Transcripts For KCSM Democracy Now 20161130

In these states secured his election, but could a recount put Hillary Clinton into the white house . We will also speak with Cyber Security and private privacy researcher Bruce Schneier on why is subject to hackers. And we will speak with Lawrence Lessig on the Electoral College and why they should choose clinton over trump. All of that and more, coming up. Welcome to democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. President elect donald trump has announced a handful of new cabinet picks. On tuesday, he named billionaire Steven Mnuchin to be treasury secretary. Mnuchin has deep ties on wall street, including working as a partner for goldman sachs, where his father also worked. Mnuchins hedge fund also played a role in the housing crisis, after it scooped up the failing California Bank indymac in 2008. Under mnuchins ownership, indymac foreclosed on thousands of families, particularly elderly residents trapped in reverse mortgages. He was accused of running a foreclosure machine. The bank, which was renamed onewest, was also accused of racially discriminatory lending practices. In 2015, mnuchin sold the bank for 3. 4 billion 1. 8 billion more than he bought it for. Trump has also reportedly picked billionaire privateequity investor wilbur ross to be commerce secretary. Ross specializes in flipping bankrupt companies for profit, often buying the u. S. Companies at low prices and then selling them to overseas investors. He and his companies have sometimes shipped jobs and factories overseas practices donald trump has railed against. Meanwhile, donald trump has picked george w. Bushs former labor secretary elaine chao to be transportation secretary. Chao is the wife of Senate Majority leader Mitch Mcconnell of kentucky, and immigrated to the United States from taiwan when she was eight years old. She has been a fixture in washington, d. C. , for more than 20 years. Trump also named seema verma to be administrator of the centers for medicare and medicaid services. Verma has worked closely with vicepresident elect mike pence, and her Health Policy firm helped design indianas Medicaid Expansion under the Affordable Care act. Trump has still not announced his pick for secretary of state, although, he did dine with former republican president ial nominee mitt romney tuesday night in new york city. Other possible candidates for secretary of state include former new york city mayor rudolph giuliani, retired general david the tray us former u. S. Ambassador to the United Nations john bolton. Donald trump also sparked controversy on tuesday when he made unconstitutional proposals two in a single tweet, writing nobody should be allowed to burn the American Flag if they do, there must be consequences perhaps loss of citizenship or year in jail the Supreme Court has ruled twice that flag burning is protected under the First Amendment. The Supreme Court has also ruled its unconstitutional to strip people of citizenship for most crimes, including desertion. In a 1958 ruling Supreme Court , Justice Earl Warren wrote the deprivation of citizenship is not a weapon that the government may use to express its displeasure at a citizens conduct, however reprehensible that conduct may be. Thousands of fast food workers home care and child care , providers, janitors, airport workers, and uber drivers rallied in 340 cities across the United States tuesday for a national day of action to demand a minimum wage of 15 a hour. In new york city, about two dozen people were arrested. This is hector figueroa, president of 32bj Service Employees international union. After the outcome of this last election, it is even more importantly raise our voices and we fight for our rights. It was economics. It was the rising income inequality striking workers that election. Mplicated unless we address this problem, we are going to see our country suffer. We are here to give workers a raise is now. Thetime to win a union in workplace is now. Were not going to stop. Amy in texas, their brown has been released from federal prison after spinning four years behind bars related to the hacking of stratfor, which exposed how the firm spied on activists on behalf of corporations. In 2014, he pled guilty to charges of transmitting threats, accessory to a cyber attack, and obstruction of justice. Supporters say brown has been unfairly targeted for investigating the highly secretive world of private and military contractors. At one point, there brown faced 100 years in prison before pleading guilty to lesser charges. Earlier this year, he won the National Magazine award for prison columns for a series of columns he wrote for the intercept. In kashmir, Indian Officials say independence rebels attacked an indian army base tuesday, killing at least seven indian soldiers. Officials say at least three kashmiri rebels were killed during the attack. The disputed territory has been rocked by protests since july when Indian Security forces killed a prominent kashmiri independence leader. At least 80 kashmiris have been killed by Indian Security forces during the ongoing protests. In brazil, up to 10,000 people protested tuesday against austerity ahead of a senate vote in which lawmakers approved measures to impose a strict cap on federal spending. Leftist opposition lawmakers say the legislation will destroy education and health programs. The vote to approve the constitutional amendment is a victory for brazilian president michel temer, who took power after the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff in a process she and others have called a coup. A group of women from the caravan of Central American mothers of missing migrants are traversing mexico in search of their children, who went missing as they attempted to cross the country to reach the United States. The International Crisis group says tens of thousands of Central American migrants fleeing violence in their home countries go missing each year in mexico. Caravan organizers say they found at least 265 missing children over the 12 years they have been organizing the caravan. This is anita zelaya, from el salvador, who has been looking for her son since 2002. I am hopeful im going to find my son alive. There is so much injustice and i, as a mother, and not ok with the fact our children are massacred and victims of all that happens to them on the journey. I do not agree. We know that, sadly, mexico is looking for life in paths of death. It is a journey of kidnapping, a route of mugging and rate, and sadly, a route of extortion. Unfortunately, our children are still disappeared. Amy in canada, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has approved two major pipelines kinder morgans 5 billion trans mountain pipeline and the 7. 5billion enbridge line 3 pipeline. The trans mountain pipeline would carry oil from the alberta tar sands to a port in vancouver. The enbridge line 3 pipeline would carry Tar Sands Oil from alberta, across the u. S. Canadian border, to a terminal in superior, wisconsin. Both pipelines face massive resistance from canadian First Nations, who held a ceremony tuesday in which more nations signed on to a treaty declaring they would fight all new tar sands infrastructure. 112 canadian First Nations and some u. S. Native american tribes of now signed the continentwide Treaty Alliance against tar sands expansion, including the Standing Rock sioux tribe in north dakota and the white earth nation in minnesota. In washington, d. C. , former Vice President al gore has spoken out against another pipeline, the 3. 8 billion Dakota Access pipeline, while speaking at the New York Times Global Leader collective conference. Investment in these Pipeline Infrastructure projects will be amortized over 50 to 75 years, and we need that capital to flow into renewables. This Standing Rock project is an atrocity. It is an absolute atrocity. I wish that president obama would step in before there is more violence out there against those they call themselves water protectors. This is an embarrassment to our country. All of those promises have been broken for so long, using Water Cannons and suffers into butchers. That is inhumane. Amy this comes as the coral of australias Great Barrier reef has experienced its worst dieoff on record, as a result of warmer ocean water due to climate change. Scientists say bleaching has killed twothirds of the coral on the 430mile northern stretch in only nine months. This is terry hughes, of the Australian Research council. What we have seen, three bleaching events. The first was in 1998, the second in 2002, and the third one this most recent summer in 2016. This one is by far the most extreme. We have seen three of these events now, with just one degree of global warming. So two degrees of global warming, which is the international targets, is going to be a very challenging place for the Great Barrier reef. Amy in tennessee at least three , people have died and hundreds of homes were destroyed after a wildfire tore through the resort towns near the great smoky mountains. As many as 14,000 people fled monday and tuesday as 90mileperhour wind gusts pushed the fires into the towns. This is the mayor of sevier county, larry waters. We continue to learn devastating news about the magnitude of the losses that we are experiencing in the community in sevier county. I have now been able to confirm the loss of three lives in sevier county. We are deeply saddened by these losses, and we extend our prayers to the family families of all of them. We do not have information to release at this time regarding identities, as we are awaiting notification of next of kin. Amy this comes as early this morning, a tornado killed three people after it tore through a Mobile Home Park in alabama, and critically injured four children after hitting a daycare center. In south carolina, a judge is permitting dylann roof to represent himself at his own trial, which opened monday in charleston. Prosecutors say roof opened fire at Emanuel Ame Church in charleston, south carolina, in june 2015, killing nine black worshipers, including the pastor clementa pinckney. Roof is pleading not guilty. He embraced white supremacist views and was shown in photographs posing with the Confederate Flag and a pistol. In arizona, a 36yearold guatemalan woman has died in the custody of immigration and customs enforcement, after she suffered a series of seizures while being detained at the Eloy Detention Center. Raquel hildago had been held at eloy since november 13 after u. S. Border patrol agents captured her as she tried to cross the u. S. Mexico border. She died after being rushed to a nearby hospital sunday. At least 15 people have died while confined at the forprofit Eloy Detention Center since 2003, which is run by Corrections Corporation of america, or cca, which recently changed its name to corecivic. And former black Panther Sundiata Acoli has been denied release by the new jersey state parole board after more than 40 years in prison. He first became eligible for parole in 1992, and turns 80 years old in january. He was convicted of killing a state trooper during a shootout 1973 on the new jersey turnpike, along with fellow panthers zayd malik shakur, who was also killed, and assata shakur, who has said she was shot by police while she had both arms in the air. Shakur later escaped to cuba, where she has political asylum. Acoli is one of at least 15 former members of the black Panther Party who are still in prison. His lawyers plan to appeal the decision. And those are some of the headlines. This is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. Former president ial candidate jill stein is continuing her efforts to force recounts in three states wisconsin, pennsylvania, and michigan. But on tuesday, the effort faced a setback as a wisconsin judge refused to order a statewide hand recount. Instead, the judge ruled that each of the states 72 county clerks can decide on their own how to carry out the recount. Donald trump beat Hillary Clinton by less than 30,000 votes out of 2. 8 million cast. The result was even closer in michigan, where trump won by just 12,000 votes. Dr. Stein is expected to file paperwork in michigan by todays deadline requesting a recount there. More than 130,000 people have donated more than 6. 5 million to steins efforts. That is nearly double how much stein raised during her president ial effort. Trump has dismissed the recount efforts. In a statement, he said this is a scam by the green party for an election that has already been conceded, and the results of this election should be respected instead of being challenged and abused, which is exactly what jill stein is doing. However, in another tweet, trump did claim that millions of people illegally voted in the november 8 election. In a tweet sent out on sunday trump wrote , in addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, i won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally. He offered no evidence to back up his claim. While donald trump did win the Electoral College, democratic nominee Hillary Clintons lead in the popular vote has now reached well over 2 million and is expected to grow to 2. 5 million. To talk more about the recount efforts, we are joined by former green Party President ial nominee jill stein. She is joining us from boston. Welcome back to democracy now efforts,t your recount why you have decided to go this route. Thank you and good to be with you this morning, amy. Coming out of this very divisive ,nd bitter and painful election you know, confidence of americans in our Voting System, in our election system, our political system really come across the board, confidence in american institutions is really at rockbottom low. According to a New York Times poll, 80 of americans, more than 80 , said they were disgusted by the election. It is really important that we be able to improve our election system and our political system as a base come a point of departure, for improving all of the other things that are melting down around us. Health care system, our jobs, our climate, the endless wars that are making us less secure and so on. We need to start by verifying our votes and ensuring that this is a democracy that we can work with. Donald trump himself said that it was a rigged election. In ways that he probably did not understand. But there was enormous resonance with what he said about it being a rigged election. When Bernie Sanders talked about it being a rigged economy, there was enormous resonance with that. This isnt something we can just walk away and sweep under the rug. Remember, in this election, most people were voting against the candidate that they liked the least or thewere most afraid of, ratherhan r their values or for their vision of a better future. So i think there is widespread soulsearching and discontent about this election we have come out of. I think it is a really positive step that people decided, this is where were going to start, by ensuring we can have confidence in the vote count. This is not about attempting to help one candidate or hurt another candidate. This is about helping voters restore confidence that we are properly and securely recording the vote, and counting them. And we know these Voting Machines are subject to machine error, human error, tampering, you name it. These machines, when they are locked into, produce all kinds of when they are looked into, produce all kinds of problems. You cant know unless you look. Amy can you respond to the wisconsin judge, and what this means, handing it off to the local voting precincts . What the judge said was that handcounted would be the gold standard, and that was the best way to restore confidence in the vote. But he i am told, this is secondhand what i understand is he acknowledged the Wisconsin Law did not enable him to order that. So he gave it, shall we say, moral authority to do the hand count, but felt he could not actually order the hand count. So it will be up to the county clerks in the county election departments, and we will be working with them and encouraging them to do the right thing. Now, the good news is, in the state of michigan where we are formally filing today, we have already had an informal heads up that they expect to go foard with a statewide hand count. Amy are you going to be moving forward on michigan today . Yes, we are. We will be paying the filing fee and moving forward. Another very difficult challenge to the campaign is that the state of wisconsin raised the cost. It was going to be 1. 1 million, and in the night before we learn the night before last, we learned it is going to be 3. 5 million. Which i think underscores there something wrong with this picture. Not only that our votes are being recorded on machines that are wide open, in invitation to and machinee human error, not only that our votes are not being properly safeguarded, but then in addition, if we want to have reassurance, if we want to verify the vote, we, the citizens, have to raise millions of dollars in order just grew nice the vote, in order to have assurance to scrutinize the vote, in order to have assurance. There are enormous hurdles to doing this. Part of our intent is not only to reassure the American People that we can have confidence in this boat or to find problems if there are problems, as the system is extremely vulnerable to, but we want to move forward and build this movement for verified voting for Election Integrity which was really 2000 fourf the recount. For example, in 2004, the city of toledo, largely the communities of color, filed for a recount because they felt like their votes were not eating properly counted and respected were not being properly counted and respected. When they did a hand recount, 90,000 votes that had not been counted simply because the voting counting machines, socalled optical scanners, haddad is calibrated. So they were not quite at the proper angle that they could actually see the vote and count the vote. There are innumerable cases where would we look, we find problems. It is important to look. It also important for us to change the way we do this. And to get rid of these electronic Voting Machines, which are in invitation to trouble. Amy were going to be speaking with Bruce Schneier in a moment about hacking. The new York Magazine said Hillary Clinton faced received 7 fewer votes in counties that relied on electronic Voting Machines compared with counties that used optical scanners and paper ballots. But i want to ask you about a petition posted on the website of margaret flowers, the former Maryland Green Party candidate for senate. The petition is titled green speak out on recount and our commitment to an independent party. It says in part the decision to pursue a recount was not made in a democratic or a strategic way, nor did it respect the established Decision Making processes and structures of the green party of the United States. This recount does not address the disenfranchisement of voters. It recounts votes that were already counted rather than restoring the suffrage of voters who were prevented from voting. The petition was signed by several chronic Green Party Members and supporters, including margaret flowers, your former advisor kevin b, green party Vice President ial candidate rosa clemente, and feel its of prizewinning journalist chris hedges. Your running mate did not sign the petition, but has come out against the recount. To respond to this criticism . Yes. The green party has many things to do and many people are not enthusiastic about verified voting, about Election Integrity. The green party has a broad set of commitment, including commit continuing the momentum and grassroots organizing that came out of the campaign. I am grateful that many people are continuing to do that and that is their priority. I, myself, have great ambivalence about moving forward with this. In 2006, iran for secretary of state here in my home state of massachusetts. I had a longstanding commitment to voting integrity. It is not just counting votes in getting rid of the very problematic Voting Machines. It is also ensuring that every american has a constitutional right to vote. Donald trump said the opposite of what has happened. The problem is not that people were voting illegally, but rather that people were stripped from the voter rolls through things like interstate crosscheck, also through the use. F voter id that is not addressed in this case, but this case is a launching pad for a broader agenda that includes ensuring that we have a democratic right to vote, a constitutional right to vote, ensuring that we have open debates so that voters can actually be informed and empowered to make wise choices. And another priority is to ending fearbased voting through rank Choice Voting like the state of maine just past, which means you can go into the voting booth and rank your choices knowing your first choice will be, if it loses, will be reassigned to your second choice. This is part of a critical voting agenda, as well as getting rid of the Electoral College. So there are many things that need to be done. This is the point of departure that allows us green to lead the way forward in a critical and immediate needs. Amy dr. Jill stein, some of the criticism, even within your own party, though you have a right to ask for this on your own, has been your only choosing states wisconsin, pennsylvania, michigan were Hillary Clinton lost, not those estates where she won. They are saying you are serving the very party that you are so fiercely critical of during the campaign. And i remain fiercely critical of that party. Amy they are joining you in this, is that right, and supporting your call for recount . Not a coordinated way. We stepped up to the plate because they have not. They did not express their support until the deadline had passed for filing in wisconsin. Our lawyers are communicating so that they do not legally get in each others way, but were otherwise not coordinating. I have been committed to this issue for many years. So for me, this is kind of like breathing. It is something that would have been virtually impossible for me not to do. Throughout the campaign when i was asked whether i would stand up and call for a recount if there was cause to be concerned about the reliability and the credibility of the vote, i was said, yes, i would, and it had nothing to do with who won. You may recall that michigan did not actually was not decided as a trump state until we had already announced that we would recount ing a michigan. It could have gone to Hillary Clinton. We still would have challenged it. Amy what about those who are saying youre using this as a fundraising device . You have almost raised and did it surprise you then you raised in your entire campaign for this recount, and ultimately, you may use these for local Green Party Candidate know, we will not do that. Rules require that a recount be funded by a dedicated recount account in the medic and only be used for that. It would be great to have access to that money, but we dont have access to that money. Since wisconsin raised the price tag on us, there is no way that it will be residual money. This is all going into the recount. Funded by small donors. This is a Grassroots Movement all across america. 140,000 yes, i was flabbergasted because we launched this the day before thanksgiving. Who in their right mind was going to be paying attention to the call for a recount and fundraising over the thanksgiving weekend . That is exactly what happened because people are starving for something positive to do to actually begin to take back this promise of democracy. Amy is that all small donors . Yes, it is. We are following campaign for ourlaws, as if campaign. So the average donation is 45. One half of 1 of donors contribute it more than 1000 will stop the absolute maximum is the maximum you can contribute for a political campaign, which is 2700. There is no deep account here for the caucus. Amy monday night i was at the free library in philadelphia interviewing Bernie Sanders and i asked him about your recount efforts. Sen. Sanders i think what most people expect it touches us. All that they are doing is what happens all the time, nothing new about that. Recounts take place when i was elected mayor. Right now in north carolina, republican governor who appears to be losing once a recount. Not a new idea. I will to you why it is touching a nerve. It is not because i believe that it is going to reverse the results. I dont think that is the case. People, especially with all of attacks one of websites and so forth, are really wondering whether when they vote, if their vote is legitimate. Like, have the russians interfered in this . Which takes us to another issue. And i would not have said this a few years ago, but i will say it tonight. I was researching this. In canada, they still do their voting with paper ballots. And maybe it takes next are our or two to get the results out to the media, but they manage to survive. I think we should go back to paper ballots. Lock them up [applause] sen. Sanders i think what this is about is touching on that issue and trying to see if the results end up being significantly different than what were announced on election night. Any code that was Bernie Sanders monday night. Jill stein, your response . He is absolutely right. This should be built into our election system. We should not be voting on these very tamperfriendly, air prone machines in the first place. We should be voting on paper ballots that can be counted by these optical scanners, but they have to be checked with automatic audits. This should be built in restaurants that should be part of that reassurance. And whenever raises are very close, there should be an automatic recount. When there are suggestions of foul play or irregularities, there should be a recount, like in the Democratic Party primary. Bernie sanders should have been the beneficiary of a recount and a potential challenge because of the stripping of voter rolls in brooklyn, the failure to count hundreds of thousands of votes in california this is not holding the Democratic Party accountable to the same standards that we are looking at in three republican victory states. The reason we are looking in those states is because you want to look at state that meet the criteria for high potential, high likelihood for having had error. That means the razor thin margins, the results when opposite of what was anticipated, and they have some kind of a built in vulnerability. It happened the three most significant states were those three. We did not know which way michigan was going to go, but it turned out to the republican. But if we have findings, then we have a case to go into many more states. Including democratic states. Amy finally, jill stein, are you somewhat disconcerted by not having the full support of the green party, in particular, your Vice President ial candidate, running mate, who said on cnn it is potentially the recounts are potentially a dangerous move . You know, the green party is you have a lot of opinions and a lot of people are very well informed and very passionate. We dont often do things in the green party that we have uniform consensus on. So i think as we go forward, there will be more room for dialogue. I think as we begin to see results that action translate into a more secure Voting System, that mines will change. The greens are very focused on economic justice, racial justice, climate justice, you name it. For many greens, especially for newer greens, like twhirl integrity has not been a priority. I think for many people, it is a learning asked area and it is a dialogue. Experience and it is a dialogue. I think it is great many people are continuing to do the other work, just very important. Amy i want to thank you for being with us, dr. Jill stein, the 2016 and 2012 president ial nominee of the green party leading the effort for an , election recount in three states. Later in this show, we will be speaking with Bruce Schneier on why our Voting System is portable to hackers. First, Lawrence Lessig will join us to talk about why he feels the Electoral College should choose alert clinton over donald trump. We will be back with them in a moment. [music break] amy this is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. A shout out to the students who are watching democracy now today in studio from sharpton high school in houston, texas, and the borough of Manhattan Community college here in new york city. As we continue to talk about u. S. Election system, we turn now to Lawrence Lessig, who sparked a debate over the Electoral College with his recent oped headlined, the constitution lets the Electoral College choose the winner. They should choose clinton. He writes electors to apply, in hamiltons words, a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice and then decide. The constitution says nothing about winner take all. it says nothing to suggest that electors freedom should be constrained in any way. Instead, their wisdom about whether to overrule the people or not was to be free of political control yet guided by democratic values. They were to be citizens exercising judgment, not cogs turning a wheel. The electors will meet on december 19. Lawrence lessig is joining us now, harvard professor who briefly ran for the democratic nomination for president in 2015 and author of republic, lost , how money corrupts congress and a plan to stop it. Thank you for joining us from amsterdam, where you are right now. Why dont you lay out what you are calling for. As you described in summarizing the oped, the framers meant for the electors to exercise judgment. And a judgment which is really asking the question, should we overrule with the people have done . There are some cases where i think they plainly should overrule with the people of done. For example, if the candidate is a crazy person or turns out not to be qualified or is a criminal. Those would did those would be good reasons to overrule. In this case, there is no reason for the electors to overrule the popular choice. The popular choice by more than 2 million votes is a completely qualified candidate for president , and a principle that should be a fundamental principle in our democracy. The principle of one person, one vote says of the vote of every american should count equally. And if it does, Hillary Clinton should be the president of the United States. Amy so explain the Electoral College. Explain how it works, what electors will be doing on december 19 and what you feel they should all stop. The Electoral College is a group of electors elected in the state who will meet in the states on december 19 and cast their ballots for who they believe should be president , who they believe should be Vice President. Those ballots get transmitted to washington and they are opened in washington in the senate and the results are read. Now, their decision of the exercise on december 19 is a decision of judgment. They are to be people who reflected on all of the issues presented and have to make a decision. And that decision, i think, should be guided by the principles we should all take as uncontested. And that uncontested principle, the idea that vote should count equally, that everybodys vote should count equally in the United States, should have an overwhelming influence on their decision. And what they should do, in my view, is to say, state laws that tell me i have to vote for the winner, even though the loser might have gotten 40 of the vote, should not constrain me so that i have to go against this fundamental idea of equality. So i think they should vote in a way that respects the actual winner in this election and make Hillary Clinton the next president. Amy what does it mean for the electors not to vote the way their state did, but the way the nation did . What are the rules . First of all, they dont have to vote the way the nation did necessarily. They could vote the way a significant proportion of their state did. In michigan, if donald trump is found to be the winner by some 10,000 votes out of 4. 5 million cast, with the michigan electors could say, ok, im going to vote in a way that reflects michigan. So half of michigan was essentially for clinton and half for trump. Maybe one more for trump than clinton. That Division Goes against the laws of the state of michigan that say they have to allocate the electors vote to the winner all of the electors votes to the winner. My point this is increasingly uncontested among scholars winner take all the is not exist in the constitution. It is a restriction imposed on the electors by the states. The electors are people were supposed to exercise judgment, that restriction is the flaw which ought to be resisted. So they should vote reflecting the votes of the people in their state. If they did, i think that would be enough to make it so the winner in january will be Hillary Clinton. Amy i interviewed Bernie Sanders on monday night in philadelphia. I asked him about the Electoral College. Sen. Sanders i think it is an archaic concept. I think nobody im in, nobody voted for the electors. 99. 9 of the people dont even know who they are. They voted for Hillary Clinton or donald trump and their obligation is to support the candidate that the people in the state voted for. Amy he says they ought to vote for the way their state went. I think the archaic idea is actually winner take all. Person, onee of one vote is a principle that was introduced as a fundamental principle in american law in 1962. Long after states admitted one person, one vote. 50 is ago, the state of delaware said, winner take all seems to us to be inconsistent with your principle of one person, one vote, so which should stand in which should fall . The Supreme Court ducked that issue. I believe if you believe in equality, we should not be giving so much deference to winner take all that was born at the time slavery reined in the United States. We ought to be respecting the principle of equality. Under that principle, we should get as close to respecting equal votes with every citizen as we can given our constitutional structure. I think if we did that, the will of the people would not be overturned. It has only happened twice before. Only twice has the Electoral College voted against the theidate who had won popular vote. Once in 1881 Grover Cleveland have the election stolen from him by tammany hall in new york, and once in 2000 where most people think the election was essentially a tie and they went with Electoral College. Those tita president should not be enough to overwhelm the fundamental president of the quality that ought to define how our democratic system works. The principal says Hillary Clinton is our president. Amy one rebuttal was that electors are simply unvetted Party Loyalists are illequipped to make the independent to make independent judgments. Your response . It is true. We dont know who they are. Im not asking them to make it based on her own president s. Im asking them to recognize a principle that should be common to all of us. And that principle is the principle of equality. If it turned out the candidate was insane or the candidate was a criminal, we would also be calling on them, these people we dont know, to make a judgment as the framers of the constitution expected they would, not to ratify the choices of the people for that candidate. The Electoral College is a project that calls on their judgment. If we dont like it, we can talk about how to eliminate it. Im not quite convinced we should eliminate it completely. I think it is important have a final check be some of the other than the Supreme Court. They given it is there, we should take it seriously. And taking it seriously says they should exercise their judgment according to the moral values, principles that are part of our constitutional tradition today. And those principles they equality. Amy donald trump tweeted, albeit in 2012 do you agree . In the case that he was talking about, he expected that barack obama was going to lose the popular vote. He said it was a disaster for democracy is that happen. Absolutely it is. But that is just one and a long list of things that donald trump has said that at one point i agreed with him and then he changed his view and now i dont agree with them anymore. It is a lot of fun to review those and i just blogged about a bunch of those were he was thing we ought to have a revolution if the popular voice, the popular choice is not elected as president. I would rather have a 37 electors votes for Hillary Clinton and have a revolution, but either way, i think the popular choice in this case ought to be president of the United States. Amy Lawrence Lessig, theres the concerns of the election was held under the current electoral system that you change it after the fact would be improper. Your response . I agree it is improper, but im not changing anything. If the constitution says theyre supposed to exercise judgment which is what i think the right interpretation of their power is and im saying, what are the values that ought to inform the judgment . The value of equality, the value of one person, one vote, was giventwas more than 50 years ago as a central part of our constitutional tradition. Under that principle, we ought to be applying the same standard today that i would have said we should look at apply a year ago. We made a mistake in 2001 we allowed that decision about who should be president , bush v gore , be decided about for the Supreme Court. This is the product of a radically unequal weight of way of allocating votes. It is a fraction of the way to the votes in people in wyoming and other states compared to california. We should be looking at that and saying, does it make sense he aske . If they look at the results in sight is a reason to disqualify the winner of a popular election, we would actually have president ial campaign cited something more than just an dollar of their time in 10 states in the u. S. We would have president ial campaigns focused on a broad swath of americans to convince them to support the candidate. Amy finally, professor, your harvard law professor. I would ask about a totally different issue. Controversy sparked tuesday when he made tita unconstitutional proposals in a single tweet. He tweeted nobody should be allowed to , perhapserican flag loss of citizenship or a year in jail. The Supreme Court has ruled it is unconstitutional to strip people of citizenship for most crimes, quitting desertion. Earl warren wrote in 1958, the deprivation of citizenship is not a weapon that the government may use to express its citizens conduct, however reprehensible that conduct may be. What are your thoughts, professor . I think theres potentially loophole president s becoming more and more like Vladimir Putin every day. Those are exactly the rules in russia. You can be thrown in jail, lose your citizenship in russia. But it is absolutely unconstitutional to imagine either of those two penalties for exercising free speech my justice scalia, would be turning in his grave now to imagine the republican president ial candidate for president or president elect talking about doing Something Like throwing somebody in joe for flag burning. He joined the flag burning opinion which said it was a protected First Amendment expressive activity. Amy i want to thank you for joining us, professor Lawrence Lessig. Professor Lawrence Lessig is a professor at Harvard Law School and the author of republic, lost how money corrupts congress and a plan to stop it. We will link to your oped in the Washington Post is the constitution lets the Electoral College choose the winner. They should choose clinton. When we come back, we will talk hacking with Bruce Schneier. Stay with us. [music break] amy this is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. Elections will be hacked. That is the title of a recent times by ouryork next guest the leading Cyber Security privacy researcher Bruce Schneier. He warns our newly computerized Voting Systems are vulnerable to attack by both individual hackers and governmentsponsored cyber warriors. It is only a matter of time before such an attack happens. S ace Bruce Schneier security technologist. Hes the author of data and goliath the hidden battles to collect your data and control your world. Talk about your concerns today in the aftermath of the 2016 election. A lot of our Voting Machines are basically computers. Especially computers without any paper audit trail or horrible to hacking vulnerable to hacking and errors in ways that cannot be corrected. My worry is were going to happen election where there is credible evidence of a hack and were literally not going to know the actual results and have no way to figure it out. And that, right now, will be disaster for our system. Amy your concern is were going to have an election. Do you think we had one . My guess is no. It is interesting to watch these three states. Amy you mean pennsylvania, wisconsin, and michigan . Yes, those three states. There are anomalies in the results that seem to correlate with voting machine types. That is a red flag for hacking. And something we should look at and we should definitely research. My guess is it isnt. My guess is there some confounding variable that the machine type is correlated to demographic in some way, but we dont actually know until we do the research. My worry right now is the recount. That process was designed decades ago. Countingabout ballots slower. It did not mean looking at the Voting Machines for forensic evidence of hacking. Im not concerned after this im not convinced after this research we will know more. Amy i want to turn to comments by alex halderman, director of university of michigans center for Computer Security and society, and one of the leading computer scientists and election lawyers calling for a recount. He indicated a hack of the vote was plausible but went on to emphasize the only way to know whether a cyber attack changed the result is to closely examine the available physical evidence, paper ballots, and voting equipment in critical states like wisconsin, michigan, and pennsylvania. Your thoughts . He is 100 correct. That is the only way to know. When there are paper ballots, and optical scan machine really vote on paper in a paper ballot is your backup, you can look at that paper. That will give you the actual vote. In states i dont have that, that are just touch screen machines like atm machines, there is no way to figure out original voter intent. Dylan thing you can do is forensically analyze the machines, the network, and while that may lead to evidence of hacking, he wont tell you what the original votes are. That process can take weeks, it can take months. It is not a process we are ready for. We expect the winner now. Amy in wisconsin, clinton received 7 votes less on those relying on Voting Machines than those using optical scanners and paper ballots. That was a piece in new York Magazine. Your thoughts . That is exactly correct. That is the red flag that could indicate hacking. It could indicate other things, too. There was a complex post on 538. Com that look at that data and had a theory was demographics, that was the deciding factor and not hacking. That could be true, too. We have a problem right here. Elections serve two purposes. The first is to choose the winner. The second is to convince the loser. The losing side has to believe the election is fair, otherwise it is not legitimate. Things like this do legitimatize the election. That is why we need to investigate them and come up with the actual answer. If there was hacking when you we need to know about it, if there wasnt, we need to know about it. I made an important point. There needs to be rules in place before him because now when the election is over, that battle lines are drawn. Trump ursus clinton. Youre going to pick the process that has your side win. T itnd this a month, i would be easy to come up with a set of rules for everyone to agree on. We need the rules in place before we vote when we do not know which way the hacking or the demographics or the miscount might go. Amy i want to turn to report by Rolling Stone Investigative Reporter greg palast. Reporting from ohio just before the election earlier this month, palast spoke to election law attorney Robert Fitrakis about problems with the Voting Machines. We hear first from fitrakis. Machines now can actually take a ballot image in the sequence of every single one cast to eliminate fraud if somebody tempers with the paper ballots. Theres only one problem they decided to turn off the machine. Representing democrat and republicans. Audit protection functions have literally been shut off. They bought stateoftheart agreement and turn off the security. Amy Bruce Schneier, your response . It is hard to know how bad that is. Photographing the paper and the paper still exist, then were ok. If the photograph is just a backup of the paper. If the paper is destroyed, then that is an absolute disaster. Without knowing more, i cant tell. Something else product that is important that we cannot lose sight of the real issue here, which is not the hacking in those three states, but the Voter Suppression everywhere. And whether it is voter id requirements or closing polling places in poor neighborhoods or reducing early voting or purging voter rolls there is a concerted effort in the u. S. Deny people the right to vote. I think that is the real issue. And that has probably caused a lot more discrepancy in the vote versus the will of the people than machines even though machines can be a disaster. Amy we spoke to michael isikoff, chief investigative correspondent for yahoo news. He was looking at reports that hackers outside the u. S. Infiltrated two state election databases. This is what he had to say about vulnerabilities in the voting infrastructure here. In 40 states, we optical scan , voting in which there are backup a paper ballots so there is a safety net. But there are points of vulnerable folder ability. In six states, there are electronic Voting Machines that are vulnerable that could be tampered with. Theres internet voting for overseas ballots and military ballots 33 states. Amy Bruce Schneier . He is exactly correct. Olderare three areas of ability to worry about. The first is the voting rolls, if someone can hack those roles and change them or delete them, they could cause real problems on election day. The second is the machines. Yes, optical scan machines are the most secure and the safest. Theres a paper ballot you fill in old and it is processed in the paper is your backup most of the third area of vulnerability is the tabulation of the counting. We do not talk about that much but after everyone votes, theres a system of and celebrating all of those results from every machine higher and higher into a single state revolt result. Rise three areas are all for hacking, not just from foreign powers, but from hackers everywhere. These are not things that only the purview of nationstates are Computer Systems are so vulnerable that even amateurs can in some case do it. Amy Bruce Schneier, thank for being with us, security technologist. We will link to your piece in the New York Times is headlined american elections will be hacked. Hes the author of data and goliath the hidden battles to collect your data and control your world. That does it for our broadcast. We hope if youre in the area december 5 in new york city for our 20 the anniversary celebration. You can visit democracynow. Org for details. We have a job opening, democracy now hiring a senior tv producer and looking for interns and f ellows. Go to democracynow. Org. Democracy now is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning. Email your comments to outreach democracynow. Org or mail them to democracy now p. O. Box 693 new york, new york 10013. [captioning made possible by democracy now ] y on ellies real good food, the secret to having breakfast, lunch, and dinner ready and waiting anytime. Blueberry chia overnight oats, Turkey Sausage stuffed pizza pockets, and cajun shrimp in foil packets. All make ahead recipes designed for those of us who are dancing as fast as we can. Like my guest today, beth mccoin, a full time nurse and single mom. Beth wants to rein in her takeout habit and find her way to the sweet spot where delicious and healthy meet. So join me as i help her do exactly that right now on ellies real good food. Come on lighthearted bouncy music