Transcripts For LINKTV Democracy Now 20140321

From Edward Snowden revealed the nsa is recording all phone calls from an entire country. 100 of the phone calls. Phone calls are stored for up to 30 days, giving them the ability to rewind any phone call in the previous month. Then return to scott olsen, the iraq war vet, who almost lost his life and occupy protests when he was shot in the head by a Police Projectile. I know i was on the ground, my left side was turned toward the cup, and that is where i was hit, right here. Ground, beinghe carried away by all these people. Scott olsen joins us today to announce he has reached a settlement in a lawsuit with the Oakland Police. And we will look at how wells fargo instructed their employees to fabricate missing documents on how to foreclose on homeowners. Welcome to democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. Russia and the United States have each impose new sanctions on the other over the crisis in ukraine. President obama made the announcement thursday. Based on the executive order i signed, we are imposing sanctions on more senior officials of the russian government. In addition, we are today sanctioning a number of other individuals with substantial resources and influence who provide Material Support to the russian leadership, as well as a bank that provides Material Support to these individuals. We are taking the steps as part of a response to what russia has already done in crimea. Also said the u. S. Could impose sanctions on key sections of the russian economy. Russia in turn barred nine officials from entering the country, including john mccain and harry reid. European leaders meanwhile signed a deal to strengthen ties with ukraines new proe you government. The abandonment by Viktor Yanukovych are the protest that led to his ouster. Afghanistan has seen a wave of attacks surrounding the new year holiday of nowruz. At least three people were killed when attackers through an explosive filled bottle at a ceremony in kandahar. Thursday night, four gunmen attacked the luxury serena hotel before they were shot dead by security forces. Among the dead was an afghan journalist, Senior Reporter for nationals france press. Earlier in the day, an attack targeting a police compound in jalalabad killed at least 10 officers, including the district chief. Harry reid has ordered a forensic examination of Senate Intelligence committee computers following reports the cia spied on Committee Staff to thwart a probe of the cia torture and rendition program. Cia director john brennan, he bolstered the claims by dianne feinstein, who openly accused the cia of spying on Senate Staffers and seizing material from their computers. Senate dismissed claims staffers penetrated cia networks, calling the allegation patently absurd. The Obama Administration is boycotting international talks about its drone strikes. According to foreign policy, akistan is trying to pass resolution at the United Nations Human Rights Council calling for greater certainty on whether drone strikes violate human rights. A round of talks was held in geneva this week but the u. S. Refused to attend. Turkey has blocked the social media site twitter amid a Corruption Scandal facing the administration of Prime Minister recep tayyip erdogan. He vowed to eradicate twitter. The hashtag twitterisblockedinturkey has extorted worldwide. Human rights watch has released a report on killings by rightwing pill a military successor groups in the largely afro colombian port city of buenaventura. The group is reportedly using socalled chop up houses to slaughter victims, sometimes dismembering them while alive, and then dumping them in the ocean. Potential the hundreds of residents have been abducted and disappeared. Last year more than 19,000 fled buenaventura, more than any other municipality in colombia. Watchs Daniel Wilkinson described the groups origins. Basically two groups operating in these neighborhoods. These are groups that basically dissented from rightwing paramilitary death squads that existed throughout the country. Demobilize in a Government Program 10 years ago, but these groups today operate in a similar fashion. In other news from colombia, gustavo petro, a former guerrilla leader, has been removed from office. His removal as mayor was originally ordered by the Inspector General in what supporters called a rightwing coup. Immigrants on Hunger Strike at a detention prison in on row, texas say they are facing a retaliation. The strike in is in its fifth day with 120 participants calling for better treatment and an end to record deportation. They say they have been placed in solitary confinement and have been pressured to sign voluntary deportation papers. The prison is run by the forprofit geo group. In another location, prisoners faced forced feeding. A Top Commander in afghanistan will avoid any prison time. Sinclair was docked 20,000 in pay after pleading guilty to lesser offenses including mistreating the junior officer during the threeyear affair. The officer said sinclair forced her to perform oral sex and threatened to kill her and her family if she spoke out. It has been a difficult time for me and my family. It really has. The system worked. I have always been proud of my army. All of want to do now is go up north and hug my kids and see my wife. Thank you for treating me with dignity, respect. Another case, a formal Naval Academy Football Player was acquitted thursday of sexually assaulting a classmate. Prosecutors said joshua tate assaulted the victim after she passed out drunk at a party but they said the case does not prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. The victim was grilled on topics about whether she wore a bra and underwear to the party, how she performs oral sex, and whether after theike a ho alleged assault. Florida has executed a fifth prisoner using an experimental drug process including the sedative might is all on. The first prisoner executed in october of you to stay conscious longer and move more while unconscious than prisoners in previous excuse shins. On thursday, robert henry was executed using the same process for the murders of two coworkers. He was pronounced dead 11 minutes after the injection began. Environmental regulators have cited duke energy for dumping 61 million of toxic coal ash waste into a canal that feeds a river which supplies drinking water. Unders already investigation for a coal ash spill in february that coated the bottom of another river. North carolina regulators have faced accusations of guarding duke from litigation over coal ash. Governor pat corey worked at duke for 28 years. Werew york, 59 people arrested in the State Capitol in albany in a protest calling for economic and social justice as the budget. Scussed protesters blocked the entrance to governor Andrew Cuomos office. Their demands include closing the gulf between the rich and poor. A moral document. It has implications for people across the state, young and old, rich and poor, and because these decisions about the budget are have moral they implications, and so we join with people of faith and people of no faith who called for morality in our leadership. Our governor has done absolutely nothing and we are sick and tired. We are here today i am the oldest one here to let him know that we are not going to take it anymore. That was julia boyd, aged 77, and before that, frances rosneau. In new york city, mayor bill de blasio has signed a paid sick leave bill. Starting april 1, more than half a million new yorkers will be able to take up to five paid sick days without fear of being fired. Lawrence walsh, who prosecuted Reagan Administration officials for the iran contra scandal, has died at the age of 102. He conducted a sixyear investigation of the administrations covert sale of weapons to iran and its use of proceeds to secretly supply weapons to the contrary rebels in nicaragua, despite a congressional ban. He won key convictions but president george h. W. Bush later pardoned several officials involved, including his defense secretary caspar weinberger. Antigay extremist fred phelps has died at the age of 84. He was the founder of the Westboro Baptist church, a kansasbased group known for holding antigay protests at the funerals of military veterans and aids victims. His daughter told a local most local news station there would be no funeral for fred phelps. The Kansas Equality Coalition urged people not to publicly protest him saying those are some of the headlines. This is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. Juan gonzalez. Welcome to our listeners and viewers around the country and world. The latest disclosures from Edward Snowden show the National Security agency is recording every single phone call made in an undisclosed foreign country. The Surveillance System called mystic stores billions of phone conversations for up to 30 days youd agents are able to rewind and review any conversation within the previous month using retro. Called one senior manager compared it to a time machine. Michelle richardson of the American Civil Liberties union for decides the program. We are concerned this is another example of u. S. Government overreach, and that instead of targeting a very powerful surveillance authorities on terrorists and spies, they are doing bulk collection that sweeps up a lot of innocent people. They are targeting an entire countrys phone calls, collecting and recording them, searching through them later. That does not violate just the privacy of the people in that country, but the american to communicate with them. TheWashington Post broke story tuesday. Revealed last year secret intelligence budget named five thing namely five more countries. Our first guest today is independent privacy and security researcher Ashkan Soltani, who cowrote the Washington Post piece. He has also cowritten a series of other exposes revealing how the nsa uses google cookies to pinpoint targets for hacking and how they secretly broke into the Main Communications links that connect yahoo and Google Data Centers around the world. Welcome to democracy now . Ay out what you found 100 of the cause in a particular country are being recorded by the nsa . That is right. Our reporting demonstrates their capability in at least one the entire capture communications. This is not targeted communications, this is bulk. He pulls conversations to, from, and inside country, are available to the nsa to be retroactively accessed so they can later go back in time and say who was talking to whom, look at a particular conversations of interest. Your article seem to indicate the biggest problem the agency had was it storage capacity. How to mine this information because of the sheer volume involved. Could you talk about that . That has been a Common Thread in much of the stories we have talked about. We previously covered their accessing of address books, in your phone. Nsammon theme is that the hits on technology barriers, limits to storage, bandwidth, and processing power. That is when we see the information that we have. It is really telling it does it highlights a larger problem which is that limitations are not legal or policy restrictions. Limitations are technical. Up,echnical capacity goes the nsa will be growing these programs. We are already aware of one data center being built in utah which will have a very large capacity to store this type of communication. We will need to look to read legal restrictions to minimize this collection, rather than technical ones. Ashkan how does the conversation go with the u. S. Government and Washington Post that themake the case phone calls are monitored . I cannot get too much into the details but typically there is a conversation on both sides, the editors, writers, government, all wayin on what they think is important to cover. We thought our representation, our highlighting of these ongoing and it is it is in place still. We wanted to raise policy issues associated with bulk content collection without necessarily blowing the capability that the government currently has. Were you able to tell to what degree the nsa needed cooperation or complicity by the Telecommunications Companies that were providing these services . I cannot get into how and where. I can say it is conference of access and at least one country. At least one country. Explain that. The documents we had from last year indicated a system up and running, and they would go 100 ,arlier coverage to when we saw the documents. They hinted at an expansion of this program by at least another place by october last year. There were hints in the budget documents that this capacity would be growing to other places as soon as the technical capacity was there. During his recent tedtalk, Edward Snowden referenced you by name and talked about your work on the cost of surveillance. An argument to be made that the powers of big brother have increased enormously. There was a recent legal article at yale that established something called the Ashkan Soltani principle, which is that our expectation of privacy is the capabilities of government surveillance have become cheaper by an order of magnitude, and each time that occurs, we need to revisit and rebalance. That has not happened since the government surveillance powers have increased by several magnitudes, and that is why we are in the problem we are in hope, but there is still because the power of individuals have also been increased by technology. I am living proof that an individual can go headtohead against the most powerful adversaries and the most powerful intelligence agencies around the world and win. I think that is something that we need to take hope from and build on, and make it accessible experts,to technical but to ordinary citizens around the world. Journalism is not a crime. Communication is not a crime. Ashkan soltani, your response . He was highlighting a paper that we coauthored with kevin thanks and looking at the Supreme Court v. Jones decision, a privacy decision where they found 28 days of continuous surveillance, location surveillance, of an individual violated the Fourth Amendment. They hung it on a particularly regards to the axis of the individual but there were concurrent opinions describing the problem of mass prolonged surveillance. What we try to do was figure out what was the hook . Following that decision there was a hearing in which a representative went through a line of questioning and said, why do we need Fourth Amendment protections around location surveillance . Warrd a war and, do ant, do i need probable cause to follow someone on the streets . If im a Police Officer, do i need a warrant to follow them by car or air . He answer is no, you do not a Police Officer can decide to follow you on the streets, to do his job. Is key of that assumption that the officer would find it worth his time to follow you. He would not be following someone else who might be more likely to be a suspect, and he would be spending his own time doing it. Technology has changed that. , in termso highlight of dollars, what it would cost to follow someone on foot howitionally, covertly, and technology has changed the calculus. A Police Officer want to follow you on foot, the average salary comes down to about 50 with benefits, including overtime. If he wanted to follow you around covertly, they would need five or so agents in what is known as a floating box or mission so that people could swap in and out. That is about 250 an hour throughout the day. There are human limits to that, but for the sake of argument, take that as the base number. Compare that to what we know telcos,evon providers, what they charge the government for tracking. That comes down to about 10 an hour to about four cents an hour. The government can play a flat rate to sprint and it can come out to about four cents an hour to track an individual. That is very different from 250 an hour. As such, the calculus is orders of magnitude less. Less barriers to be able to track you on the street, and therefore more likely to do so. In other words, the cost benefit analysis of a total police state where people are following you around is prohibitively expensive, but with technology, cost benefit has been reduced to medically. That we use at the end of the paper is after the Supreme Court decision, an fbi official announced that they had to request permission to turn on 3000 devices in the field so that they could go get them. Devices to disable the and needed permission to turn on the devices from the courts in order to retrieve them. What is interesting is, at that point in time, there were at least read thousand devices in the field that they needed to collect. If you do the math, 3000 simultaneous targets would require 15,000 individuals will time tracking those targets. The fbi currently has 13,000 field agents that would be doing this work. Assuming that they did nothing else come in did not sleep or shower, they did only surveillance, there would still not be enough agents to surveillance 3000 people simultaneously. That is the outcome. Technology allows a much greater capacity to do surveillance in bulk at a lower cost and we are going to do it because the technology can and not have a policy debate about what is the right balance. How many agents should we have per person, per capita . We will link to your piece in the yale law journal on democracynow. Org. I wanted to turn to National Security Agency Officer rick ledgett. He insisted the nsa believes in a right to privacy. We devote an inordinate amount of time and pressure and effort in order to ensure that we protect that privacy, and beyond that, the privacy of citizens around the world, not just americans. Several things come into play. We are all on the same network. I am a user of a particular internet email service that is the numberone service of choice by terrorists around the world. Right beside them in the email space on the internet. We need to be able to pick that apart and find the information that is relevant. In doing so, we are going to necessarily encounter americans and innocent foreign citizens going about their business, and so we have procedures in place that shreds that out and says, when you find it, not if, because you are certain to find it, here is how you protect it. They are called minimization procedures, approved by the attorney general, constitutionally based. For citizens of the world who are going about their lawful business on a daytoday basis, the president laid out some additional protections that we are providing to them. , absolutely, folks have a right to privacy. That was the Deputy Director of the National Security agency, Richard Leggett ledgett, speaking from fort meade, in response to Edward Snowden. Your response to this, ash canceled on Ashkan Soltani . The fact that he had a tedtalk was amazing burst. One thing to realize, yes, the nsa does imply minimization procedures when they encounter u. S. Persons. In bulk surveillance, if they are to discover that Voice Communications or email communication that belong to an american, and they determine it is not a foreign intelligence or interestional security they could be under counterterrorism, counter narcotics. In the speech he talks about human trafficking, money laundering. Missionsa number of that the data could become useful for. But if it is determined it is a u. S. Person and not viable to any of those missions, then there is minimization in place. I think what attention is, the , thatnect, is minimization happens to the access of the data, but not collection. Bulkibe a collection collection, storage of entire countries worth of communications. Continueunication will for a role buffer of 30 days. T is not considered collection these procedures do not fall into place until someone looks at it. But during this time, your information has been recorded and is accessible. It is one of these things where the government says, we want to be able to look, but we will not look unless we need to. A lot of people would say, you should not be able to look unless you need to. That is the disconnect. To talk about the government restrictions as far as collecting material on americans. In the article that you did on google and the ability of the government to access google data a particularraise issue that most are not aware of. If i write on a Gmail Account to amy here in new york city, that in a server somewhere else in the world. Could you talk about that . Into ae have moved cloudbased architecture, as more services are cloudbased, servers are distributed all over the world and they replicate, and they are redundant to one another. Grid,ifornia fell off the your communications would still be accessible. You happens in the snare described, if you are in new york, you could be talking to a Mountain View data center or another one in north carolina. Your emails and activity and login, the data that you generate, will be housed in north carolina, but will immediately be replicated to centers around the world, in iceland, japan. As that is replicated, the nsa is able to tap that transfer of data, and so even though under the executive order order they are collecting overseas, they will be incidentally collecting a large number of u. S. Persons information, given the global architecture we are moving to, this cloud architecture. Order, it executive was signed by Ronald Reagan in 1981 . President s sole guidance on collection for the agencies. Not a lot is known around that particular program. There has been a lot of talk about the bulk metadata program, sections about the prism program, where they get to data from google and yahoo . The bulk of the stories i have been involved in have focused on 12000 program, international collection, with few restrictions come up to collect information. There are some rules that apply people, but that is only after the information is accessed or look at. In the machine processing of it, they can collect probably everyones data under this executive order. Could you quickly talk about google cookies . A store that we did on location tracking, we highlighted the government collecting information from the from mobile devices, cell phone networks, a variety of locations, to track peoples locations. One of the findings from that particular line of research was that the government was also using, relying on google cookies to identify individuals. The purpose might seem strange, but this goes back to the cost of surveillance and the cost to do identification. You guys may use the internet, and all of you will be behind firewall and now would appear as the same ip address, so the government could not identify you individually. But google can identify you individually. They can set cookies for each user unique to that user. We found the government was relying on those cookies and a bunch of other services to uniquely identify users that they could not otherwise do. An indication of the growing capacity due to the change in our Global Communications network. They are able to leverage it in an interesting way. Canceled on me, thank you for being with us. Ashkancanceled connie soltani, thank you for being with us. His most recent piece is nsa Surveillance Program reaches into the past to retrieve, replay phone calls. This is democracy now we wl link to the piece at democracynow. Org. When we come back, scott olsen will be with us. Wasas the iraq war vet who protesting in oakland and was grievously injured by Police Projectile. Today he announces a settlement of a lawsuit with the Oakland Police. Stay with us. [ music break] them belly full, but we hungry by bob marley. Is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. In a moment we are joined by scott olsen, an iraq war veteran who was critically wounded when he was shot in the head by a Police Project now projectile. He was hospitalized in Critical Condition with a fractured skull, broken neck, and vertebrate brain swelling. At the time, he was wearing fatigues and a veterans for peace tshirt. Was shot,ter he police shot a flash grid at protesters who tried to treat him. Soon after, they carried olsen away. Video of the incident went viral. Medic what is your name . Medic protests condemning the police use of force were held around the country. The incident galvanized the occupy movement in oakland. Within a week a general strike temporarily shut them the oakland ports. Scott olsen was later released from the hospital and sued the police department. Today he is joining us from berkeley to announce a settlement in the case. A member of iraq veterans against the war, welcome back. Can you talk about the lawsuit and the settlement that you have now reached . Yes, earlier in this week we reached a settlement with the. Ity of oakland it was a long process. It took two and a half years to get to this point. We are going to announce further details at a press conference ,ater in the morning in oakland but i am happy with the way the lawsuit has turned out. It has been a very stressful experience, having to deal with it. For that reason alone, i am happy that it is over. Scott, originally when you file the lawsuit, you said you were intent on bringing it to trial because he wanted the facts to come out, your decision to agree to a settlement and why you felt it was best to do it at this point . Going to trial it would have meant even more stress and would have taken a lot more time. It could have taken an extra year or two. That is kind of a reality that i had to deal with. Part of me does wish we had gone betrial, but this will better for me, i think, and hopefully, pushing forward for change and open policy. I know you will announce more details in your News Conference, but can you share what the settlement is with Oakland Police . Saving the amounts of the settlement for the press , but whatever the amount is, it is surely not enough to make up for it part of my brain that will forever be dead. It will be enough for me to make it easier to get by from day to because i amly more likely to have further medical problems down the road. You are the last of several people who sued the Oakland Police as a result of abuse in that time. Do you get a sense that there is a real determination to change policies by the oakland officials . I think having these lawsuits could be enough to bring some accountability to the police. As far as i know, i am the last outstanding case from occupy with Police Brutality in oakland. They need to know that if they use these weapons, beanbags, cs them bangs, and they use in a crowd control policy, they should not be able to use these weapons at all. If they cannot play by the rules they have been given. Thehat is the extent of injury to your brain and how will it impact you in the future . There is a portion of my left frontal lobe which is dead. That manifests itself in different concept problems, fatigue, memory, planning, things like that. It made it very difficult when i tried to return to employment. It makes that unrealistic for me. Ofm at a much greater risk developing dementia, alzheimers, or other cognitive issues. Can you give us a sense of the range . Seven figures come in the millions . Yes, seven figures. Is there any deal you have made with the police around their behavior and changes how they deal with people in protest . Made, but wes been are going to put pressure on or. Ork with the police our first step is to disallow the weapons that they attacked me with. The beanbags and the flash bangs were both key in what happened to me. They used the flash bangs and they are designed to cause panic and cant people to scatter. You cannot safely fire beanbags into a crowd after you deploy those. People will be running. Do you know when you are hit by . By a beanbag round, which is fired out of a shotgun. It is like a nylon sock with 40 grams of lead pellets. It was from a distance of about 15 feet. Thank you so much for being with us. We will cover your News Conference later today. Where are you holding it . Lassa in front of oakland city hall, 10 00 a. M. Olsen, former marine, critically wounded after being shot, not in iraq, but in the head by a Police Projectile at occupy oakland. Thanks so much for joining us. Believe back in a minute will be back in a minute. [ music break] home on the range. Democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. A new internal report says the Justice Department massively overstated its successes in targeting mortgage fraud while ranking it as a low priority for investigation. The Justice Departments Inspector General says despite laying a central role in the nations financial crisis, mortgage fraud was deemed either a low priority or not a priority at all. In one instance, eric holder claimed to have filed lawsuits on behalf of victims for losses totaling more than 1 billion come about the actual amount was 91 less. This comes as a recently revealed internal wells fargo to guideappears lawyers stepbystep on how to fabricate missing documents to foreclose on homeowners. Wells fargo is the countrys largest mortgage servicer and the 9 million home loans. State and federal regulators are focusing on the allegations in the lawsuit brought by linda tirelli, who is with us now. She represents clients who been for close on by wells fargo. She discovered the manual on how to produce missing documents to foreclose on homeowners. She is a partner at garvey Tirelli Cushner in white plains, new york. In minneapolis, we are joined by kevin whelan. He organize to keep people in their homes and demand accountability. Wells fargo declined an interview request thomas saying there in a quiet period, about to announce their quarterly earnings. This, can you describe manual, how you got it, and what it reveals . Absolutely. It is entitled the wells fargo Home Mortgage foreclosure attorney procedure manual, version 1. It was last published in 2012. My settlement was announced to the bureau weeks prior. It was sitting out there on the internet of all things. Gave it to of mine me. I found this online. I know you are doing a lot of wells fargo cases. Maybe you can do this. Reading it, my jaw dropped. As i see it, it is clearly outlining procedures, not just ners,he 12 an hour robosig but also a manual for the lawyers to fabricate documents, documentst, and that lacking be produced by wells fargo. It is absolutely appalling. Broken supremea court judge on a few times who raised a campaign over these , but also over the Bank Officials and attorneys who participated in this fraud. There have been several judges in different parts of the country that have raised these issues. How do you think this advances the whole issue of having the smoking gun to go after these companies . Judges cannot make determinations based on suspicion. This is the first and only internal document that im aware of that clearly outlines the fraud. That is how i put it in the allegations to the court. We are fortunate in new york to have a number of proactive judges who get it, but unfortunately, they are few and far between. As great as many of our federal judges are, i hope they will be proactive and take this seriously and start to question wells fargo on their procedure. I want to read a bit from the document. In this section called note endorsement, it says can you explain what this means . If there is actually an endorsement that exists, they need to endorse it. By endorsement you mean . Sign it over. But the question is whether they have the authority to sign it over. As the lawyer, i would need to know that before proceeding with the foreclosure. Under anto be endorsed agreement which is followed by the securitized stressed trust. They should have been endorsed long before the foreclosure was ever started, at the time it was started, allegedly, by the trust. This talks about how to fabricate a document that you do not have, that you need. That is how i am reading it. To foreclose on the house. Thatam reading it to say it is not just when there is a blank endorsement to fill in the blank, but there is a procedure here that when there is no endorsement, go ahead and endorsed the note. That is what we call, in our dota of law, a to endorsement. When we ask about it and we say that this note is not endorsed to your client, how can you bring foreclosure . Then they say, use this version. It is just a rubber stamp that you and i could purchase. A document across which was reportedly from an official of Washington Mutual bank in 2010, but they did not exist because they had collapsed back in 2008. Signed byument was john kennedy, who worked for wells fargo at the time. In this manual, there is a procedure for obtaining an assignment of mortgage. As every the procedures, it says, if you need an assignment, the attorney should requested through the department. Magically, one will appear for you. That is what we see. The people that work in these various departments receive a request from the attorney and take it as permission to find something about doing any research. Out, how can you have anything aside from a company that ceased to exist twus prior . Prior . Years kapturmember when marcy was standing on the floor of the house, telling homeowners to stay in their homes and demand to produce a note. I want to go to eric schneiderman. Last may, the new York Attorney attorney general announced plans to sue wells fargo for curbing foreclosure abuses. The 26 billion settlement was reached in 2012 between five major banks and 49 attorneys general. It provided basic protections for homeowners such as requiring banks to notify them about missing documents within a certain time period, but he said the banks had violated the times of the settlement with impunity. He showed hundreds of complaints issued by homeowners against the banks. Fargo and bank of america have flagrantly violated their obligations under the settlement. I sent a letter to the monitoring committee, the body that oversees the implementation of the National Mortgage center settlement, notifying them of my intention to sue wells fargo and bank of america for noncompliance of servicing standards, spelled out in the settlement. This enforcement action is the first taken under the settlement, based on 339 individual complaints from new yorkers against these two banks in the last six months. Can you explain what happened with this case . I want to point out, within four hours of the article, exposing the documents, i received not only a phone call but an email from his office. We had a long discussion about it. I also received a phone call and email from the new York State Division of financial services. I am hoping that they are now launching an investigation. As i understand mr. Schneidermans lloyd, wells fargo was signing off on a National Mortgage Settlement Agreement out of one side of its mouth. On the other side they were republishing their manual to say we will continue business as usual. Throw some money at it, quite down the homeowners and we will continue. That is what we are seeing. Kevin whelan, from the home defenders league, can you put this in the context of the more good crisis . Into there six years Home Mortgage crisis that crashed the entire economy. Thank you for having me today. The we hear, every time there is an uptick in real estate prices, that the foreclosure crisis or mortgage crisis is over. Certainly, wells fargo and the big banks are back to making record profits. Foreclosures are still terrier part many communities, particularly those of color, which were targeted for predatory and subprime lending. One in five american homeowners is still underwater, meaning they owe more on the house than the home is currently worth. We have made the banks hold without effectively curbing their abuse of practices without giving the while hitting homeowners the runaround from a russian jew foreclosure when there is a way around to settlement. They have not done enough to includingwners whole, principal reduction, which they promised to do under settlements. Can you respond to this latest news about the attorney making a lowoffice priority or no priority at all, going after these mortgage lenders . Absolutely. The news is no surprise to people that have been fighting foreclosure in communities around the country. We work with 25 Community Groups in our atlarge organizations, so people can come and find us fendersleague. Org. Been in cases all over the place trying to stave off foreclosure. A family in new jersey last a woman and her mother, who missed one mortgage payment in 2010, went to wells fargo the next month with checks in hand, but they would not take the money, and started a threeyear campaign to take their house. In peoplenly resolved delivered petitions to wells fargo offices around the country. They finally got a call back and will work out a solution to stay in their homes. Families that are facing this know the housing crisis is not over and know that nothing has happened which is on a broad enough scale to make the banks fearful or sorry for the harm they have done, or change their behavior in fundamental ways. There are some local governments that have tried to toervene themselves, trying beat back the crisis of people being kicked out of their homes. Could you talk about those examples . One thing that we know, there is something to it. Fargo,ks, led by wells are especially panicked and angry about the solution. In richmond, california i think you had the mayor on before has been a city that has led the way and many more will follow, to enact principal reduction, resetting loans to their current market value on the local level. This is exciting because, while these federal agencies, like the Justice Department, are too often captive of the big banks, people can use democracy and win at the local level sometimes. The concept for this program is that cities would work with other investors to buy the loans at their fair market value in the secondary market, which is pennies on the dollar of what these underwater loans are worth, and refinance homeowners into new loans with equity. This is a concept that has gotten started in richmond but people are meeting even today in different cities around the country to spread this. It wouldch because cost them money, because it is a chance for people to use the rule of law and democracy to impact the economy and bank who have sued unsuccessfully and made all kinds of threats about redlining communities in order to stop it. People can go to fightingfore closure. Org to learn more about the campaign. Arrestedve been outside of the Justice Department, demanding more action. Linda tirelli, you have this news that the attorney general claim to File Lawsuits on behalf of homeowner, totaling more than a billion dollars. In fact, it was 91 less than this, so what do you think should happen . Who is prosecuted here, and who is free . At this point, lets face it, we are never going to see it. At the very least, this document gives the new York Attorney general free access to every attorney who has ever followed the manual and hold them accountable, because it is illegal. As attorneys we are held to a higher standard. We cannot knowingly produce false documents and submit them into a court of law. Our judicial process is based on integrity. As i read it, will bypass the integrity of the system, and becomes the Civil Procedure Rules according to wells fargo. And more importantly, the author of the document, who approved the document for these lawyers to use. I introduced this document in a motion to reopen discovery after a trial, and i hope that we can get to a deposition table to get answers to that. Before eric holder was