We speak with the directors of the oscar shortlisted documentary, the great hack, as well as a propaganda researcher and Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Brittany Kaiser, author of targeted the Cambridge Analytica whistleblowers inside story of trump, anda, facebook broke democracy and how it can happen again. Should be concerned and everyone should be very concerned about the weaponization of our data i people that are actually experts in selling weapons. Amy all that and more, coming up. Welcome to democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. The house of representatives voted thursday to approve a nonbinding war powers resolution aimed at limiting president trumps ability to take further military action against iran without congressional approval. President trump ratcheted up tensions with iran by commandering iranian Qassem Soleimani last week. Thursdays 224 to 194 house vote included three republicans voting yes and eight democrats voting no. The resolution now heads to the senate. The vote came as irans ambassador to the United Nations blasted the u. S. At the u. N. Security council, speaking on behalf of Iranian Foreign minister javad zarif, who was unable to address the Security Council thursday after the u. S. Denied him a visa in violation of a 1947 u. S. U. N. Agreement. This is ambassador majid takht ravanchi. Im here today to deliver a statement on behalf of mr. Zarif, whose visa was denied. Y the United States here is the statement. Were meeting today to discuss a moment is imperative we are all confronted with. The world is at a crossroads. Isn unhinged regime radically clamoring to turn back time. Amy thousands of protesters in chicago, new york, seattle and dozens of other cities took to the streets to protest war with iran thursday night. The new york k times has obtainined video that t appearso show an Iranian Missile e hittig the boeing 73737 jet that t crad shortly after tatakeoff in tehen wednesday,y, killing all 1 176 people on n board. The e crash came houours after n fired baballistic miiles at two Iraqi Military baseswhwhich house iraqi and d u. S. Troops,sn retaliation for general soleimanis assassination. This is Canadian Foreign minister francoisphilippe champagne. We have intelligence from multiple sources, including our allies and our own his knowledge ands intelligence that indicates the plane was shot down by an iranian surfacetoair missile. This may well have been unintentional. Amy iranian officials have denied allegationsns they mistakenlyly shot down the passenger jet that was headed to ukraine. The inquiry into the plane crash in tehran comes as the jets manufacturer, boeing, is facing even more scrutiny over its troubled 737 max jet as released internal emails show boeing employees talking about deceiving federal regulators and joking about potential safety flaws in the planes design ahead of the two fatal plane crashes that killed all 346 people on board. In one email, an employee wrote this airplane is designed by clowns, who are in turn supervised by monkeys. In another, an employee asked a colleague would you put your family on a max simulator trained aircraft . I wouldnt. In a third, an e employee wroten apparent reference to interactions with the faa i still havent been forgiven by god for the covering up i did last year. The boeing 737 max has been grounded worldwide. President trump is proposing changing the nations oldest environmental law to exempt large infrastructure projects, such as pipelines and power plants, from environmental review. If enacted, the changes would exempt agencies from considering the cumulative environmental impacts of projects, which could include studying climate change. Studying the climate crisis. In immigration news, a mexican Asylum Seeker died by suicide wednesday when he slit his own throat after being denied entry into the United States at the pharrreynosa international bridge at the texasmexico border. Meanwhile in louisiana, two Asylum Seekers from india are reportedly on the brink of death as their Hunger Strike against their prolonged detention stretches into its 69th day. Medical staff at the lasalle ice immigration jail are forcehydrating the two men. And in arizona, the chief of the Tohono Oodham nation says the construction of the border wall on the nations land may have unearthed ancient human remains inside the Organ Pipe Cactus National monument inin the sonon desert. In electioion news, six president ial candidates elizabeth warren, bernie sanders, pete buttigieg, amy klobuchar, joe biden, and tom steyer will take to the state for another democratic debate in before the iowa caucus. It wilill be in des moines next all the candidates on stage will tuesdaday. Be white after new jersey senator cory booker and Entrepreneur Andrew Yang did not qualify for the debate. Billionaire tom steyer qualified after pouring more than 115 million of his own money into his campaign. Billionaire former new york city mayor Michael Bloomberg did nont qualify for the debatete, despie spending nearly 170 million of his own money on ads. In france, at least half a Million People flooded the streets across the country thursday to show their support for the unionized rail workers whose strike against french president emmanuel macrons attempted pension overhaul has now become the longest transportation strike in french history. This is youlie yamamoto. It appears this thing women are the great winners of the reform. That is not true. Women are the biggest losers of the reform. Why . Because he knows they have different jobs, had to take more care of children, work parttime. For sure, they have careers with gaps, shorter careers. If you take the whole career into account, women will be hit the hardest. Amy health and Human Services secretarary alex azar hahas decd a publblic health ememergency fr puertoto rico after r a 6. 4 magnitude earthquake rocked the island early tuesday, killing at leasast one personon and plungig nearly the entire populaonon into darkness. As othursdayelectricalower was restored to about halff residedents. The pupuerto rico elelectric eny authority says its goal is to restore power for all residents by this weekend. In new york, a grand jury indicted the suspect in the moreukkah attack for five federal hatete crimes thursday. Graftoton thomas allegedly stabd at least five e jewish worshipes who wewere celebratingananukkah a a rabbis house in monsey last month. His lawyers say he is mentalally ill. A nenew Study Suggests that raising the minimum wage by one dollar an hour could save thousands of lives of people from dying by suicide each year. Anand that if the minimum wage d been at least 2 an hour higher, nearly 60,000 lives could have been saved between 1990 and 2015. Suicide is now the second leading cause of death in the United States among children and youth ages 1024. With the suicide rate among black youth rising faster than any other racial group. And in texas, elana carr has died. She was the mother of Atatiana Jefferson, the African American woman who was killed by a white Police Officer in carr had been october. Fighting illness at the time of her daughters death, and Atatiana Jefferson known to family members as tey had been her caretaker. Former fort worth Police Officer aaron dean chacha percent through her bedroom window while responding to a nonemergency Wellness Check called for by neighbor who saw teys front door had been left open. Tatyana atatianas father also dieied in november of a het attack, less than one month after his daughters death. And those are some of the headlines. This is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. A longtime facebook executive has admitted the companys platform helped donald trump win the 2016 election and it may happen again this year. In an internal memo, facebook Vice PresidentAndrew Bosworth wrote so was facebook responsible for donald trump getting elected . I think the answer is yes. Bosworth, who was a backer of Hillary Clinton in 2016, went on to write that the company should not change its p policies in an effort to hurt trumps reelection chances. Bosworth credited trump for running the single best Digital Ad Campaign ive ever seen from any advertiser. In his memo, bosworth referenced the role of the shadowy data firm Cambridge Analytica butut downplayed its signinificance. However, a new Netflix Documentary called the great hack argues Cambridge Analytica has played a significant role in the u. S. Election and elections across the globe. Cambridge analytica was ununded by the rigwwing llioionae bert mercer. Trumps s form advdvis steveve bannon of breitbart ne w was o of the companys kestratetests and clmsms to ve namedhe coany. Caridge analytica harvested sosome 8milllliofacebobo profiles without thesesers knledgdge consese and used the data to ayay vots duduri th202016 cpaigign. The storofof camidgege alyticaca is f featured t the new documentary therereat hk, whichahas be shohortsted f f an oscar all of ur interactions, yoyour cdit t ca swipes, web search, locatis,s, likes ey all collected in rettime io a illiondlaraye industry. The reagame chaer was cambridge analica. They worked for the trump cacampai andnd the brexit mpaign. Theytarted ung infortion rfare. Claimedidgenalytica to hav5000 data pnts on every amican vot. Am well, elier thiweek i spoke tohe direcrs of t grt hack,ehane noaim and rim ameras well opagandaesearcheemma briantnd a a fmer employee at cambdge analytica nad britny kaise who hasegun postinonline arove of docunts detaing the companys operions, inuding s work wh presidt trumps rmer natnal secuty advis jo bolton. Kaiseras also itten abt her experience at the company in the book targeted the Cambridge Analytica whistleblowers inside story of how big data, trump, and facebook broke democracy and how it can happen again. She is one of two former Cambridge Analytica employees featured itthe gat hack. The otr is christopherylyle. Is incorrect toalall mbmbridganalalyta an algithm company or data science company. It is a fullservice propagagana machine. Amy i asked Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Brittany Kaiser to talklk about how she became involved with cambridge aanlytica. I think is important to note this. Their people all around the world working for Tech Companies that im sure joined that company in order to do something good. They want the world to be more connected. They want to use technology in order to communicate with everybody, to give people more engaged in important issues. And they dont realize while youre moving fast and breaking things, some things get so broken that you cannot actually contemplate or predict what those repercussions are going to look like. Chris wylie and i both really idealistically joined Cambridge Analytica because we were excited about the potential of using data for exciting and good impact projects. Chris joined in 2013 on the data side in order to start developing different types of psychographic models. So he worked with dr. Aleksandr kogan in the Cambridge Psychometrics Center at Cambridge University in order to start doing experiments with facebook data to be able to gather that data which we know was taken under the wrong auspices of Academic Research and was then used in order to identify people psychographic groupings. Amy now, explain that, psychographic groupings, and especially for people who are not on facebook, who dont understand its enormous power and the intimate knowledge it has of people. Think of someone youre talking to whos never experienced facebook. Explain what is there. Absolutely. So the amount of data that is collected about you on facebook and on any of your devices is much more than youre really made aware of. You probably havent ever read the terms and conditions of any of these apps on your phone. But if you actually took the time to do it and you could understand it because most of them are written for you not understand, it is written in legalese you would realize that you are giving away a lot more than you would have ever agreed to if there was transparenency. This is your every move, everywhere youre going, who youre talking to, who your contacts are, what information youre actually giving in other apps on your phone, your location data, all of your lifestyle where youre going, what youre doing, whatat youre reading, how long you spend looking at different images and websites. This amount of behavioral data gives such a good picture of you that your behavior can be predicted, as karim was talking about earlier, to a very high degree of accuracy. And this allows Companies LikeCambridge Analytica to understand how you see the world and what will motivate you to go and take an action or, unfortunately, what will demotivate you. So that amount of data, available on facebook ever since you joined, allows a very easy platform for you to be targeted and manipulated. And when i say psychographic targeting, im sure you probably are a little bit more familiar with the myersbriggs test. So the myersbriggs that asks you a set of questions in order to understand your personality and how you see the world. The system that Cambridge Analytica used is actually a lot more scientific. Its called the ocean fivefactor model. And ocean stands for o for openness, c for conscientiousness whether you prefer plans and order or youre a little bit more fly by the seat of your pants. Extraversion, whether you gather your energy from being out surrounded by people or youre introverted and you prefer to gather your energy from being alone. If you are agreeable, you care about your family, your community, society, your country more than you care about yourself. And if you are disagreeable, then you are a little bit more egotistical. You need messages that are about benefits to you. And then the worst is neurotic. You know, its not bad to be neurotic. It means that you are a little bit more emotional. It means, unfortunately, as well, that you are motivated by fearbased messaging. So people can use tactics in order to scare you to doing what they want to do. And this is what was targeted when they were gathering that data out of facebook to figure out which group you belonged into. They found about 32 different groups of people, different personality types. And there were groups of psychologists that were looking into how they could understand that data and convert that into messaging that was just for you. I need to remind everybody that the Trump Campaign put together over a million different advertisements that were put out a million different advertisements with tens of thousands of different campaigns. Some of these messages were for just you, were for 50 people, a 100 people. Obviously, certain groups are thousands, tens of thousands or millions. But some of them were targeted very much directly at the individual to know exactly what youre going to click on and exactly what you care about. Amy so they were doing this before Cambridge Analytica. But describe i want to actually go to a bannon clip, steve bannon, who takes credit for naming Cambridge Analytica, right . Because you had scl before, defence. And then it becomes Cambridge Analytica, for Cambridge University, right . Where kogan got this information that he culled from facebook. Yes. Amy this is the white house chief strategist steve bannon in an interview at a Financial Times conference in march 2018. Bannon said that reports that Cambridge Analytica improperly accessed data to build profiles on American Voters and influence the 2016 president ial election were politically motivated. Months later, evidence emerged linking bannon to Cambridge Analytica, the scandal, which resulted in a 5 billion fine for facebook. Bannon is the founder and former board member of the Political Consulting firm he was Vice President of Cambridge Analytica. All Cambridge Analytica is the data scientists and the applied applications here in the United States. It has n nothing to do w with Te International ststuff. The guardian actually tel