:18.920 --> 00:24:22.010 "The perpetrator has been arrested, 485 00:24:22.010 --> 00:24:24.120 but the killer is still at large." 486 00:24:24.120 --> 00:24:25.610 And he was talking, overall, 487 00:24:25.610 --> 00:24:28.770 about the system, beyond the Confederate flag, 488 00:24:28.770 --> 00:24:30.450 what it represents—for example, 489 00:24:30.450 --> 00:24:31.880 mass incarceration— 490 00:24:31.880 --> 00:24:34.000 and how these things have to change. MATT TAIBBI: Right. 491 00:24:34.000 --> 00:24:37.050 AMY GOODMAN: So talk about what this means—on the one hand, 492 00:24:37.050 --> 00:24:39.180 a civil rights crusader, 493 00:24:39.180 --> 00:24:42.670 but when it comes to issues of who gets put in prison 494 00:24:42.670 --> 00:24:47.370 and who remains free, where Eric Holder has stood. 495 00:24:47.370 --> 00:24:49.990 MATT TAIBBI: Yeah, I mean, to be fair, Eric Holder, you know, 496 00:24:49.990 --> 00:24:54.690 has talked a lot about reform of prison sentencing, 497 00:24:54.690 --> 00:24:58.040 and according to their statistics, 498 00:24:58.040 --> 00:25:02.260 incarceration has actually declined under the Obama administration 499 00:25:02.260 --> 00:25:04.630 for the first time in I don’t know how many years—forever. 500 00:25:05.220 --> 00:25:09.370 But still we have these enormous problems, like the story 501 00:25:09.370 --> 00:25:10.960 that you reported on in the beginning of this show. 502 00:25:10.960 --> 00:25:14.190 You have people who are in jail for not just for months, 503 00:25:14.190 --> 00:25:17.530 but years at a time, awaiting trial because they can’t afford bail. 504 00:25:17.530 --> 00:25:21.660 We have millions of people behind bars for crimes 505 00:25:21.660 --> 00:25:25.390 that are far less serious than what HSBC, for instance, was doing. 506 00:25:25.390 --> 00:25:27.140 And there’s this enormous dichotomy. 507 00:25:27.140 --> 00:25:28.240 I think, you know, this is the— 508 00:25:28.240 --> 00:25:31.060 the chief problem with what Holder did 509 00:25:31.060 --> 00:25:35.950 is that there are all of these people who are in jail for crimes 510 00:25:35.950 --> 00:25:37.620 because it’s easy to put away people 511 00:25:37.620 --> 00:25:39.730 who don’t have enough money to defend themselves, 512 00:25:39.730 --> 00:25:41.450 who can’t pay enormous fines. 513 00:25:41.450 --> 00:25:43.500 Those are the people who end up going behind bars 514 00:25:43.500 --> 00:25:46.510 for crimes like money laundering or drug dealing or whatever it is. 515 00:25:46.510 --> 00:25:51.930 But we have this rationale for companies like HSBC or JPMorgan Chase 516 00:25:51.930 --> 00:25:54.640 or Credit Suisse or BNP Paribas, 517 00:25:54.640 --> 00:25:59.590 that are caught with doing tax evasion or money laundering or fraud 518 00:25:59.590 --> 00:26:00.640 or whatever it is, 519 00:26:00.640 --> 00:26:02.860 that somehow this class of defendants, 520 00:26:02.860 --> 00:26:04.610 we can allow them to pay their way out of trouble, 521 00:26:04.610 --> 00:26:07.000 while this other group of people has to go behind bars. 522 00:26:07.000 --> 00:26:08.450 And we just can’t have that. 523 00:26:08.450 --> 00:26:10.570 I mean, that system is totally inappropriate. 524 00:26:10.570 --> 00:26:14.000 And as much as Holder wants to hold himself out as a civil rights leader, 525 00:26:14.000 --> 00:26:17.790 and has done some good things, this dichotomy is really his legacy, 526 00:26:17.790 --> 00:26:18.990 and that’s an enormous problem. 527 00:26:18.990 --> 00:26:21.430 JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And the issue of him returning 528 00:26:21.430 --> 00:26:25.090 to Covington & Burling, could you talk about that particular law firm, 529 00:26:25.090 --> 00:26:28.600 its role in the Washington scene? 530 00:26:28.600 --> 00:26:33.370 And also, what are the limitations on appointed officials, 531 00:26:33.370 --> 00:26:35.940 in terms of once they leave office what they can or can’t do, 532 00:26:35.940 --> 00:26:38.890 or did the Obama administration institute 533 00:26:38.890 --> 00:26:42.090 particular restrictions on their appointees? 534 00:26:42.090 --> 00:26:43.680 MATT TAIBBI: They did. 535 00:26:43.680 --> 00:26:45.820 There is a two-year cooling-off period, 536 00:26:45.820 --> 00:26:48.770 they call it, where, you know, someone who leaves the Justice Department 537 00:26:48.770 --> 00:26:50.600 has to wait for two years 538 00:26:50.600 --> 00:26:53.270 before they can interact with the Justice Department again. 539 00:26:53.270 --> 00:26:56.510 This means that even though Eric Holder has gone back to work, 540 00:26:56.510 --> 00:26:59.710 he has to sit for 19 months during this cooling-off period 541 00:26:59.710 --> 00:27:00.780 and do I don’t know what. 542 00:27:00.780 --> 00:27:04.400 I’m sure he’s going to be compensated very handsomely during that time. 543 00:27:04.400 --> 00:27:07.500 JUAN GONZÁLEZ: But he can advise the lawyers that do the direct interaction. 544 00:27:07.500 --> 00:27:09.250 MATT TAIBBI: Exactly, yeah. They’ll figure out some way 545 00:27:09.250 --> 00:27:12.070 to do it so that it’s, you know, superficially legal. 546 00:27:12.660 --> 00:27:14.710 But there is this cooling-off period. 547 00:27:14.710 --> 00:27:16.640 Covington & Burling, what its significance is, 548 00:27:16.640 --> 00:27:21.400 it’s one of the biggest white-collar defense firms in America. 549 00:27:21.950 --> 00:27:25.710 It is notable because it has such a lengthy list 550 00:27:25.710 --> 00:27:28.640 of too-big-to-fail banks among its clientele. 551 00:27:28.640 --> 00:27:30.120 It also, very interestingly, 552 00:27:30.120 --> 00:27:34.630 played a very important role in helping to create the subprime mortgage crisis, 553 00:27:34.630 --> 00:27:37.140 because it represented a company called MERS, 554 00:27:37.140 --> 00:27:39.700 which was the electronic mortgage registry system, 555 00:27:39.700 --> 00:27:44.900 which helped create a lot of the confusion and chaos 556 00:27:44.900 --> 00:27:49.350 in the paperwork area of the mortgage system. 557 00:27:49.350 --> 00:27:52.120 All these people who were trying to find out who owns their home 558 00:27:52.120 --> 00:27:53.460 and can’t find the note, 559 00:27:53.460 --> 00:27:55.100 a lot of that is chalked up 560 00:27:55.100 --> 00:27:57.990 to the work that MERS did to eliminate paper mortgages. 561 00:27:58.490 --> 00:28:02.700 So they had an enormous role in helping create this subprime mortgage market. 562 00:28:02.700 --> 00:28:05.290 And then, of course, Eric Holder goes, 563 00:28:05.290 --> 00:28:07.770 and he’s the regulator for all that activity, 564 00:28:07.770 --> 00:28:09.740 you know, as the attorney general. 565 00:28:09.740 --> 00:28:11.720 It was a little weird, to say the least. 566 00:28:11.720 --> 00:28:14.140 AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about Keir Gumbs? 567 00:28:14.140 --> 00:28:16.270 MATT TAIBBI: Keir Gumbs? I’m sorry. AMY GOODMAN: Keir Gumbs— 568 00:28:16.270 --> 00:28:16.810 MATT TAIBBI: Oh, who has just become the— 569 00:28:16.810 --> 00:28:19.250 AMY GOODMAN: —the man that Senator Warren 570 00:28:19.250 --> 00:28:21.270 has been protesting, would be put— 571 00:28:21.270 --> 00:28:23.510 MATT TAIBBI: Right, who’s going to be— who’s going to be on the SEC now, yeah. 572 00:28:23.510 --> 00:28:27.140 I mean, this is a—they’re putting him— 573 00:28:27.140 --> 00:28:28.490 he’s going to be an SEC commissioner, 574 00:28:28.490 --> 00:28:29.650 presumably. 575 00:28:32.100 --> 00:28:34.220 Covington & Burling is becoming essentially a kind 576 00:28:34.220 --> 00:28:36.110 of shadow Justice Department now. 577 00:28:36.110 --> 00:28:39.950 We have six alums from the Justice Department 578 00:28:39.950 --> 00:28:41.550 who have just returned to Covington & Burling, 579 00:28:41.550 --> 00:28:43.960 and now Covington & Burling is sending another person 580 00:28:43.960 --> 00:28:47.530 to occupy a very high-ranking seat in the SEC. 581 00:28:48.050 --> 00:28:50.530 You know, it’s problematic, clearly, 582 00:28:50.530 --> 00:28:53.140 when you have so many people from the same firm 583 00:28:53.140 --> 00:28:54.710 who are all going to be talking to each other. 584 00:28:54.710 --> 00:28:57.480 It’s kind of this secondary club. 585 00:28:57.480 --> 00:29:01.090 And what happens when all these people have this congenial relationship, 586 00:29:01.600 --> 00:29:04.650 they end up making deals that are much more 587 00:29:04.650 --> 00:29:06.460 favorable to their clients than they would be otherwise. 588 00:29:06.460 --> 00:29:10.110 JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, they can all regulate all of the Goldman Sachs alums 589 00:29:10.110 --> 00:29:12.770 that are in other agencies in the federal government. 590 00:29:12.770 --> 00:29:13.550 MATT TAIBBI: Right, yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, right. 591 00:29:13.550 --> 00:29:15.470 AMY GOODMAN: I mean, the significance of Gumbs, yes, 592 00:29:15.470 --> 00:29:17.760 coming from Covington & Burling, 593 00:29:17.760 --> 00:29:21.090 but also representing American Petroleum, 594 00:29:21.090 --> 00:29:25.760 he and colleagues at the firm writing a guide advising corporations 595 00:29:25.760 --> 00:29:29.100 on how to avoid disclosing their political spending 596 00:29:29.100 --> 00:29:30.130 to shareholders, 597 00:29:30.130 --> 00:29:31.830 Senator Warren wanting the SEC 598 00:29:31.830 --> 00:29:35.490 to require companies to disclose that kind of spending. 599 00:29:35.490 --> 00:29:37.940 And the question is: Will President Obama 600 00:29:37.940 --> 00:29:40.120 respond to Senator Warren’s pressure? 601 00:29:40.120 --> 00:29:41.580 MATT TAIBBI: Probably not, I’m guessing. 602 00:29:41.580 --> 00:29:44.680 You know, I mean, but this—it says a lot that this is the kind of person 603 00:29:44.680 --> 00:29:46.490 that they’re going to be bringing in to the SEC. 604 00:29:46.490 --> 00:29:47.900 And I think, you know, again, 605 00:29:47.900 --> 00:29:51.630 people want a different kind of person occupying these regulatory positions. 606 00:29:51.630 --> 00:29:54.380 They don’t want a corporate defense attorney 607 00:29:54.380 --> 00:29:57.350 who’s just spent however many years telling companies 608 00:29:57.350 --> 00:29:58.490 how to avoid punishment, 609 00:29:58.490 --> 00:30:01.370 how to avoid taxes, how to avoid all these problems. 610 00:30:01.930 --> 00:30:04.770 You know, I personally would much prefer to have a career investigator, 611 00:30:04.770 --> 00:30:07.420 career law enforcement official in that job. 612 00:30:07.420 --> 00:30:09.070 AMY GOODMAN: Well, we want to thank you, Matt Taibbi, 613 00:30:09.070 --> 00:30:11.670 award-winning journalist with Rolling Stone magazine. 614 00:30:11.670 --> 00:30:13.720 His most recent book, The Divide: 615 00:30:13.720 --> 00:30:16.460 American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap, 616 00:30:16.460 --> 00:30:18.310 now out in paperback. 617 00:30:18.310 --> 00:30:19.450 This is Democracy Now! 618 00:30:19.450 --> 00:30:20.480 When we come back, 619 00:30:20.480 --> 00:30:26.050 we head across the pond to London, to security guru Bruce Schneier. 620 00:30:26.050 --> 00:31:23.180 Stay with us. 621 00:31:23.180 --> 00:31:27.340 JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We turn now to look at a major new push by the U.S. and Britain 622 00:31:27.340 --> 00:31:32.360 to allow law enforcement agencies to unlock encrypted digital messages. 623 00:31:32.360 --> 00:31:36.070 Encryption refers to the scrambling of data sent, for example, 624 00:31:36.070 --> 00:31:38.610 via your phone or applications like Facebook 625 00:31:38.610 --> 00:31:41.990 so it cannot be read without the correct key or password. 626 00:31:41.990 --> 00:31:47.030 The FBI and GCHQ have said they need "exceptional access" 627 00:31:47.030 --> 00:31:48.540 to encrypted communications 628 00:31:48.540 --> 00:31:52.070 in order to track criminals and stop them from acting. 629 00:31:52.070 --> 00:31:54.960 More recently, they’ve said new encryption technologies 630 00:31:54.960 --> 00:31:59.500 will prevent them from monitoring the communications of terrorists. 631 00:31:59.500 --> 00:32:01.770 AMY GOODMAN: But in a paper released on Tuesday, 632 00:32:01.770 --> 00:32:05.190 13 of the world’s pre-eminent cryptographers, 633 00:32:05.190 --> 00:32:07.880 computer scientists and security specialists 634 00:32:07.880 --> 00:32:11.370 argued there is no way to allow the government such access 635 00:32:11.370 --> 00:32:14.070 without endangering all confidential data, 636 00:32:14.070 --> 00:32:17.030 as well as the broader communications infrastructure. 637 00:32:17.030 --> 00:32:21.200 Today, FBI Director James Comey is set to testify against encryption 638 00:32:21.200 --> 00:32:23.300 before the Senate Intelligence Committee. 639 00:32:23.300 --> 00:32:25.740 In a blog post on Monday, Comey wrote, 640 00:32:25.740 --> 00:32:28.330 quote, "The current ISIL threat ... 641 00:32:28.330 --> 00:32:31.150 involves ISIL operators in Syria recruiting 642 00:32:31.150 --> 00:32:33.890 and tasking dozens of troubled Americans to kill people, 643 00:32:33.890 --> 00:32:37.730 a process that increasingly takes part through mobile messaging apps 644 00:32:37.730 --> 00:32:39.300 that are end-to-end encrypted, 645 00:32:39.300 --> 00:32:41.320 communications that may not be intercepted, 646 00:32:41.320 --> 00:32:44.000 despite judicial orders under the Fourth Amendment." 647 00:32:44.000 --> 00:32:46.710 That’s Comey speaking about encryption. 648 00:32:46.710 --> 00:32:49.920 Let’s go to him speaking about it last October. 649 00:32:50.550 --> 00:32:54.010 JAMES COMEY: We’re seeing more and more where we believe significant evidence 650 00:32:54.010 --> 00:32:55.880 is on that phone or on that laptop, 651 00:32:55.880 --> 00:32:57.380 and we can’t crack the password. 652 00:32:58.040 --> 00:33:00.180 If this becomes the norm, 653 00:33:00.180 --> 00:33:03.120 I suggest to you that homicide cases could be stalled, 654 00:33:03.120 --> 00:33:08.990 suspects walk free, child exploitation not discovered and prosecuted. 655 00:33:08.990 --> 00:33:12.560 Justice may be denied because of a locked phone or an encrypted device. 656 00:33:14.740 --> 00:33:19.890 JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Meanwhile, a new report about wiretapping in 2014 657 00:33:19.890 --> 00:33:23.200 that was published last week found that law enforcement personnel 658 00:33:23.200 --> 00:33:24.400 at the state and federal level 659 00:33:24.400 --> 00:33:28.730 were only hindered by encryption on four wiretaps all year. 660 00:33:28.730 --> 00:33:30.400 AMY GOODMAN: For more, we go to London, 661 00:33:30.400 --> 00:33:32.070 where we’re joined by Bruce Schneier, 662 00:33:32.070 --> 00:33:36.750 a security technologist and author of the book, Data and Goliath: 663 00:33:36.750 --> 00:33:39.850 The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World. 664 00:33:39.850 --> 00:33:43.940 He is one of the co-authors of the paper that was released yesterday 665 00:33:43.940 --> 00:33:47.940 by encryption experts called "Keys Under Doormats: 666 00:33:47.940 --> 00:33:49.900 Mandating Insecurity 667 00:33:49.900 --> 00:33:54.130 by Requiring Government Access to All Data and Communications." 668 00:33:54.130 --> 00:33:55.420 He’s also a fellow at Harvard’s 669 00:33:55.420 --> 00:33:57.630 Berkman Center for Internet and Society 670 00:33:57.630 --> 00:34:00.480 and a board member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. 671 00:34:00.480 --> 00:34:02.710 Bruce, welcome back to Democracy Now! 672 00:34:02.710 --> 00:34:07.640 A major paper that you all, the security technologist gurus 673 00:34:07.640 --> 00:34:09.980 of the world, have just released. 674 00:34:09.980 --> 00:34:13.140 Talk about the significance of what the U.S. 675 00:34:13.140 --> 00:34:14.880 and Britain are demanding right now 676 00:34:14.880 --> 00:34:16.750 and why you consider it such a threat. 677 00:34:18.440 --> 00:34:21.550 BRUCE SCHNEIER: It’s extraordinary that governments— 678 00:34:21.550 --> 00:34:26.020 that free governments are demanding that security be weakened 679 00:34:26.020 --> 00:34:28.810 because the government might want to have access. 680 00:34:28.810 --> 00:34:29.880 This is the kind of thing 681 00:34:29.880 --> 00:34:33.140 that we see out of Russia and China and Syria. 682 00:34:33.140 --> 00:34:36.400 But to see it out of Western countries, I think, is extraordinary. 683 00:34:36.400 --> 00:34:40.350 What we wanted to do in the paper is say, as technologists, 684 00:34:40.350 --> 00:34:43.510 trying to do this will be incredibly damaging. 685 00:34:43.510 --> 00:34:45.540 There’s a policy debate going on right now. 686 00:34:45.540 --> 00:34:48.770 You talked about Comey talking before the Senate. 687 00:34:48.770 --> 00:34:50.880 We want to come together as technologists 688 00:34:50.880 --> 00:34:52.290 to try to inform that debate, 689 00:34:52.290 --> 00:34:53.470 and that’s why we wrote the report. 690 00:34:53.990 --> 00:34:56.780 JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And why do you say it will be incredibly damaging? 691 00:34:58.890 --> 00:35:01.670 BRUCE SCHNEIER: Because what Comey wants 692 00:35:01.670 --> 00:35:05.590 is encryption that he can break with a court order. 693 00:35:05.590 --> 00:35:09.530 But as a technologist, I can’t design a computer 694 00:35:09.530 --> 00:35:13.520 that operates differently when a certain piece of paper is nearby. 695 00:35:13.520 --> 00:35:17.270 If I make a system that can be broken, 696 00:35:17.270 --> 00:35:20.590 it can be broken by anybody, not just the FBI. 697 00:35:20.590 --> 00:35:25.490 So his requirement for access gives criminals access, 698 00:35:25.490 --> 00:35:27.870 gives the Chinese government access. 699 00:35:27.870 --> 00:35:30.390 We need encryption for security, 700 00:35:31.360 --> 00:35:34.620 for many more reasons than he wants to break it. 701 00:35:34.620 --> 00:35:36.610 Trying to break it just makes it weak. 702 00:35:36.610 --> 00:35:38.970 We all have less security because of that. 703 00:35:38.970 --> 00:35:42.080 AMY GOODMAN: I want to go back to FBI Director James Comey 704 00:35:42.080 --> 00:35:43.080 speaking in October, 705 00:35:43.080 --> 00:35:45.930 when he warned against smartphone data encryption. 706 00:35:47.390 --> 00:35:48.560 JAMES COMEY: Encryption is nothing new, 707 00:35:49.290 --> 00:35:52.110 but the challenge to law enforcement and national security officials 708 00:35:52.110 --> 00:35:55.820 is markedly worse with recent default encryption settings 709 00:35:56.340 --> 00:35:57.960 and encrypted devices and networks, 710 00:35:57.960 --> 00:36:00.910 all in the name of increased security and privacy. 711 00:36:01.580 --> 00:36:04.380 For example, with Apple’s new operating system, 712 00:36:04.380 --> 00:36:06.200 the information stored on many iPhones 713 00:36:06.200 --> 00:36:08.910 and other Apple devices will be encrypted by default. 714 00:36:09.750 --> 00:36:11.840 Shortly after Apple’s announcement, 715 00:36:11.840 --> 00:36:15.710 Google announced plans to follow suit with its Android operating system. 716 00:36:16.380 --> 00:36:21.010 This means that the companies themselves will not be able to unlock phones, 717 00:36:21.010 --> 00:36:26.350 laptops and tablets to reveal photos or documents or email 718 00:36:26.350 --> 00:36:30.230 or stored texts or recordings in those instruments. 719 00:36:30.230 --> 00:36:33.320 AMY GOODMAN: That’s FBI Director James Comey. Bruce Schneier, your response? 720 00:36:34.790 --> 00:36:35.950 BRUCE SCHNEIER: So, he said that, 721 00:36:35.950 --> 00:36:39.170 and problem is, whenever we hear these arguments, 722 00:36:39.170 --> 00:36:40.670 we don’t get any examples. 723 00:36:40.670 --> 00:36:42.060 You mentioned the recent report 724 00:36:42.060 --> 00:36:46.040 that said encryption only foiled wiretaps in four cases. 725 00:36:46.750 --> 00:36:51.790 Comey has not been able to give good examples of iPhones being encrypted. 726 00:36:51.790 --> 00:36:53.220 He gave some examples; 727 00:36:53.220 --> 00:36:55.510 they were pretty much instantly refuted. 728 00:36:55.510 --> 00:36:57.710 So we get a lot of scare stories, 729 00:36:57.710 --> 00:37:00.110 but we don’t get actual credible evidence 730 00:37:00.110 --> 00:37:02.130 that this is hindering law enforcement. 731 00:37:02.130 --> 00:37:05.560 It turns out we give a lot of data that is not encrypted 732 00:37:05.560 --> 00:37:06.740 and can’t be encrypted— 733 00:37:06.740 --> 00:37:08.410 Facebook, email, 734 00:37:08.410 --> 00:37:09.700 lots of conversations, 735 00:37:09.700 --> 00:37:11.560 location data on our cellphone. 736 00:37:11.560 --> 00:37:14.490 This is actually the golden age of surveillance. 737 00:37:14.490 --> 00:37:17.550 And a lot of this stuff can be used against us. 738 00:37:17.550 --> 00:37:18.730 Remember, Apple’s— 739 00:37:18.730 --> 00:37:23.240 the photos from Apple’s servers that were stolen and leaked, 740 00:37:23.240 --> 00:37:26.650 and these were compromising photos of celebrities. 741 00:37:26.650 --> 00:37:29.790 And this is how our data is being stored. 742 00:37:29.790 --> 00:37:32.820 The fact that some stuff is being put on phones, 743 00:37:32.820 --> 00:37:35.140 some communications are secure, 744 00:37:35.140 --> 00:37:37.050 that’s not a hindrance to him. 745 00:37:37.050 --> 00:37:39.410 He says it is, but it’s scare stories. 746 00:37:39.410 --> 00:37:41.760 And we heard these scare stories before. 747 00:37:41.760 --> 00:37:44.330 In the mid-'90s, we had this exact same debate. 748 00:37:44.330 --> 00:37:47.010 And most of the group of us that wrote the report 749 00:37:47.010 --> 00:37:51.480 we released yesterday released a report in the mid-'90s saying the same things. 750 00:37:51.480 --> 00:37:53.000 Here we are 20 years later, 751 00:37:53.000 --> 00:37:54.520 and there hasn’t been a problem. 752 00:37:54.520 --> 00:37:56.170 So I don’t see a problem, 753 00:37:56.170 --> 00:37:57.900 and I’m afraid the solution is damaging. 754 00:37:58.540 --> 00:38:01.360 JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Bruce, there seems to be more attention 755 00:38:01.360 --> 00:38:07.600 to the issue of the potential isolated group of terrorists 756 00:38:07.600 --> 00:38:11.500 being able to take advantage of the Internet, 757 00:38:11.500 --> 00:38:13.970 and not all of the companies that, 758 00:38:13.970 --> 00:38:15.320 on a daily basis, 759 00:38:15.320 --> 00:38:17.710 are being breached in one way or another. 760 00:38:17.710 --> 00:38:21.240 Consumers are going crazy with their private information 761 00:38:21.240 --> 00:38:24.280 being grabbed by all kinds of other folks 762 00:38:24.280 --> 00:38:27.000 that are able to penetrate systems, 763 00:38:27.000 --> 00:38:28.980 so that the emphasis, it seems to me, 764 00:38:28.980 --> 00:38:31.620 should be on more encryption, 765 00:38:31.620 --> 00:38:34.350 more protection for consumers on the Internet, 766 00:38:34.350 --> 00:38:38.320 and not the government being able to access everything. 767 00:38:39.920 --> 00:38:41.060 BRUCE SCHNEIER: I mean, that’s exactly right. 768 00:38:41.060 --> 00:38:42.260 We’re concerned about criminals. 769 00:38:42.260 --> 00:38:45.460 We’re concerned about Chinese nationals, other countries. 770 00:38:45.460 --> 00:38:47.310 We’re concerned about the security of our data, 771 00:38:47.310 --> 00:38:49.400 and encryption is a valuable tool. 772 00:38:49.400 --> 00:38:52.760 To deliberately weaken that at the behest of the FBI 773 00:38:52.760 --> 00:38:56.350 or the U.K. government, I think, is a really crazy trade-off. 774 00:38:56.350 --> 00:38:57.670 It doesn’t make us safer; 775 00:38:57.670 --> 00:38:59.490 it makes us more at risk. 776 00:38:59.490 --> 00:39:03.160 JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And you’re speaking to us from the U.K. What is David Cameron 777 00:39:04.570 --> 00:39:06.950 proposing for the United Kingdom? 778 00:39:08.620 --> 00:39:10.990 BRUCE SCHNEIER: Cameron is proposing something even more extreme. 779 00:39:10.990 --> 00:39:15.640 He’s made statements saying that secure encryption should be illegal. 780 00:39:16.180 --> 00:39:19.160 Now, that, I think, would be incredibly damaging. 781 00:39:19.160 --> 00:39:20.600 It’s also unworkable. 782 00:39:20.600 --> 00:39:24.820 I mean, if he wants to make that so, he has to seize my computer, my laptop, 783 00:39:24.820 --> 00:39:26.160 when I enter the country. 784 00:39:26.160 --> 00:39:27.210 He’s not going to do that. 785 00:39:27.210 --> 00:39:28.670 That will destroy tourism. 786 00:39:28.670 --> 00:39:31.540 But the noise here is even more extreme, 787 00:39:31.540 --> 00:39:35.050 that it should be a crime to use secure encryption. 788 00:39:35.050 --> 00:39:38.070 I think it really should be the opposite, that not using it, 789 00:39:38.070 --> 00:39:40.100 you should be liable for damages. 790 00:39:40.100 --> 00:39:41.530 AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk, Bruce Schneier, 791 00:39:41.530 --> 00:39:43.660 about the backdoors that exist, 792 00:39:43.660 --> 00:39:48.670 and especially for a completely lay audience around the world, 793 00:39:48.670 --> 00:39:53.670 what we should be concerned about right now, now and also what Britain 794 00:39:53.670 --> 00:39:55.420 and the U.S. are considering, 795 00:39:55.420 --> 00:39:58.490 what Comey will be testifying about today? 796 00:39:59.890 --> 00:40:00.990 BRUCE SCHNEIER: It’s an interesting question, 797 00:40:00.990 --> 00:40:04.620 because while encryption is a very powerful too and very strong, 798 00:40:04.620 --> 00:40:06.870 computer security is very weak. 799 00:40:06.870 --> 00:40:10.340 We, as scientists, don’t know how to build secure computers. 800 00:40:10.340 --> 00:40:13.120 So I can protect the encryption of your phone, 801 00:40:13.120 --> 00:40:16.270 but I can’t stop someone from hacking into it. 802 00:40:16.270 --> 00:40:19.880 And if you look at what the NSA does, what the Chinese government does, 803 00:40:19.880 --> 00:40:21.460 what criminals do, 804 00:40:21.460 --> 00:40:23.750 they hack into devices. 805 00:40:23.750 --> 00:40:26.820 And that’s something that we’re still very much at risk at. 806 00:40:26.820 --> 00:40:30.340 The big breaches you’re seeing are not breaches of encryption. 807 00:40:30.340 --> 00:40:33.150 They’re hacking. We know the FBI does hacking. 808 00:40:33.150 --> 00:40:35.050 And a lot of us on the group 809 00:40:35.050 --> 00:40:39.580 believe that lawful hacking is the solution to Comey’s problem. 810 00:40:39.580 --> 00:40:42.070 Don’t break encryption for everybody, 811 00:40:42.070 --> 00:40:45.440 but hack into the computers of just the suspects 812 00:40:45.440 --> 00:40:46.890 you want to eavesdrop on. 813 00:40:46.890 --> 00:40:48.380 That’s more powerful. 814 00:40:48.380 --> 00:40:50.590 That’s something we can’t really prevent. 815 00:40:50.590 --> 00:40:51.830 And that gives you, 816 00:40:51.830 --> 00:40:55.000 the FBI, the U.K. government, the access you need. 817 00:40:55.000 --> 00:40:58.520 And that is both a problem and a solution. 818 00:40:58.520 --> 00:40:59.940 We do need to get better at it. 819 00:40:59.940 --> 00:41:03.470 I mean, all the breaches you’re seeing show how bad it is, 820 00:41:03.470 --> 00:41:05.760 whether it’s Office of Personnel Management; 821 00:41:05.760 --> 00:41:08.880 whether it’s a cyberweapons arms manufacturer in Italy, 822 00:41:08.880 --> 00:41:10.430 Hacking Team, last week; 823 00:41:10.430 --> 00:41:12.220 whether it’s Target or Home Depot 824 00:41:12.220 --> 00:41:13.340 or any bank. 825 00:41:13.340 --> 00:41:18.600 You know, these are all breaches of computer security from these flaws. 826 00:41:18.600 --> 00:41:20.500 JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, I wanted to ask you about one of those, 827 00:41:20.500 --> 00:41:22.370 another story in the news. 828 00:41:22.370 --> 00:41:26.970 Leaked documents appear to show an Italy-based private spyware company 829 00:41:26.970 --> 00:41:28.570 known as the Hacking Team 830 00:41:28.570 --> 00:41:32.080 was selling its products to U.S. law enforcement agencies 831 00:41:32.080 --> 00:41:34.410 and repressive governments around the world. 832 00:41:34.410 --> 00:41:39.090 The Hacking Team sells software which lets users seize remote control 833 00:41:39.090 --> 00:41:40.710 of another person’s computer. 834 00:41:40.710 --> 00:41:42.720 Its customers include the FBI, 835 00:41:42.720 --> 00:41:45.450 the Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S. Army, 836 00:41:45.450 --> 00:41:49.020 as well as foreign governments including Ethiopia, Sudan, 837 00:41:49.020 --> 00:41:50.750 Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. 838 00:41:50.750 --> 00:41:54.010 The documents were published to the company’s own Twitter feed 839 00:41:54.010 --> 00:41:55.520 following an apparent breach. 840 00:41:57.410 --> 00:41:58.820 BRUCE SCHNEIER: So this is an amazing story. 841 00:41:58.820 --> 00:42:00.340 Hacking Team is a company— 842 00:42:00.340 --> 00:42:02.350 it’s a cyberweapons arms manufacturer— 843 00:42:02.350 --> 00:42:04.430 that sells both to the U.S. government 844 00:42:04.430 --> 00:42:06.780 and to repressive regimes all over the world. 845 00:42:06.780 --> 00:42:10.070 Hacking Team has been responsible for people dying. 846 00:42:10.070 --> 00:42:11.540 I have no doubt about that. 847 00:42:11.540 --> 00:42:12.740 And what happened is, 848 00:42:12.740 --> 00:42:16.140 some hacker decided to publish all of their documents. 849 00:42:16.140 --> 00:42:18.440 We learned some extraordinary things, 850 00:42:18.440 --> 00:42:22.410 like the company has secret access into the products 851 00:42:22.410 --> 00:42:25.520 it sold to all these countries and didn’t tell them. 852 00:42:25.520 --> 00:42:26.630 The company has problems. 853 00:42:26.630 --> 00:42:28.860 I mean, it’s one thing to have dissatisfied customers. 854 00:42:28.860 --> 00:42:32.350 Hacking Team has dissatisfied customers with hit squads. 855 00:42:32.350 --> 00:42:33.890 This is going to be bad. 856 00:42:33.890 --> 00:42:37.710 This is a company that I believe has behaved immorally. 857 00:42:37.710 --> 00:42:40.340 So I’m really kind of happy to see them on the ropes here. 858 00:42:41.570 --> 00:42:44.020 AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you about Edward Snowden. 859 00:42:44.020 --> 00:42:46.470 The person we were just talking about in the last segment, 860 00:42:46.470 --> 00:42:47.780 the former attorney general, 861 00:42:47.780 --> 00:42:49.710 Eric Holder, interestingly, 862 00:42:49.710 --> 00:42:52.370 after Eric Holder stepped down, 863 00:42:52.370 --> 00:42:58.550 he just recently said that he thinks the possibility exists 864 00:42:58.550 --> 00:43:03.220 for the Justice Department to cut a deal with NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, 865 00:43:03.220 --> 00:43:06.550 allowing him to return to United States. 866 00:43:06.550 --> 00:43:10.830 I wanted to get your response to that and also 867 00:43:10.830 --> 00:43:13.310 how Edward Snowden’s revelations, 868 00:43:13.310 --> 00:43:15.520 now in political asylum in Russia, 869 00:43:16.080 --> 00:43:20.360 have informed your work, Bruce. 870 00:43:22.060 --> 00:43:25.860 BRUCE SCHNEIER: You know, the data that Snowden revealed via the reporters 871 00:43:25.860 --> 00:43:27.620 has been nothing short of amazing. 872 00:43:27.620 --> 00:43:31.100 We’ve learned a lot about how the NSA works, 873 00:43:31.100 --> 00:43:34.330 the justifications behind what they do, the things they do. 874 00:43:34.330 --> 00:43:36.970 And by extension, we’ve learned what other countries do, as well. 875 00:43:36.970 --> 00:43:39.100 Right? The NSA is not made of magic. 876 00:43:39.100 --> 00:43:41.930 These are the same things Russia and China and Israel 877 00:43:41.930 --> 00:43:44.390 and France and other countries do. 878 00:43:44.390 --> 00:43:47.830 So we’re learning a lot about nation-state surveillance. 879 00:43:47.830 --> 00:43:51.920 And that teaches us how to make things more secure. 880 00:43:51.920 --> 00:43:53.940 At the same time, we’ve had this great political debate 881 00:43:53.940 --> 00:43:58.300 in the United States about what are the limits of U.S. surveillance. 882 00:43:58.300 --> 00:44:00.300 There’s been less of a debate in the U.K., 883 00:44:00.300 --> 00:44:01.960 but there has been some, as well. 884 00:44:01.960 --> 00:44:04.640 So Snowden has done two things, from my perspective: 885 00:44:04.640 --> 00:44:06.750 He’s shown citizens 886 00:44:06.750 --> 00:44:09.280 what the government is doing in their name, 887 00:44:09.280 --> 00:44:14.620 and he’s shown technologists what the capabilities of attack are, 888 00:44:14.620 --> 00:44:16.920 so we can build better defensive capabilities. 889 00:44:18.010 --> 00:44:19.730 AMY GOODMAN: Do you think he should be allowed to come back 890 00:44:19.730 --> 00:44:20.920 into the United States? 891 00:44:20.920 --> 00:44:23.400 And do you think he should be able to live as a free man? 892 00:44:24.930 --> 00:44:26.370 BRUCE SCHNEIER: I mean, I certainly think he should. 893 00:44:26.370 --> 00:44:28.450 But this is—that’s very much a political decision. 894 00:44:28.450 --> 00:44:29.920 I’m a technologist. 895 00:44:29.920 --> 00:44:32.320 I think it’s still very— 896 00:44:32.320 --> 00:44:34.800 the emotions are very raw in the intelligence community. 897 00:44:34.800 --> 00:44:36.370 He did betray them. 898 00:44:36.370 --> 00:44:40.630 And I don’t know how many years have to pass 899 00:44:40.630 --> 00:44:42.600 before it doesn’t sting anymore, 900 00:44:42.600 --> 00:44:44.360 how many people have to retire. 901 00:44:44.360 --> 00:44:47.480 I think it would be great if he could return as a free man, but I don’t know. 902 00:44:47.480 --> 00:44:49.320 AMY GOODMAN: Bruce, we want to thank you very much for being with us. 903 00:44:49.320 --> 00:44:51.500 Bruce Schneier, security technologist, 904 00:44:51.500 --> 00:44:52.630 author of Data and Goliath: 905 00:44:52.630 --> 00:44:55.220 The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control 906 00:44:55.220 --> 00:44:56.490 Your World, 907 00:44:56.490 --> 00:45:01.640 one of a group of 14 of the world’s pre-eminent cryptographers 908 00:45:01.640 --> 00:45:03.420 and computer scientists 909 00:45:04.460 --> 00:45:08.690 who have presented a paper challenging what the U.S. government 910 00:45:08.690 --> 00:45:11.670 and the British government want to do about encryption. 911 00:45:11.670 --> 00:45:14.210 We’ll continue to follow this story, of course. 912 00:45:14.210 --> 00:45:15.370 This is Democracy Now! 913 00:45:15.370 --> 00:45:18.280 When we come back, though, we’re going to Gaza City. 914 00:45:18.280 --> 00:45:22.540 It is the first anniversary of the Israeli assault on Gaza. 915 00:45:22.540 --> 00:46:25.160 Stay with us. 916 00:46:25.900 --> 00:46:29.700 JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We turn now to Gaza, which remains in a state of crisis 917 00:46:29.700 --> 00:46:33.270 one year after the launch of Israel’s 50-day war. 918 00:46:33.270 --> 00:46:36.830 It was the third in Gaza in six years. 919 00:46:36.830 --> 00:46:41.510 Twenty-two hundred Palestinians, including 550 children, died. 920 00:46:41.510 --> 00:46:44.160 On the Israeli side, 73 people were killed, 921 00:46:44.160 --> 00:46:46.320 all but six of them soldiers. 922 00:46:46.320 --> 00:46:49.590 The attack destroyed 12,000 homes in Gaza. 923 00:46:49.590 --> 00:46:52.100 Another 100,000 were damaged. 924 00:46:52.100 --> 00:46:55.700 None of the destroyed homes have been rebuilt so far, 925 00:46:55.700 --> 00:46:59.340 due in part to the ongoing Israeli blockade. 926 00:46:59.340 --> 00:47:00.920 Channel 4 News in Britain 927 00:47:00.920 --> 00:47:06.030 has just posted drone footage showing how much of Gaza is still in ruins. 928 00:47:06.030 --> 00:47:10.310 A recent United Nations report found, quote, "serious violations 929 00:47:10.310 --> 00:47:14.500 of international humanitarian law" which "may amount to war crimes" 930 00:47:14.500 --> 00:47:16.000 by both Israeli forces 931 00:47:16.000 --> 00:47:18.620 and Palestinian militants during the assault. 932 00:47:18.620 --> 00:47:21.430 AMY GOODMAN: The World Bank is warning the Gaza economy 933 00:47:21.430 --> 00:47:22.560 is on the verge of collapse. 934 00:47:22.560 --> 00:47:26.520 Overall unemployment now stands at 43 percent—the highest in the world. 935 00:47:26.520 --> 00:47:32.160 Sixty-eight percent of Gazans aged between 20 and 24 are unemployed. 936 00:47:32.160 --> 00:47:36.200 Two-thirds of Gaza’s 1.8 million residents 937 00:47:36.200 --> 00:47:39.410 are now recipients of U.N. aid in one form or another. 938 00:47:39.410 --> 00:47:41.380 To mark the anniversary of the war, 939 00:47:41.380 --> 00:47:45.880 UNICEF has just released video featuring a 12-year-old girl named Malak 940 00:47:45.880 --> 00:47:48.580 who survived last year’s attack. 941 00:47:48.580 --> 00:47:50.170 MALAK: [translated] 942 00:47:50.170 --> 00:47:51.330 The doors are gone. 943 00:47:51.330 --> 00:47:52.860 The windows are gone. 944 00:47:52.860 --> 00:47:55.280 The walls—it’s as if we’re living on the street. 945 00:48:07.840 --> 00:48:09.310 It’s been a year since the war, 946 00:48:09.310 --> 00:48:13.350 and there’s still not enough water, not enough electricity. 947 00:48:15.080 --> 00:48:18.260 We’ll stay here because we have nowhere to go. 948 00:48:21.740 --> 00:48:23.460 I have nightmares every night. 949 00:48:24.310 --> 00:48:26.190 It wasn’t like that before the war. 950 00:48:28.600 --> 00:48:30.310 I want to become an engineer, 951 00:48:30.310 --> 00:48:35.850 so I can rebuild people’s homes, our house, our neighbor’s house, 952 00:48:38.620 --> 00:48:39.970 so I can help people, 953 00:48:41.430 --> 00:48:42.460 and they can be safe. 954 00:48:43.630 --> 00:48:45.270 AMY GOODMAN: We go now to Gaza City, 955 00:48:45.270 --> 00:48:47.670 where we’re joined by Palestinian journalist Mohammed Omer. 956 00:48:47.670 --> 00:48:50.720 He is author of a new book, Shell-Shocked: 957 00:48:50.720 --> 00:48:53.660 On the Ground Under Israel’s Gaza Assault. 958 00:48:53.660 --> 00:48:57.850 He is past winner of the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism. 959 00:48:57.850 --> 00:48:59.910 It’s great to have you with us, Mohammed. 960 00:48:59.910 --> 00:49:03.470 Talk about this first anniversary of the assaults. 961 00:49:03.470 --> 00:49:06.420 Where does Gaza stand today, where you’re standing? 962 00:49:09.520 --> 00:49:11.430 MOHAMMED OMER: Thank you, Amy. Well, in Gaza, 963 00:49:11.430 --> 00:49:14.750 today we mark the first anniversary of the war last summer, 964 00:49:14.750 --> 00:49:16.330 the 51-day war, 965 00:49:16.330 --> 00:49:21.980 which resulted in the killing of 2,250 Palestinians. 966 00:49:21.980 --> 00:49:23.940 The majority of them are civilians. 967 00:49:24.450 --> 00:49:29.160 Gaza is still living the same situation as right after the war 968 00:49:29.160 --> 00:49:30.250 and during the war. 969 00:49:30.250 --> 00:49:34.380 The only thing that we don’t have, Israeli F-16s overhead flying, 970 00:49:34.380 --> 00:49:37.020 and we don’t have the Israeli drones flying overhead. 971 00:49:37.020 --> 00:49:41.580 But we still have a lot of damages that are caused as a result of the war, 972 00:49:41.580 --> 00:49:43.260 and nothing have been fixed. 973 00:49:43.260 --> 00:49:46.650 Not one single home have been built after the war. 974 00:49:46.650 --> 00:49:49.110 Gaza is still struggling to survive. 975 00:49:49.110 --> 00:49:52.090 People are still struggling to get back to— 976 00:49:52.090 --> 00:49:54.000 to pick their lives from the beginning. 977 00:49:54.000 --> 00:49:59.040 Shejaiya, where I was just yesterday talking to people, 978 00:49:59.040 --> 00:50:00.800 they are still living in ruins. 979 00:50:00.800 --> 00:50:03.780 Some people are still living in prefabricated houses, 980 00:50:03.780 --> 00:50:06.540 and nothing has changed on the ground, really. 981 00:50:06.540 --> 00:50:08.310 The wound is still here. 982 00:50:08.310 --> 00:50:12.200 The international community support to the people of Gaza 983 00:50:12.200 --> 00:50:15.030 is close to nonexistent, unfortunately. 984 00:50:15.530 --> 00:50:19.630 The people of Gaza are hoping that there will be some moves 985 00:50:19.630 --> 00:50:22.520 by the Palestinian Authority 986 00:50:22.520 --> 00:50:26.320 to take Israel into the International Criminal Court in The Hague. 987 00:50:26.320 --> 00:50:29.230 We don’t know if this is going to be happening anytime soon. 988 00:50:29.230 --> 00:50:33.700 But the spirit of the Gazans is quite strong today, 989 00:50:33.700 --> 00:50:36.000 I would say, despite the fact 990 00:50:36.000 --> 00:50:39.250 that they are now mourning those that they have lost, 991 00:50:39.250 --> 00:50:43.830 and they are remembering the days of the war and the agony the days 992 00:50:43.830 --> 00:50:47.200 that they have lived during the month of Ramadan just last year, 993 00:50:47.200 --> 00:50:49.570 when Israel bombed the Gaza Strip 994 00:50:49.570 --> 00:50:51.120 for 51 days. 995 00:50:51.990 --> 00:50:53.180 JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Mohammed, 996 00:50:53.180 --> 00:50:54.380 what about— 997 00:50:54.380 --> 00:50:57.220 why has there been no rebuilding taking place? 998 00:50:57.220 --> 00:50:59.300 What have been the obstacles to that? 999 00:51:01.310 --> 00:51:06.510 MOHAMMED OMER: The United Nations have installed a U.N. reconstruction 1000 00:51:06.510 --> 00:51:07.770 of Gaza mechanism. 1001 00:51:07.770 --> 00:51:10.870 This mechanism has not been working really properly. 1002 00:51:10.870 --> 00:51:14.000 The only thing we get is a few bags of cement for people 1003 00:51:14.000 --> 00:51:16.320 who need to build their homes. 1004 00:51:16.320 --> 00:51:17.320 But only the people 1005 00:51:17.320 --> 00:51:20.380 who had partial homes that have been destroyed, 1006 00:51:20.380 --> 00:51:22.020 they could fix these damages, 1007 00:51:22.020 --> 00:51:23.260 and that’s not enough. 1008 00:51:23.260 --> 00:51:26.350 For example, if someone had lost a living room, 1009 00:51:27.300 --> 00:51:28.530 and then he wants to fix that, 1010 00:51:29.360 --> 00:51:35.290 he is given only a few bags of cement and a few tanks of gravel 1011 00:51:35.290 --> 00:51:36.910 and not so much of steel, 1012 00:51:36.910 --> 00:51:39.740 which Israel does not allow into the Gaza Strip. 1013 00:51:39.740 --> 00:51:41.140 That’s difficult. 1014 00:51:41.140 --> 00:51:46.540 There are so many shortages of supplies, construction materials, 1015 00:51:46.540 --> 00:51:48.560 that Israel is not allowing into the Gaza Strip, 1016 00:51:48.560 --> 00:51:52.660 therefore this is slowing the process of the Gaza reconstruction. 1017 00:51:52.660 --> 00:51:56.290 That’s not only that, also aid distribution to the people. 1018 00:51:56.290 --> 00:51:59.510 There are shortages of aid all the past year. 1019 00:51:59.510 --> 00:52:03.220 And people are still living in very dire conditions, 1020 00:52:03.220 --> 00:52:09.110 particularly in parts of the east of Gaza City and east of Rafah 1021 00:52:09.110 --> 00:52:12.340 and east of Khan Younis and east of the northern part of the Gaza Strip, 1022 00:52:12.340 --> 00:52:18.020 where people are still living on either ruins of demolished homes 1023 00:52:18.020 --> 00:52:19.680 or refabricated homes. 1024 00:52:19.680 --> 00:52:23.530 As I said, the international community has failed to deliver aid. 1025 00:52:23.530 --> 00:52:26.500 It has failed to convince the state of Israel 1026 00:52:26.500 --> 00:52:29.400 to allow construction materials into the Gaza Strip. 1027 00:52:29.400 --> 00:52:30.630 There has been, of course, 1028 00:52:30.630 --> 00:52:33.070 some materials that got into the Gaza Strip. 1029 00:52:33.700 --> 00:52:38.070 The only thing that people who have no means to build their homes, 1030 00:52:38.070 --> 00:52:41.520 they end up selling their cement in the black market, 1031 00:52:41.520 --> 00:52:43.320 because they want to survive, 1032 00:52:43.320 --> 00:52:45.290 because they find that it’s more important 1033 00:52:45.290 --> 00:52:47.810 that they get some food on the table 1034 00:52:47.810 --> 00:52:50.980 and not necessarily to have a shelter over their heads. 1035 00:52:51.820 --> 00:52:53.280 AMY GOODMAN: Mohammed Omer, 1036 00:52:53.280 --> 00:52:56.520 if the camera crew there could give you a hand mic? 1037 00:52:56.520 --> 00:52:59.640 The wind is hitting your microphone sometimes, so it’s sort of— 1038 00:52:59.640 --> 00:53:02.230 it’s making it a little hard to hear what you’re saying. 1039 00:53:02.230 --> 00:53:05.750 But I wanted to ask about you— 1040 00:53:05.750 --> 00:53:07.980 where you’re living right now. 1041 00:53:07.980 --> 00:53:11.910 Your reports from Gaza last year were chilling. 1042 00:53:11.910 --> 00:53:14.160 Are you continuing to live in Gaza? 1043 00:53:17.000 --> 00:53:20.520 MOHAMMED OMER: Yes, I am continuing to live in Gaza, 1044 00:53:20.520 --> 00:53:21.650 and Gaza is my home. 1045 00:53:21.650 --> 00:53:23.060 Gaza is where I’m living. 1046 00:53:23.060 --> 00:53:24.590 Gaza is where I will stay. 1047 00:53:24.590 --> 00:53:26.950 I don’t have anywhere else that I want to go, 1048 00:53:26.950 --> 00:53:30.200 even though I am lucky enough that I have got the Dutch nationality. 1049 00:53:30.200 --> 00:53:32.710 I could be traveling outside and living outside, 1050 00:53:32.710 --> 00:53:35.680 but I choose to be here and to tell the story of my people, 1051 00:53:35.680 --> 00:53:39.460 to tell the story of the people in Gaza and to document what’s happened, 1052 00:53:39.460 --> 00:53:42.380 because the spirit of the Gazan people 1053 00:53:42.380 --> 00:53:47.120 needs people who are able to tell the story in a very honest way. 1054 00:53:47.120 --> 00:53:50.360 I don’t rely on international journalists 1055 00:53:50.360 --> 00:53:53.690 to come only there in the Gaza Strip seasonal, 1056 00:53:53.690 --> 00:53:56.560 when there is blood and when there is destruction. 1057 00:53:56.560 --> 00:54:00.860 But there is also a lot of steadfastness and beautiful things in Gaza 1058 00:54:00.860 --> 00:54:02.120 that we need to focus on. 1059 00:54:02.120 --> 00:54:05.590 The spirit of the Gazans is something which I am very proud of 1060 00:54:05.590 --> 00:54:08.020 and I want to continue as a Palestinian journalist 1061 00:54:08.020 --> 00:54:10.070 to report on and to reflect on. 1062 00:54:10.070 --> 00:54:12.770 This is something which I find extremely important, 1063 00:54:12.770 --> 00:54:16.660 especially after seeing the life of people in Gaza 1064 00:54:16.660 --> 00:54:19.420 and how much they have suffered. 1065 00:54:19.420 --> 00:54:27.100 Still, they are living under a very good circumstances despite all the obstacles, 1066 00:54:27.100 --> 00:54:31.290 because they simply have the good spirits to continue their life 1067 00:54:31.290 --> 00:54:35.520 and not to give up to the depression around them. 1068 00:54:35.520 --> 00:54:40.440 JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I wanted to ask you about the U.N.’s refugee aid agency in Gaza. 1069 00:54:40.440 --> 00:54:43.380 The director, Robert Turner, is leaving, 1070 00:54:43.380 --> 00:54:45.210 and sometime this month. 1071 00:54:45.210 --> 00:54:48.110 Last week, in an interview about his tenure in Gaza, 1072 00:54:48.110 --> 00:54:51.720 he said housing reconstruction in the area could begin soon. 1073 00:54:52.680 --> 00:54:55.240 ROBERT TURNER: Finally, last week, 1074 00:54:55.240 --> 00:54:58.940 the minister of public works and housing announced that technical issues 1075 00:54:58.940 --> 00:55:02.630 related to total reconstruction had been resolved, 1076 00:55:02.630 --> 00:55:05.610 that there now would be what’s called the residential stream 1077 00:55:05.610 --> 00:55:07.410 for the Gaza reconstruction mechanism, 1078 00:55:07.410 --> 00:55:10.160 which would allow for the reconstruction of homes. 1079 00:55:10.160 --> 00:55:13.500 We immediately, the next day, submitted the first batch 1080 00:55:13.500 --> 00:55:16.170 of names of refugee families that had been identified, 1081 00:55:16.170 --> 00:55:19.600 had their building permits ready and their building designs ready. 1082 00:55:19.600 --> 00:55:21.180 Those were approved yesterday. 1083 00:55:21.180 --> 00:55:22.500 And we’re signing undertakings, 1084 00:55:22.500 --> 00:55:24.650 and we’re trying to put money in their pockets next week. 1085 00:55:25.230 --> 00:55:27.370 JUAN GONZÁLEZ: That was Robert Turner, 1086 00:55:27.370 --> 00:55:32.200 who’s leaving as director of the U.N.’s refugee aid agency in Gaza. 1087 00:55:32.200 --> 00:55:33.730 Your response? 1088 00:55:37.990 --> 00:55:41.090 MOHAMMED OMER: Well, I don’t know what we really are expecting 1089 00:55:41.090 --> 00:55:42.630 from the international community. 1090 00:55:42.630 --> 00:55:45.990 I have a great respect for Mr. Robert Turner, 1091 00:55:45.990 --> 00:55:47.560 who has done a great job 1092 00:55:47.560 --> 00:55:50.340 running the UNRWA operations in the Gaza Strip. 1093 00:55:51.040 --> 00:55:54.450 Gaza is still living under the most difficult circumstances. 1094 00:55:54.450 --> 00:55:56.070 As I said, you know, 1095 00:55:56.070 --> 00:55:59.720 the international community is not really able to convince Israel. 1096 00:55:59.720 --> 00:56:03.180 I mean, one year, we have received a lot of promises 1097 00:56:03.180 --> 00:56:05.910 that people will be receiving construction materials 1098 00:56:05.910 --> 00:56:07.070 into the Gaza Strip, 1099 00:56:07.070 --> 00:56:08.850 but so far people are fed up. 1100 00:56:08.850 --> 00:56:11.710 It’s been one year and only promises that we are receiving. 1101 00:56:11.710 --> 00:56:15.720 So, why did this promise come only now, after a year? 1102 00:56:15.720 --> 00:56:20.080 It’s only after a year after the destruction of Gaza 1103 00:56:20.080 --> 00:56:22.110 and the war and the damages that are caused. 1104 00:56:22.610 --> 00:56:26.490 People have survived a very dreadful winter 1105 00:56:26.490 --> 00:56:28.510 in the different parts of the Gaza Strip, 1106 00:56:28.510 --> 00:56:31.700 simply because they don’t have the proper housing. 1107 00:56:31.700 --> 00:56:35.050 Have we seen what happened in Shejaiya refugee camp and areas 1108 00:56:35.570 --> 00:56:36.710 where they— 1109 00:56:36.710 --> 00:56:39.480 that sustained several rockets and missiles? 1110 00:56:39.480 --> 00:56:43.780 Did we see how much the children suffered the cold weather and winter? 1111 00:56:43.780 --> 00:56:47.320 Why the international community allowed the people to survive that long? 1112 00:56:47.320 --> 00:56:51.160 And now we are saying that Israel is going to be improving this. 1113 00:56:51.160 --> 00:56:52.260 People on the ground, 1114 00:56:52.260 --> 00:56:55.710 they don’t trust that Israel is going to improve the situation at all. 1115 00:56:55.710 --> 00:56:58.080 I don’t see this is going to be changing, 1116 00:56:58.720 --> 00:57:01.210 unless there is more international pressure on Israel 1117 00:57:01.210 --> 00:57:04.260 to allow construction materials into the Gaza Strip. 1118 00:57:04.260 --> 00:57:08.120 The U.N. mechanism is unfortunately failing to deliver 1119 00:57:08.120 --> 00:57:10.360 what is needed to the Palestinians in Gaza, 1120 00:57:10.360 --> 00:57:13.850 because the U.N. is simply not able to convince the state 1121 00:57:13.850 --> 00:57:18.400 of Israel of the importance of rebuilding the Gaza. 1122 00:57:18.400 --> 00:57:20.840 When Palestinians having no homes 1123 00:57:20.840 --> 00:57:23.050 and there is no hope, what do you expect? 1124 00:57:23.050 --> 00:57:24.410 I mean, there is no hope, really. 1125 00:57:24.410 --> 00:57:26.120 AMY GOODMAN: Mohammed Omer, we only have a minute to go, 1126 00:57:26.120 --> 00:57:28.220 and I wanted to ask you about the Islamic State 1127 00:57:28.220 --> 00:57:29.720 issuing a warning to Hamas 1128 00:57:29.720 --> 00:57:31.370 that they’re going to take over Gaza. 1129 00:57:31.370 --> 00:57:32.810 How real is this? 1130 00:57:35.710 --> 00:57:37.520 MOHAMMED OMER: This is not real. It’s not going to happen, 1131 00:57:37.520 --> 00:57:40.470 because I believe and many people believe that Hamas 1132 00:57:40.470 --> 00:57:41.770 is much stronger on the ground 1133 00:57:41.770 --> 00:57:42.780 than the Islamic State, 1134 00:57:42.780 --> 00:57:44.340 those people who have issued this. 1135 00:57:44.340 --> 00:57:45.960 I have talked to Hamas officials, 1136 00:57:45.960 --> 00:57:50.460 and they informed me that those people have a psycho distress, 1137 00:57:50.460 --> 00:57:55.360 and they are people who do not know what they are talking about. 1138 00:57:55.360 --> 00:57:58.030 They are just a bunch of people who are not necessarily 1139 00:57:58.030 --> 00:58:00.530 able to translate what they have said on the ground. 1140 00:58:00.530 --> 00:58:03.470 I believe Hamas is much stronger on the ground, 1141 00:58:03.470 --> 00:58:07.020 that the Islamic State cannot turn Gaza into al-Yarmouk, 1142 00:58:07.020 --> 00:58:08.880 as the Islamic State said. That’s one. 1143 00:58:08.880 --> 00:58:13.020 And I believe also that the environment in Gaza does not allow 1144 00:58:13.020 --> 00:58:17.720 an Islamic State-like groups to spread in the Gaza Strip. 1145 00:58:17.720 --> 00:58:20.310 People don’t want this type of mentality in the Gaza Strip. 1146 00:58:20.310 --> 00:58:22.210 We have seen that across the Gaza Strip. 1147 00:58:22.810 --> 00:58:24.740 People who are supporting the Islamic State, 1148 00:58:24.740 --> 00:58:27.770 they have received resistance from people 1149 00:58:27.770 --> 00:58:30.130 and from the Palestinian police in the Gaza Strip. 1150 00:58:30.130 --> 00:58:33.320 So this is something which I doubt is going to be happening anytime soon. 1151 00:58:33.320 --> 00:58:34.520 AMY GOODMAN: Mohammed Omer, we have to leave it there. 1152 00:58:34.520 --> 00:58:35.710 MOHAMMED OMER: The Gazans are still continuing— 1153 00:58:35.710 --> 00:58:37.610 AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you very much for being with us, 1154 00:58:37.610 --> 00:58:40.810 award-winning Palestinian journalist, reporting in Gaza City. 1155 00:58:40.810 --> 00:58:44.880 His book, Shell-Shocked: On the Ground Under Israel’s Gaza Assault, 1156 00:58:44.880 --> 00:58:46.170 has just been published. 1157 00:58:46.170 --> 00:58:55.510 He tweets at the handle @Mogaza.