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Welcome to Democracy Now Democracy Now dot org The War and Peace Report I mean the good men in Iran at least 22 people are dead hundreds have been arrested as authorities use tear gas and water cannons to quell the largest anti-government protest since 2009 the protests which began last week and quickly spread to cities across Iran are targeting high unemployment income inequality housing costs protesters have also targeted the Iranian supreme leader Ali how many and President Hassan Rouhani on Sunday Rouhani said Iranians have the right to protest but said violence would be met with a firm response me home shake. I ask all the security forces the police forces who have not behaved in a violent way towards the people I ask them to exercise their restraints that nobody is her whoever at the same time in order to preserve our country our nation our tranquility and peace for all of this we must be firm and act decisively President Donald Trump responded to the protest tweeting quote the people of Iran are finally acting against the brutal and corrupt Iranian regime all the money that President Obama so foolishly gave them went into terrorism and into their pockets the people have little food big inflation and no human rights the us is watching Trump tweeted Trump's tweets drew a rebuke from the Iranian president Rouhani who noted Trump called Iran a quote terrorist nation like few others unquote in a speech last year President Trump rang in the New Year with his son Barron and 1st lady Malani at Trump's Mara Lago golf resort in Florida where Club members paid $600.00 apiece for a chance to join the president for a dinner gala speaking briefly to reporters outside the party Trump boasted about Republican tax cuts for the wealthy and coming and opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling we're off to a very good start as you know with the great tax cuts. And why are you getting rid of the individual mandate which is very very popular as you know. But we're going to have a tremendous year Meanwhile Pakistan summoned u.s. Ambassador David Hale Monday to explain president Trump's 1st tweet of the new year early Monday Trump tweeted quote The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33000000000 dollars in aid over the last 15 years and they've given us nothing but lies and deceit thinking of our leaders as fools they give safe haven to the terrorists we heard in Afghanistan with little help no more he tweeted North Korean leader Kim Jong un declared his nation a fully fledged nuclear power Monday saying in a televised New Year's Day speech he is prepared to launch a nuclear attack against his enemies including South Korea Japan or the United States. The entire United States is within range of our nuclear weapon a stunt and a nuclear button is always on my desk this is reality not a threat Kim said North Korea would now focus on mass producing nuclear warheads and ballistic missiles for operational deployment Meanwhile Kim made an apparent peace overtures towards South Korea saying he might send a delegation to next month's Winter Olympics and Kyung Chang South Korean president will enjoy and welcome the gesture saying he's asked North Korea to open high level talks next Tuesday to discuss the Olympics and North Korea's nuclear program and the Democratic Republic of Congo security forces have killed at least 7 people amidst protests over Joseph Kabila refusal to step down as president among those attacked by police were Catholic protesters who were met with tear gas and concussion grenades as they March through the capital Kinshasa following Sunday Mass president Camilla's term expired in December 2016 and our Congress constitution he's ineligible to seek a 3rd term but Kabila has delayed a new election to piss of his successor until the. For this is Mammon Louis a protester and can Chaka. We are tired we have never had peace in this country and nothing works we don't eat well the president could be still young and you can leave his place to someone else and come back later if you want he's worked a lot already it's enough we don't want to go in this on Sunday Congolese authorities cut off Internet access and text messaging services in parts of the country in a bid to stifle dissent in the Gaza Strip Palestinians hold a funeral March Saturday for a 20 year old man killed by Israeli forces during Friday protests against President from Statler a nation of Islam as Israel's capital at least 13 Palestinians have been killed in protests since Trump's declaration elsewhere Israeli forces fired tear gas at Palestinians in West Bank cities including Bethlehem Jericho and Ramallah injuring at least 20 protesters The protests came as Hamas fired 3 rockets into southern Israel prompting Israeli tanks and a war plane to fire on southern Gaza there were no reports of injuries in those exchanges Meanwhile an Israeli military court has indicted 16 year old Palestinian ahead to Mimi on 12 charges including throwing stones and aggravated assault after a viral video showed her slapping a soldier in the occupied West Bank the incident came after Israeli troops shot to Mimi's 14 year old brother in the head with a rubber coated steel bullet and fired tear gas canisters into her family's home mando Weiss reports the soldier actually slapped the 16 year old girl 1st causing her to slap back on Monday Israeli prosecutors asked a military judge to keep to Mimi jailed while she awaits trial and Afghanistan a bomb blast ripped through a crowd of mourners in the eastern city of Jalalabad Sunday killing at least 15 people were. Ending more than a dozen others there was no claim of responsibility for the attack which targeted the funeral of a local government official the attack follows last week's bombing of a Shiite cultural center and Kabul which killed 41 people and injured dozens more and Syria government forces are continuing a massive bombing campaign on the rebel held Damascus suburb of cool video uploaded to social radio in the Years Day shows massive explosions ripping apart entire buildings in eastern good to which has been besieged by Syrian government forces since 2013 there are currently about 400000 civilians in the eastern theater where supplies of medicine food and water are dwindling in Egypt gunmen opened fire on worshippers at a Coptic Christian Church in Cairo Friday killing 11 people and an attack that was claimed by ISIS Friday salt was the latest on Egypt's Christian minority it follows an attack on a Soofi mosque in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula in November that killed 305 people in China an estimated 10000 people marched through the streets of Hong Kong Monday protesting a crackdown on free speech and on the city's art commie under the One Country 2 Systems policy the New Year's Day protest capped a year that saw Chinese authorities jail pro-democracy activists and oust elected officials in Denver Colorado a gunman used a rifle to fire at least 100 rounds Saturday in an ambush style attack at police who were responding to a domestic disturbance the suspect Iraq veteran Matthew real shot and killed sheriff's deputies Zachary Parrish and injured 4 other officers as well as 2 civilians the shooting occurred on the final day of a year that saw more than $300.00 mass shootings including the deadliest in modern u.s. History in Las Vegas which left $58.00 people dead as well as the gunman and more than $500.00 injured. In Hollywood more than $1000.00 prominent actresses writers directors have launched a project aimed at combating sexual abuse and harassment in the film industry the time's up campaign follows on the heels of a torrent of allegations of rape sexual assault and harassment against powerful men that began with reports into sexual abuse by movie mogul Harvey Weinstein the initiative seeks to raise $13000000.00 for a legal defense fund to help working class women bring sexual abuse charges it also seeks to bring gender parity to Hollywood Studios and talent agencies while penalizing companies that tolerate persistent harassment The campaign also seeks to end the use of non-disclosure agreements that silence victims among those participating are director Ava Duvernay producer Kathleen Kennedy and actors Natalie Portman Reese Witherspoon Cate Blanchett Eva Longoria and America Ferraro. Pro Publica reports the trumpet ministration is working to add a question on citizenship to the 2020 census a move that immigrants rights groups say would suppress participation in the census by immigrants altering how congressional districts are drawn and cutting off federal dollars to areas with large immigrant populations and a statement the need to go to the president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights said quote This requests suggests that at least some of the administration are trying to jeopardize the accuracy of the 2020 census and every state and every community by deterring many people from responding making the data collected in this crucial once a decade operation less accurate and useful for all of us in California sales of legal recreational marijuana began with the new year on Monday as about $100.00 dispensary is open their doors in major cities under state law adults 21 and over can possess up to an ounce of marijuana and can grow up to 6 plants at home marijuana sales are now allowed along the entire west coast including Alaska under federal law marijuana remains a prohibited schedule one drug in the same category as heroin and l.s.d. And about 4 and a half 1000000 u.s. Workers will see a pay raise beginning this week after $18.00 states in 1000 cities increase their minimum wages the increases range from $35.00 extra cents per hour to an extra dollar per hour in Maine and Michigan most of the increases came about as part of voter back ballot measures or our new state laws and those are some of the headlines This is Democracy Now Democracy Now dot org The War and Peace Report I mean he could men and Juan Gonzalez welcome to all of our listeners and viewers around the country and around the world. Today we spend the hour with Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Glenn Greenwald as we look back at some of the major stories of 2017 and we look ahead to 2018 we begin with President Trump's foreign policy in Iran where at least 22 people are dead and hundreds have been arrested as authorities used to your gas and water cannons to quell the largest anti-government protests since 2009 the protests which began last week and quickly spread to cities across Iran or targeting the country's high unemployment income inequality and housing costs or protests as I've also railed against Iranian supreme leader Ali how many and President Hassan Rouhani on Sunday Rouhani said Iranians have the right to protest but said violence would be met with a firm response. Shake. I ask all the security forces the police forces who have not behaved in a violent way towards the people I asked them to exercise their restraints that nobody is her whoever at the same time in order to preserve our country our nation our tranquility and peace for all of this we must be firm and act decisively President Donald Trump responded to the protests Monday and one of his 1st streets of the new year writing quote Iran is falling fowling at every level despite the terrible deal made with them by the Obama administration the great Iranian people have been repressed for many years they're hungry for food and for freedom along with human rights the wealth of Iran is being looted time for change trumped tweeted Meanwhile the Iranian president Rouhani rebuffed president Trump's comments . In. Dismay and Donald Trump in America who today wants to sympathize with our people is forgotten that just a few months ago he labeled the Iranian nation a terrorist nation this person who is against the Iranian nation to his core he wants to feel sorry for Iranians there is a question here it is open to suspicion. And President Trump just tweeted the people of Iran are finally acting against the brutal and corrupt Iranian regime all of the money that President Obama so foolishly gave them went into terrorism and into their pockets the people have little food big inflation and no human rights the us is watching Trump tweeted just a few minutes ago well for more we're joined from Rio de Janeiro Brazil by Glenn Greenwald Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and one of the founding editors of the intercept Glenn 1st of all Happy New Year I hope the news for you this year is a good At least better can you respond 8 1st to what is happening now in Iran this outbreak break of protests that surprise clearly not only the Iranian leadership when it began at the end of last week but people all over the world. So Iran is a mixed really sophisticated and complex country of 80000000 people and I think that when it comes to analyzing exactly what's driving the protest in Iran we ought to defer to Iranians people who are steeped in Iran civil society and how to avoid the sort of overnight experts who tend to pop up in the West and opine on these matters from afar without much knowledge even within the commentary tech area of Iranian do you see conflicting accounts about whether the primary impetus is economic deprivation or agitation for greater political rights whether it's demands of the government reform or whether it's an actual desire to change the government so I think really all we can say from a far is that protesting one's own government without being shot in the street or arrested is a universal human right and we ought to have solidarity with people who are agitating to make their government better but what I do think we can have to comment on is the posture of the United States government and Western governments in terms of foreign policy and how they're responding to the events in Tehran that I think we can comment on meaningfully and should I think it's worth remembering that for a long time it has been the top item on the foreign policy agenda of lots of factions to have regime change in Iran going back 220052006 the neo cons slogan after they toppled Saddam Hussein was a real man go to Tehran they were really most eager to facilitate regime change in Iran and so there's a lot of interest in terms of agitating for instability in Iran from people who are pretending to care about the Iranian people but who actually can't couldn't care less about the Iranian people and you can start with Donald Trump who as you just noted tweeted his grave concern for the welfare of Iran. The same president who not more than 3 months ago announced a ban on Iranians from coming to the United States he's somebody who has aligned with the world's worst most savage dictators including in Saudi Arabia and other places around the world and lots of Western commentators who are posturing about being concerned about human rights in Iran are people in think tanks funded by other dictatorships and repressive tyrants in the same region so I think we ought to be extremely skeptical when it comes to people like Donald Trump or people in Washington think tanks pretending that they're wanting to intervene in Iran out of concern for human rights or for the welfare of the Iranian people I think when it comes to foreign policy the best thing we can hope for is that the United States stays out of what is a matter of political dispute inside Iran. Glenn and you mentioned Saudi Arabia it's not just Saudi Arabia but we look at Egypt or the Philippines or all countries for which Trump has had praise for the for the dictators and the and the authoritarian leaders of these countries and now to suddenly at lightning speed come up with the comments about the the rights of the of the Iranian people to rise up against their leaders as it is it is shouldn't be surprising for Trump and certainly gives food for thought for anyone who thinks that this administration has any concerns about human rights. Yeah I mean 1st of all the centerpiece of u.s. Foreign policy really in the wake of World War 2 through the Cold War and even with the fall of the Soviet Union has been to align with and to embrace and to support dictators tyrants and repressive regimes as long as they serve the interest of the United States so anybody in their right mind to ever take seriously pronouncements from official Washington that they're motivated by anger over oppression or a defense of the political rights of people in other countries is incredibly naive at best but that generously just this week won there was an amazingly the that political published which was a State Department memo written to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson that explicitly said what has been long obvious but usually isn't put into words so clear that human rights is not actually something the u.s. Government believes in it is a cudgel that it uses to undermine and bash countries that don't serve its interests they used he didn't see actions of human rights abuses to undermine and weaken governments that are contrary to their agenda like in Iran while of the same time this memo said this isn't me saying this is the State Department memo saying they overlook in even sanction repressive behavior on the part of their allies and it goes beyond the Trump ministration I mean if you look at how official Washington works in terms of say the leading think tanks in Washington the Brookings Institution for example which has become incredibly popular among liberals and the Trump air is funded with tens of millions of dollars by the government of Qatar one of the most repressive regimes on the planet the Center for American Progress which is probably the leading Democratic Party think tank in the United States is funded in one of their biggest funders is the government of the United Arab Emirates So when you hear people like that or people on the trumpet ministration. Who have aligned themselves with the world's most savage dictators for decades who are funded by tyrants pretend that what they're motivated by is a desire to liberate people from oppression you should instantly know that there are other agendas going on and the reason that matters so much is because it's not just we're exposing hypocrisy or deceit it's because what someone's motives are when they intervene in the affairs of other countries determines the outcome of what happened in Libya where people like Anne-Marie Slaughter and Hillary Clinton and John Kerry pretended to be motivated by the interest of the Libyan people once Gadhafi was killed and was removed from office which is what the real goal was everybody forgot about Libya allowed Libya to fall into utter chaos militia rule the slave trade has returned there this is raining because when you don't actually care about the interest of the people of the country you're intervening in your only pretending to is the pretext for it it really alters the outcome in ways that are never desirable and finally the significance of what's happening in Iran for protests around the world the message that it sending something that president might not be as interested in and what it means for the nuclear deal the Iran nuclear deal that Trump is trying to pull out of. Right so I think that one of the interesting aspects of this kind of sin a call and manipulative behavior when it comes to pretending to side with protesters when in reality the agenda is much different is that it can actually in a very unintended way spark protests and and the right of rebellion elsewhere and that's why I said at the start although we shouldn't opine on the internal affairs of Iran from a distance because it's too complicated in and and kind of opaque for us to really meaningfully do that what we can and should do is affirm the right of people everywhere to protest against their government without being imprisoned without being detained without being shot at with tear gas canisters and without being killed all of which is happening in Iran and so when Donald Trump even has manipulate it as it is up whole of this value I do think it can spark protest and this kind of ether of reform and rebellion and people going out onto the streets and demanding government treatment far beyond what what he might intend here in the United States of course there has been probably the most robust protest against the trumpet ministration that we've seen in the United States in probably a few decades he doesn't seem to like protests very much in the United States his Justice Department is prosecuting protesters but I do think that when you see things like what's going on in Iran really poor people without any political rights in the streets standing up against a repressive government it can inspire people around the world to do the same. We're going to break and when we come back well we are going to have a wide ranging discussion that we want to begin with your latest piece Facebook says it's deleting accounts at the direction of the u.s. And Israeli governments where speaking with the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist one of the founding editors of the intercept Glenn Greenwald he's joining us from Rio de Janeiro Purcell Stay with us. Brett as a proud supporter of Katie you are a sponsor of part of democracy no bread because of whole grain specialty breads pastries and a warm spot for morning coffee or a healthy lunch is located at the intersection of County Road $250.00 in Florida room. Bred to be reached by phone at night 702475100 Brett Not Bombs working. On the mouse click track down the. Number of. People paper. Thanks Frank p. And I think tabulated he was born in the eighty's pretty like trading card like waiting for a comment like you. Teleport in through trauma teleport to the cabbie wrap my head I'm on a header here on Democracy Now I mean he could manage with Gonzales but we're spending the hour with Glenn Greenwald his new report for the interceptors about Face Book censorship it's titled Facebook says it is deleting accounts at the direction of the us and Israeli governments in it he writes that Facebook representatives met with the Israeli government to determine which Facebook accounts of Palestinians should be deleted on the grounds that they constituted quote incitement alternatively Israelis have virtually free rein to post whatever they want about Palestinians and calls by Israelis for the killing of Palestinians are commonplace on Facebook and largely remain undisturbed that includes a recent Facebook campaign calling for vengeance against Arabs in retribution for the killing of 3 Israeli teenagers all of this follows president trumps recognition of Jerusalem this Israel's capital n.s.a. Israeli right wing's push now to deny any attempt at a 2 state solution today's New York Times reports quote Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is part. For the 1st time has urged the annexation of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and the nation's top legal officers pressed to extend Israeli law into occupied territory in addition the Israeli parliament after a late night debate voted early Tuesday to annex stiff new obstacles to any potential land for peace deal involving Jerusalem again that's in the New York Times today well for more we continue our conversation with Glenn Greenwald the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and founding editor of the intercept so your piece is headlined Facebook says it's delayed in accounts at the direction of the u.s. And Israeli governments can you explain exactly which accounts are being deleted and how you found this out. So within the last week Facebook deleted the Facebook account and the Instagram account Facebook is the owner of Instagram the president of the Chechen Republic Rahm's and who is a pretty monster and monstrous tyrant. I don't think there's much doubt about that there are very credible reports that he's at least acquiescing to if not presiding over the mass detention and torture and in some cases killing of l.g.b. Tease within his Republic he has killed and kidnapped and tortured political dissidents and he basically has free reign over the Republican although he ultimately reports to Moscow but he has essentially autonomy over how to run the Chechen Republic he's an awful tyrant there's no doubt about that so when Facebook decided decided suddenly to delete the accounts of the head of this state who had a total of 4000000 followers they didn't say the reason we're doing it is because he's an awful tyrant who has done all the things I just said what they said was the reason we did it is because he was placed on a list that the United States government state department manages and the treasury department manages in which he is now the target of sanctions which means that under the law we Facebook are obligated to obey the dictates of the United States government and no longer allow him to use our services now this rationale is sort of dubious there are other people who are on the same list like the president of Venezuela Nicolas Maduro and many of his top officials who continue to use Facebook quite actively But what the rationale actually means if you think about it is that the u.s. Government according to Facebook now has the power to dictate to Facebook who it is who's allowed to use that platform to communicate with the world and who will be blocked and who will be banned and you know you can take the position on the one hand that thing. But there's a private company and it has the right to determine who uses its platform which is true the 1st Amendment technically doesn't apply to Facebook but Silicon Valley giants have become so powerful and massive I would say in particular Google Facebook and Apple they're really much more akin now to public utilities to all of their own private nation states than they are to just average corporations that have competition and the like so that the power to eliminate somebody from Facebook is almost the power to eliminate them from the Internet and to hear Facebook say it's the u.s. Government the trumpet ministration that has the power to tell us who will use Facebook and who can't is extremely chilling especially since already last year they proved that they were willing to do the same thing when it came to the Israeli government as you just mentioned Amy there's an article in The New York Times today detailing that the Israeli right which basically is the dominant faction in Israel is finally being open about the fact that their real goal is not a 2 state solution or a peace process but is the annexation of the West Bank and these politicians who are now openly advocating this are the same ones who summoned Facebook executives in October of last year to a meeting and directed them to delete the accounts of a huge number of Palestinian activists journalists commentators and Facebook obeyed in almost every one of the cases even though as you indicated Israelis remain free to say the most heinous and awful things about Palestinians including an incitement So you see Facebook now collaborating with the most powerful governments on the planet the Israelis and the Americans in particular to determine who is allowed to speak and who isn't and what messages are allowed to be conveyed and what ones aren't and it's hard to think of anything more threatening or menacing to Internet freedom and the promise of what the Internet was supposed to be then behavior like this and Glenn is there any indication of the people of the Palestinians who were targeted by the Israeli government that any of them were under u.s. Sanctions that was a. The reason for the for the United States to support this or was this basically an Israeli government Facebook. Conflict where the Israeli government insisted if Facebook wanted to continue operating within Israel in the occupied territories I would have to do this. It was basically just pure bullying and coercion on the part of the Israeli government what they did was they said to Facebook we're going to enact a law that requires you to delete the accounts of the whatever accounts our government identifies as guilty of an incitement and the only way that you can avoid us enacting this law and this last was going to say Facebook's failure to obey will result in massive fines and ultimately could result in the blocking of Facebook in Israel the way that China blocks Facebook and other companies that don't comply with that censorship borders the only way the Israeli government said to Facebook that you can avoid this law is if you voluntarily obey the orders that we give you about who should be deleted and Facebook whether because they were driven by business interests of not wanting to lose the Israeli market or ideology that they support the Israeli viewpoint of the world whichever one of those motives might be driving them or whatever mixture of motives complied with the Israeli demands and I think this is really the critical point that I hope everybody listening thinks about is there is this growing movement now on the left in Europe and in the United States to support censorship as a solution to this kind of growing far right movement well let's just ask and plead with Silicon Valley executives to keep. The fascist off line or let's hope our government will not allow fascist to speak and aside from the fact that I think it's incredibly counterproductive because generally when you try and censor movement you only make them stronger the promise of this idea as we can see in this case is really warped I mean the idea that Silicon Valley executives or u.s. Government officials are going to use censorship power to help and protect marginalized groups I think is absurd in almost every case when we see these entities using censorship powers they're using them to tell. Her get marginalized groups and serve the most powerful That's why Facebook blocks Palestinians but not Israelis because Palestinians have no power and Israelis do and the more we empower these entities to censor the more we're going to be in danger and marginalized groups because ultimately that's who's going to end up being suppressed Well Glenn Greenwald You had this amazing moment in the House and the Senate recently the hearings with the heads of Google and Twitter and Facebook where you had this demand on the part of the Republicans and the Democrats for censorship the Democrats using the pretext of Russia saying why didn't you delete these accounts. Yeah I mean this idea that somehow our political salvation rests and placing into the hands of these already of seemly powerful all Silicon Valley executives the further power which they don't even want to have to determine what political messages are allowed to be heard on the Internet and which ones aren't to determine who is allowed to communicate on the Internet and who isn't is incredibly menacing just last week Twitter promulgated the new policy in response to exactly the kind of demands Amy that you were just describing and this is their policy they said you were no longer allowed to use Twitter to advocate or incite violence except if you want the violence to be done by governments or military so you're allowed to go on Twitter now and say I demand that the u.s. Government nuke North Korea out of existence you're allowed to go on Twitter and say I want the Israeli government to incinerate every person in Gaza but what you're not allowed to do is to go on Twitter and say as a Muslim I believe that it's the responsibility of Muslims to fight back against aggression or as a North Korean I want to be able to defend against imperialism so it under the guise of begging Silicon Valley to save us from bad political speech what is actually happen is that the most powerful factions are empowered to say whatever they want and the least powerful factions are the ones who end up censored and that's always no matter how well intentioned it is the result of these kind of calls for censorship and in the end of your piece you talk about with Facebook every day or censor American politicians or journalists who use social media to call for violence against America's enemies answer that question Glenn Greenwald. Right so if you look at for example Facebook's rationale for why they censored the president of the Chechen Republic they said we had to do it because he was put on a list of people who were sanctioned by the u.s. Government Well just last month the Iranian government issued a list of sanctions that included a whole bunch of Canadian officials the Russian government has issued a list of people who are saying should that include u.s. Business people and u.s. Officials as well obviously in a 1000000 years Facebook would never honor the sanctions lest the Russian government or the Iranian government and remove u.s. Officials or Canadian business people it's purely one sided it's only serving the dictates of powerful governments and you know you can go on to Twitter or you can go on Facebook pretty much every single day and see calls for extreme amounts of violence to be directed against Iranians to be directed against people in Gaza or the West Bank to be directed against people in the Muslim world and obviously Facebook and Twitter are never going to remove that kind of incitement of violence because that's consistent with the policy of Western governments the only people who are going to be removed are people who are otherwise voiceless who are opposed to Western foreign policy and that's why it's so ill advised so dangerous no matter how well intentioned to call for Silicon Valley executives or the u.s. Government to start censoring and regulating the kind of political speech we can hear and can express but I want to turn to a topic that you've written quite a bit about the the ongoing the Moller investigation over possible collusion between the trumpet administration and and Russia in attempting to influence the 2016 election and you've been especially critical of how the corporate and commercial media have dealt with this issue especially the the now debunk supposed exposé that c.n.n. Issued several months ago about an e-mail that seemed to prove that collusion Could you talk about that and how you're seeing this as we're heading into 2018 and the continued development of the mother investigation. Sure so I think a couple of things are important to point out which is that from the beginning I think everybody certainly include myself in this and everybody that I've read and heard has always said that it's obviously possible that the Russian government was the primary culprit when it came to the hacking of the e-mails of John Podesta and the d.n.c. It's certainly something that the United States and the Russians do to one another and have done to one another for decades and so nobody should put it past Putin or the Russians to have done it in this case and it's certainly also possible that there were people in the trunk campaign who became aware after the fact that this was done and who somehow helped to decide how this information was going to be disseminated but I think given the implications that this issue has in terms Number One of the relationship between 2 extremely dangerous nuclear armed powers which is Moscow and Washington who on many occasions in the past have almost obliterated the planet through an exchange of nuclear weapons and who are in many places in the world at loggerheads with one another as well as the climate in Washington in which any kind of interaction with the Russians now becomes something that is a ground for suspicion what I've always says and we have to be very careful as a journalist in the citizens to make sure that we don't get our head of ourselves in terms of the claims that we're making that we have to adhere to the evidence that is available before we decide that official claims from the CIA and the n.s.a. And the f.b.i. Agencies with a long history of lying and deceit and error before we accept them as true. And one of the things that we've seen over the past year or year and a half is large media outlets in case after case after case after case acting very recklessly publishing stories that turned out to be completely false that needed to be retracted that got discredited which is the thing that then enables Donald Trump to try and encourage people not to trust the media so no matter your views on Russia and I think it's really dangerous that u.s. And Russian relations are probably at their worst point as they've been since the fall of of the Soviet Union something that nobody should think is a good thing despite all the claims that that that Trump was going to serve the interest of the Russians the reality is the 2 countries are great tensions no matter your views on that I think that we all have an interest in making sure that our political discourse and that our media reports are grounded in reality and fact and while Muller thus far has produced 4 separate indictments they all have been for either a lying to the f.b.i. Or for money laundering none of them have alleged any actual criminal collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians and so what I've said all along and what I still say is that we ought to let an investigation proceed till the end look at all of the evidence and only then reach conclusions about what happened because it's very dangerous to use supposition and speculation and all kind of guesswork to make accusations that can have really serious consequences and I think we've seen the dangers of that over the last year and I wanted to go 'd to this issue of collusion with Russia that was also a key focus and President Trump's recent rare interview with reporter Michael Schmidt of The New York Times which took place in the grill room trance Golf Club in West Palm Beach Florida near the beginning of the interview Trump launched into a discussion about Russian collusion The Times quotes Trump is saying quote virtually every Democrat has said there's no collusion there's no clue. And even these committees that have been set up if you look at what's going on and in fact what it it's done is it's really angered the base and made the base stronger my base a stronger than it's ever been great congressman in particular some of the congressman have been unbelievable in pointing out what the witch hunt the whole thing is so I think it's been proven that there is no collusion and by the way I didn't deal with Russia I won because I was a better candidate by a lot Trump goes on to repeatedly say throughout the interview there was no collusion if you can talk about what he says and talk about his attacks on Mohler I mean some say if he would leave Muller alone most Elton Atlee vindicate him. So there's a lot going on there subvert bald statement that all Democrats acknowledge there is no collusion is just a book called Trump why there are all kinds of Democrats in fact most Democrats who say that they believe there was collusion what he is right about though is that none of them thus far have presented evidence of collusion and there's a point in the interview where he says he saw Dianne Feinstein last month on television admitting that there is no evidence of collusion that's not actually what she said but it is really instructive to go and watch Dianne Feinstein who is the senior Democrat on the Intelligence Committee who gets regular briefings from the CIA about the evidence she did go on c.n.n. Last month and was asked a series of questions about whether she seen evidence about a whole variety of theories of collusion and she essentially said No I've never seen any of that evidence she went on c.n.n. In May and explicitly said after a CIA briefing that she's not aware of any evidence of actual collusion between the trunk campaign and the Russians now you have in this interview Trump doing what he does which is constantly lying about what Democrats have said about the nature of the investigation I think his attacks on Muller are incredibly stupid for the reason that you said although hopefully Muller if he's the professional that everyone says he is won't be affected by those attacks will simply follow the evidence but I think what's really going on here Amy is is this and this is such an important point if you look at how our political media works the part of the political media that is partisan the way that the right wing media really grew was during the Clinton years when people like Rush Limbaugh and the Drudge Report and ultimately Fox News fed on scandal after scandal after scandal of Whitewater and Vince Foster and then ultimately the Ken Starr investigation and then you had the Fox News growing even more during the Obama years of all kinds of fake scandals and what you see now is a large parts of the media m.s.n. B.c. . He and lots of liberal websites growing exponentially by constantly not talking about Tom's dangerous foreign policy or his rollback or regulations or is ignoring of climate the things that actually matter but this obsession on the Russia scandal and they're great at getting great benefits from it and so that's what happens is we have this balkanized media that feeds the audience is whatever it is that they want to hear without any journalistic standards and so the incentive is to constantly inflate and exaggerate and make it as sensationalistic as possible and people are eating it up to the profit of these media outlets and I think that's a lot of what's going on here and in some sense when Trump says it's energizing his base he's right it's essentially dividing America between I hate Donald Trump and therefore will believe everything about Russia that I hear versus I love Donald Trump and I'll believe nothing and it's just sort of intensifying these divisions we're going to break and then come back to our discussion with Glenn Greenwald Pulitzer Prize winning journalist one of the founding editors of the intercept this is democracy now will be back with him in a minute. No. Show Solar's proud to support Katie you are in democracy no show solar is your locally grown 100 percent organic free range solar contractor. Specializing in low carb fair trade gluten free solar systems you can find out more solar dot com. Just so committed to bringing clean local solar power to the people. Who use. 'd you the. No one knows me like the piano by Sam here on Democracy Now Democracy Now dot org The War and Peace Report I mean a good one with one Gonzales oh earlier this month 3 major u.s. News outlets all promoted a story alleging that Wiki Leaks had secretly offered the Trump campaign special access to Democratic National Committee e-mails before they were published the report suggested the correspondence proved collusion between the charm family and Russia since the u.s. Intelligence community regards Wiki Leaks as an arm of Russian intelligence it turns out the information was false so we continue our conversation going green while the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist who writes about this and many other issues sat Can you set the record straight Glen you commented on Twitter shortly after this report saying quote slate notes that because c.n.n. And m s n b c completely refused to provide even the most minimal transparency about how they got their big story so wrong we still don't know the answer to the key question and probably never will since they're bearing at so Glen talk about what the story was how it was reported the sense people are left with who are just fleetingly covering these things. Following these things so I think it's. Yes I think it's worth remembering how dramatize to c.n.n. Present that this story is being they really did present it as kind of this smoking gun that would bring down the term presidency and once and for all prove collusion and then shortly after both m.s. N.b.c. And c.b.s. Said that they confirm the story independently and were on air for hours doing the same thing it was by far the biggest story of the day. Being pointed to as evidence that Trump actually did collude with the Russians through Wiki Leaks because what c.n.n. Said was that there was an e-mail sent from an unknown person to Donald Trump and Donald Trump Jr offering them access to the Wiki Leaks archive to the archive of e-mails that Wiki Leaks didn't publish but had pointed to before Wiki Leaks actually made them public suggesting that the Trump campaign was given special early access to this archive of e-mails that had been hacked and thus proving collusion and as it turned out the entire report was false it was false because it was based on the inaccurate date of this e-mail the e-mail that was sent to Donald Trump offering this access was not sent before these e-mails or public it was sent by some member of the public after the e-mails were public it was just some guy saying Hey you should look at these e-mails that everybody in the world is already aware of so the whole story completely collapse now all journalists make mistakes you guys have made mistakes I've made mistakes as a journalist and what you do when you make a mistake and the bigger the mistake the more this is true if you have to explain to the public how it is that you got wrong what you got wrong what went wrong in your process did somebody mislead you did you make a mistake in your analysis and so what c.n.n. Said was that they had multiple sources multiple sources who told them about this e-mail and who characterized it in this way that this e-mail took place and was sent before these e-mails were public and as it turned out that was wrong so the question that arose is an obvious question it's a really important question which is it's possible that one person could look at this e-mail and just misread the date the date that they said it was it was September 4th that was really surprised her 14 you can see one person misreading a date but c.n.n. Said multiple sources gave them the date of September. 4th then m.-s. N.b.c. And c.b.s. Said the same thing how did multiple sources all get this wrong how did they all get the date wrong in exactly the same way for exactly the same purpose so c.n.n. And c.b.s. And m s n b c were forced to admit their story was false because the Washington Post got a hold of the email and show that it was fault but what they refused to do is what journalists demand every day that other people do that other companies didn't corporations do that government officials do which is provide transparency about their mistakes to this day c.n.n. Refuses to say who these sources were who gave them the wrong date how it is that they all got the date wrong and essentially in good faith was it a deliberate attempt to deceive the public and that's what erodes trust in media outlets which is when they clam up and hide behind corporate lawyer statements and refuse to provide basic transparency about their own behavior how do they then have credibility to turn around and demand transparency from government institutions and officials or from corporations when they refused to revive it themselves and to me today that is the most disturbing part of this story is that it's not just a huge mistake it's not just a huge mistake that's been one in a long series of similar mistakes all geared toward the same political agenda which is to inflate the Trump Russia story it's their refusal to explain what happened how they made such a monumental mistake and whether they were deliberately misled or whether it was some kind of bizarre coincidental accident that multiple people all made at the same time. And I want to ask you about something else article that you wrote about in September it was shortly after Sean Spicer. Having been ousted from the White House gets a an appearance at the Emmy Awards and and you talked about the the quickness by which disgraced of people in previous administrations in Washington suddenly gets rehabilitated and especially you listed all of the Bush administration people because somehow now the Bush administration the former people in that administration and now being welcomed even though many of the liberal talk shows. On commercial television. I mean I think that if you were to go back and look at not just the Bush years but also the Obama years the person the the journalist or pundit inner commentator who is probably the single most dispraise and discredited was the neo conservative editor in chief of The Weekly Standard Bill Kristol it wasn't just that he was this incredibly vocal advocate of the Iraq war his sins and crimes extend way beyond that he advocated for torture he what he was one of the people who wanted to go in and go to war with Iran and have regime change in Tehran during the Obama years he accused Justice Department lawyers who had represented Guantanamo detainees of being she hottest and called them the 7 I mean he's one of the the scummiest and least ethical smear artist in American politics over the course of 30 years somebody who was Hunston Lee lied defended the most atrocious policies and suddenly last year because he became a critic of Donald Trump he's now welcomed on m s n b c almost on a daily basis talked about as though he's some kind of person who's insights are to be valued who is a person of high at the and this is what I think you see in American politics all the time is people who have no accountability for what it is that they do we've been we spent some time talking about why the American media is held in such low esteem on the part of the public I think that's one of the reasons in ordinary life if you go to your job and you make a series of horrendous mistakes you're going to be fired and it's going to be hard for you to find a job but he will who work in journalism or people who work in politics like David Frum who spent years just outright lying to the American public about the most weightiest matters continue to get promoted one of the most prestigious journals in American political life is the Atlantic and the editor in chief of The Atlantic is Jeffrey Goldberg. In 20022003 was writing articles in The New Yorker saying that Saddam Hussein had a relationship with al-Qaeda and sort of laundering every horrible lie that the Bush administration was telling that sparked the Iraq war and all these people do is continue to rise and get embraced and get rehabilitated because there is 0 accountability the more power you have the more you are able to commit all kinds of grave sins and lies and crimes and continue to succeed and it really ought to be the opposite and I think in media you see that probably more than anywhere else and what's happening let's try and spice or as one started off that question. Yeah I mean the example of Sean Spicer is particularly amazing because I think most people are in agreement that the Trump administration has systematically lied to the public all governments lie is I have stone famously observed of the triumph of ministration has taken that to an entirely new level in the face of that for the 1st 6 months of the administration with Sean Spicer who stood in front of the public and lied on a daily basis he ought to be disqualified from public life in every decent institution and yet there he was I forget whether it was the Academy Awards of the Emmy awards being fed by Hollywood the most amazing thing of all was that he was given a fellowship at Harvard in the Kennedy School which is the same program that originally gave a fellowship to Chelsea Manning who risked her liberty in order to provide the most valuable journalistic archive that we have in American journalism which is the archive that she gave to Wiki Leaks about the Iraq and Afghanistan war she was part of that same fellowship program that Sean Spicer received and yet the CIA objected to Chelsea Manning being given this honor and Harvard turned around and instantly rescinded the offer to Chelsea Manning saying we have to preserve the integrity of this program while allowing not just Sean Spicer But Corey Lewandowsky a former top trump a campaign official who wide repeatedly to become part of that same program and I think that's the point that I'm getting at is Chelsea Manning has no power in Washington and therefore there is accountability for her she spent 7 years in a brutal prison and now is recess has her offer rescinded at the demand of the CIA by Harvard people like Sean Spicer in Korea and ouster who continue to wield influence in Washington or David Frum and Jeffrey Goldberg and Bill Kristol continue to climb the ladder of let's ask them out or what it is that they do and that's a really skewed incentives we have to leave it there I thank you so much for being with us Glenn Greenwald the link to your pieces Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and we end Today Show with. The news said here in New York City police brutality activists say record Garner died Saturday after she fell into a coma following an asthma induced heart attack she was just 27 years old the daughter of Eric Garner She struggled for justice in her father's case who died in a police choke hold as he gasped I can't breathe 11 times that does it for our broadcast democracy now is produced by a great group of people happy birthday to Nat Needham I mean a good man with one. Folks post modern capitalism got you down way down or maybe you're on the upside is the way democracy now can help bread is a proud sponsor of Democracy Now and kid you are Durango's great community radio station we're getting baked daily from 6 am to 6 pm serving up as organic artisan bread sandwiches and more bread as located at the intersection of County Road to 50 and real road you can reach us by phone 247-5100 bread not bombs trying to end hunger one loaf at a time. In the 1980 s. When I was a Texas Ag commissioner my staff and I proposed a comprehensive set of state rules to protect farm workers public health our water supplies and farmers themselves from the life threatening consequences of toxic pesticides but trying to enact these policies in Texas a state that back then made in sprayed more agricultural poisons than any other meant taking on the enormous money and power of the chemical lobby as well as a hostile Republican governor and legislature largely made up of corporate lapdogs all of the above were howling furiously at us snarling that they'd kill the new protections we laid out when I told my legislative director that it seemed like the political odds were against us his response was not a confidence booster some of the evens are against us too he said yet by rattling a big coalition of family farmers consumers environmentalist church leaders and others then bring.

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