democracynow--2020-01-10--The Weaponization of Data: Cambridge Analytica, Information Warfare & the 2016 Election of Trump

This is a rush transcript .
Copy may not be in its final form .
As Karim was saying , that if you — you know , we ’ re in a state of global information warfare now .
If you have a bomb that has been discovered that came from an American source and it ’ s in Yemen , then we can look at that bomb , and often there ’ s a label which declares that it ’ s an American bomb that has been bought , that has , you know , been used against civilians @ @ @ @ @ @ @ do we know if our militaries develop technologies and the data that it has gathered on people , for instance , across the Middle East , the kind of data that Snowden revealed — how do we know when that is turning up in Yemen or when that is being utilized by an authoritarian regime against the human rights of its people or against us ?
How do we know that it ’ s not being manipulated by Russia , by Iran , by anybody who ’ s an enemy , by Saudi @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were also working with ?
We have no way of knowing , unless we open up this industry and hold these people properly accountable for what they ’ re doing .
AMY GOODMAN : SCL Defence was the parent company of Cambridge Analytica .
Emma Briant , human rights researcher at Bard College , her upcoming book , Propaganda Machine : Inside Cambridge Analytica and the Digital Influence Industry .
We ’ ll be back in less than 30 seconds .
AMY GOODMAN : This is Democracy Now !
I ’ m Amy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at Cambridge Analytica , Facebook , and their roles in U.S. and other elections .
I speak to the directors of The Great Hack , Jehane Noujaim and Karim Amer , as well as former Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Brittany Kaiser , who ’ s begun posting online a trove of documents detailing the operations of the now-defunct company .
I asked propaganda researcher Emma Briant to talk about the significance of the documents .
My thing that I think that is most interesting of what ’ s been revealed so far is actually @ @ @ @ @ @ @ know , this is a very complex issue , and it really is an exemplar of the kinds of conflicts of interest that I ’ m talking about , at a company that is , you know , set out to profit from the arms trade and from the expansion of war in that region and from the favoring of one side in a regional conflict , essentially , backed by American power , by the escalation of the conflict with Iran and , you know , by getting more contracts , of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the UAE and the Saudis .
You know , and , of course , they were trying to put Trump in power , as well , to do that , and advancing John Bolton and the other hawks who have been trying to demand that sanctions — to keep sanctions and to get out of the Iran deal , which they have been arguing is a flawed deal .
BRITTANY KAISER : Black Cube isn ’ t the only company you should be concerned about .
The founder of Blackwater , or their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an investor in Cambridge Analytica .
So he profits from arm sales around the world , and military contracts , and has been accused of causing the unnecessary death of civilians in very many different wartime situations .
He was one of the investors in Cambridge Analytica and their new company , Emerdata .
And so , I should be very concerned , and everyone should be very concerned , about the weaponization of our data by people that are actually experts in selling weapons .
So , that ’ s one thing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the public discussion , the difference between what is military , what is civilian , and how those things can be used for different purposes or not .
And what ’ s very worrisome is that , as we ’ re seeing more and more , with what Emma ’ s talking about and what Brittany has shown , is this conveyor belt of military-grade information and research and expertise coming out of our defense work , that ’ s being paid for by our tax money , then going into the private @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bidder , with different special interests from around the world .
So what you see in the files is , you know , a oil company buying influence campaign in a country that it ’ s not from and having no — you know , no responsibility or anything to what it ’ s doing there .
And what happens in that , the results of that research , where it gets handed over to , no one knows .
Any contracts that then result in the change that happens on the political @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
KARIM AMER : Well , it ’ s not just that they ’ ve profited off it .
I think what ’ s even more worrisome is that a lot of our technology companies , I would say , are incentivized now by the polarization of the American people .
The more polarized , the more you spend time on the platform checking the endless feed , the more you ’ re hooked , the more you ’ re glued , the more their KPI at the end of the year , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ user on platform , goes up .
And as long as that ’ s the model , then everything is designed , from the way you interact with these devices to the way your news is sorted and fed to you , to keep you on , as hooked as possible , in this completely unregulated , unfiltered way — under the guise of freedom of speech when it ’ s selectively there for them to protect their interests further .
And I think that ’ s very worrisome .
We have to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , if Facebook was fined $ 50 billion instead of five , I guarantee you we wouldn ’ t be having this conversation right now .
It would have led to not only an incredible change within the company , but it would have been the signal to the entire industry .
And there would have been innovation that would have been sponsored to come out of this problem .
Like , we can use technology to fix this , as well .
We just have to create the right incentivization plan .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the future that are around can help us get out of this .
But currently they are not the — they are not the decision makers , because these companies are not democratic whatsoever .
This is about inequality and it being enabled .
If you care about , you know , having a proper debate about all of the issues that are relevant to America right now , so , you know , do you care about the — you know , the horrifying state of American prison system , what ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , if you care about a minimum wage , if you care about the healthcare system , you care about the poverty , the homelessness on the streets , you care about American prosperity , you care about the environment and making sure that your country doesn ’ t turn into the environmental disaster that Australia is experiencing right now , then you have to care about this topic , because we can ’ t have an adequate debate , we can not , like , know that we have a fair election @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are actually having a discussion , from American to American , from , you know , country to country , that isn ’ t being dominated by rich oil industries or defense industries and brutal leaders and so on .
AMY GOODMAN : Propaganda researcher Emma Briant ; Jehane Noujaim and Karim Amer , the directors of The Great Hack , the Netflix documentary just shortlisted for an Academy Award ; and Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Brittany Kaiser , author of Targeted : The Cambridge Analytica Whistleblower ’ s Inside Story of How Big @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Democracy and How It Can Happen Again .
To see the first hour of our discussion , go to democracynow.org .

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to bring Emma Briant back into this conversation. You mentioned it in Part 1 of our discussion —
EMMA BRIANT: Of course.
AMY GOODMAN: — this issue of military contractors —
EMMA BRIANT: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: — and the nexus of military and government power, the fact that with Trump’s election —
EMMA BRIANT: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: — military contractors were one of the greatest financial beneficiaries of Trump’s election.
KARIM AMER: But I think it’s important to remember that —
EMMA BRIANT: Absolutely.
AMY GOODMAN: Karim Amer.
KARIM AMER: — the issue is that also these — when we think of military contractors, we think of people selling tanks and guns and bullets and these types of things. The problem that we don’t realize is that we’re in an era of information warfare. So the new military contractors aren’t selling — aren’t selling the traditional tanks. They’re selling the —
AMY GOODMAN: Although they’re doing that.
KARIM AMER: They’re doing that, as well, but they’re selling the equivalent of that in the information space. And that’s a new kind of weapon. That’s a new kind of battle that we’re not familiar with.
And the reason why it’s more challenging for us is because there’s a deficit of language and a deficit of visuals. We don’t know where the battlefield is. We don’t know where the borders are. We can’t pinpoint, be like, “This is where the trenches are.” Yet we’re starting to uncover that. And that was so much of the challenge in making this film, is trying to see where can we actually show you where these wreckage sites are, where the casualties of this new information warfare are, and who the actors are and where the fronts are.
And I think, in entering 2020, we have to keep a keen eye on where the new war fronts are and when they’re happening in our domestic frontiers and how they’re happening in these devices that we use every day. So this is where we have to have a new kind of reframing of what we’re looking at, because while we are at war, it is a very different kind of borderless war where asymmetric information activity can affect us in ways that we never imagined.
AMY GOODMAN: And, Emma Briant, you talked about when Facebook knew the level of documentation that Cambridge Analytica was taking from them.
EMMA BRIANT: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: I mean, Cambridge Analytica paid them, right?
EMMA BRIANT: Yes. I mean, they were providing the data to GSR, who then, you know, were paid by —
AMY GOODMAN: Explain what GSR is.
EMMA BRIANT: Sorry, the company by Kogan and Joseph Chancellor, their company that they were setting up to do both academic research but also to exploit the data for Cambridge Analytica’s purposes. So they were working with — on mapping that data onto the personality tests and giving that access to Cambridge Analytica, so that they could scale it up to profile people across the target states in America especially, but also all across America. They obtained way more than they ever expected, as Chris Wylie and Brittany have shown.
But I want to also ask: When did our governments know about what Cambridge Analytica and SCL were doing around the world and when they were starting to work in our elections? One of the issues is that these technologies have been partly developed by, you know, grants from our governments and that these were, you know, defense contractors, as we say. We have a responsibility for those companies and for ensuring that there’s reporting back on what they’re doing, and some kind of transparency.
As Karim was saying, that if you — you know, we’re in a state of global information warfare now. If you have a bomb that has been discovered that came from an American source and it’s in Yemen, then we can look at that bomb, and often there’s a label which declares that it’s an American bomb that has been bought, that has, you know, been used against civilians. But what about data? How do we know if our militaries develop technologies and the data that it has gathered on people, for instance, across the Middle East, the kind of data that Snowden revealed — how do we know when that is turning up in Yemen or when that is being utilized by an authoritarian regime against the human rights of its people or against us? How do we know that it’s not being manipulated by Russia, by Iran, by anybody who’s an enemy, by Saudi Arabia, for example, who SCL were also working with? We have no way of knowing, unless we open up this industry and hold these people properly accountable for what they’re doing.
AMY GOODMAN: SCL Defence was the parent company of Cambridge Analytica. Emma Briant, human rights researcher at Bard College, her upcoming book, Propaganda Machine: Inside Cambridge Analytica and the Digital Influence Industry. We’ll be back in less than 30 seconds.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman, as we continue our look at Cambridge Analytica, Facebook, and their roles in U.S. and other elections. I speak to the directors of The Great Hack, Jehane Noujaim and Karim Amer, as well as former Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Brittany Kaiser, who’s begun posting online a trove of documents detailing the operations of the now-defunct company. I asked propaganda researcher Emma Briant to talk about the significance of the documents.
EMMA BRIANT: I think the biggest reveal is going to be in the American campaigns around this, but I think you haven’t seen the half of it yet. This is the tip of the iceberg, as I’ve been saying.
My thing that I think that is most interesting of what’s been revealed so far is actually the Iran campaign, because, you know, this is a very complex issue, and it really is an exemplar of the kinds of conflicts of interest that I’m talking about, at a company that is, you know, set out to profit from the arms trade and from the expansion of war in that region and from the favoring of one side in a regional conflict, essentially, backed by American power, by the escalation of the conflict with Iran and, you know, by getting more contracts, of course, with the Gulf states, the UAE and the Saudis. You know, and, of course, they were trying to put Trump in power, as well, to do that, and advancing John Bolton and the other hawks who have been trying to demand that sanctions — to keep sanctions and to get out of the Iran deal, which they have been arguing is a flawed deal.
And, of course, SCL were involved in doing work in that region since 2013, including they were working before that on Iran for President Obama’s administration, which I’m going to be talking more about in the future. The issue is that there is a conflict of interest here. So you gain experience for one government, and then you’re going and working for others that maybe are not entirely aligned in their interests.
AMY GOODMAN: Although it was for the election of Donald Trump, of course, it happened during the Obama years.
EMMA BRIANT: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s when Cambridge Analytica really gained its strength in working with Facebook.
EMMA BRIANT: Yeah. And SCL’s major shareholder, Vincent Tchenguiz, of course, was involved in the early establishment of the company Black Cube and in some of its early funding, I believe. I don’t know how long they stayed in any kind of relationship with that firm. However, the firm Black Cube were also targeting Obama administration officials with a massive smear campaign, as has been revealed in the media. And, you know, this opposition to the Iran deal and the promotion of these kinds of, you know, really fearmongering advertising that Brittany is talking about is very disturbing, when this same company is also driving, you know, advertising for gun sales and things like that.
AMY GOODMAN: Wait. Explain what Black Cube is, which goes right to today’s headlines —
EMMA BRIANT: Exactly.
AMY GOODMAN: — because Harvey Weinstein, accused of raping I don’t know how many women at last count, also employed Black Cube, former Israeli intelligence folks, to go after —
EMMA BRIANT: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: — the women who were accusing him, and even to try to deceive the reporters, like at The New York Times, to try to get them to write false stories.
EMMA BRIANT: Absolutely. I mean, this is an intelligence firm that was born, again, out of the “war on terror.” So, Israel’s war on terror, this time, produced an awful lot of people who had gone through conscription and developed really, you know, strong expertise in cyberoperations or on developing information warfare technologies, in general, intelligence gathering techniques. And Black Cube was formed by people who came out of the Israeli intelligence industries. And they all formed these companies, and this has become a huge industry, which is not really being properly regulated, as well, and properly governed, and seems to be rather out of control. And they have been also linked to Cambridge Analytica in the evidence to Parliament. So, I think the involvement of all of these companies is really disturbing, as well, in relation to the Iran deal.
We don’t know that Cambridge Analytica in any way were working with Black Cube in this, at this point in time. However, the fact is that all of this infrastructure has been created, which is not being properly tackled. And how they’re able to operate without anybody really understanding what’s going on is a major, major problem.
AMY GOODMAN: Brittany?
BRITTANY KAISER: Black Cube isn’t the only company you should be concerned about. The founder of Blackwater, or their CEO, Erik Prince, was also an investor in Cambridge Analytica. So he profits from arm sales around the world, and military contracts, and has been accused of causing the unnecessary death of civilians in very many different wartime situations. He was one of the investors in Cambridge Analytica and their new company, Emerdata. And so, I should be very concerned, and everyone should be very concerned, about the weaponization of our data by people that are actually experts in selling weapons. So, that’s one thing that I think needs to be in the public discussion, the difference between what is military, what is civilian, and how those things can be used for different purposes or not.
KARIM AMER: And I think what’s important to see —
AMY GOODMAN: Karim.
KARIM AMER: — is that, you know, in the clip you showed, Chris Wylie is talking about how Cambridge is a full-service propaganda machine. What does that really mean? You know, I would say that what’s happening is we’re getting insight to the the network of the influence industry, the buying and selling of information and of people’s behavioral change. And it is a completely unregulated space.
And what’s very worrisome is that, as we’re seeing more and more, with what Emma’s talking about and what Brittany has shown, is this conveyor belt of military-grade information and research and expertise coming out of our defense work, that’s being paid for by our tax money, then going into the private sector and selling it to the highest bidder, with different special interests from around the world. So what you see in the files is, you know, a oil company buying influence campaign in a country that it’s not from and having no — you know, no responsibility or anything to what it’s doing there. And what happens in that, the results of that research, where it gets handed over to, no one knows. Any contracts that then result in the change that happens on the political ground, no one tracks and sees.
So, this is what we’re very concerned about, is because you’re seeing that everything has become for sale. And if everything is for sale —
JEHANE NOUJAIM: Our elections are for sale.
KARIM AMER: Exactly. And so, how do we have any kind of integrity to the vote, when we’re living in such a condition?
JEHANE NOUJAIM: Democracy has been broken. And our first vote is happening in 28 days, and nothing has changed. No election laws have changed. Facebook’s a crime scene. No research, nothing has come out. We don’t understand it yet. This was why we felt so passionate about making this film, because it’s invisible. How do you make the invisible visible? And this is why Brittany is releasing these files, because unless we understand the tactics, which are currently being used again, right now, as we speak, same people involved, then we can’t change this.
AMY GOODMAN: Facebook’s a crime scene, Jehane. Elaborate on that.
JEHANE NOUJAIM: Absolutely. Facebook is where this has happened. Initially, we thought this was Cambridge Analytica — right? — and that Cambridge Analytica was the only bad player. But Facebook has allowed this to happen. And they have not revealed. They have the data. They understand what has happened, but they have not revealed that.
AMY GOODMAN: And they have profited off of it.
JEHANE NOUJAIM: And they have profited off of it.
KARIM AMER: Well, it’s not just that they’ve profited off it. I think what’s even more worrisome is that a lot of our technology companies, I would say, are incentivized now by the polarization of the American people. The more polarized, the more you spend time on the platform checking the endless feed, the more you’re hooked, the more you’re glued, the more their KPI at the end of the year, which says number of hours spent per user on platform, goes up. And as long as that’s the model, then everything is designed, from the way you interact with these devices to the way your news is sorted and fed to you, to keep you on, as hooked as possible, in this completely unregulated, unfiltered way — under the guise of freedom of speech when it’s selectively there for them to protect their interests further. And I think that’s very worrisome.
And we have to ask these technology companies: Would there be a Silicon Valley if the ideals of the open society were not in place? Would Silicon Valley be this refuge for the world’s engineers of the future to come reimagine what the future could look like, had there not been the foundations of an open society? There would not be. Yet the same people who are profiting off of these ideals protecting them feel no responsibility in their preservation. And that is what is so upsetting. That is what is so criminal. And that is why we cannot look to them for leadership on how to get out of this.
We have to look at the regulation. You know, if Facebook was fined $50 billion instead of five, I guarantee you we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now. It would have led to not only an incredible change within the company, but it would have been the signal to the entire industry. And there would have been innovation that would have been sponsored to come out of this problem. Like, we can use technology to fix this, as well. We just have to create the right incentivization plan. I have belief that the engineers of the future that are around can help us get out of this. But currently they are not the — they are not the decision makers, because these companies are not democratic whatsoever.
AMY GOODMAN: Emma Briant?
EMMA BRIANT: Could I? Yes, please. I just wanted to make a point about how important this is for ordinary Americans to understand the significance for their own lives, as well, because I think some people hear this, and they think, “Oh, tech, this is maybe quite abstract,” or, you know, they may feel that other issues are more important when it comes to election time. But I want to make the point that, actually, you know what? This subject is about all of those other issues.
This is about inequality and it being enabled. If you care about, you know, having a proper debate about all of the issues that are relevant to America right now, so, you know, do you care about the — you know, the horrifying state of American prison system, what’s being done to migrants right now, if you care about a minimum wage, if you care about the healthcare system, you care about the poverty, the homelessness on the streets, you care about American prosperity, you care about the environment and making sure that your country doesn’t turn into the environmental disaster that Australia is experiencing right now, then you have to care about this topic, because we can’t have an adequate debate, we cannot, like, know that we have a fair election system, until we understand that we are actually having a discussion, from American to American, from, you know, country to country, that isn’t being dominated by rich oil industries or defense industries and brutal leaders and so on.
So, I think that the issue is that Americans need to understand that this is an underlying issue that is stopping them being able to have the kinds of policies that would create for them a better society. It’s stopping their own ability to make change happen in the ways that they want it to happen.
AMY GOODMAN: Emma Briant —
EMMA BRIANT: It’s not an abstract issue. Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: What would be the most effective form of regulation? I mean, we saw old Standard Oil broken up, these monopolies broken up.
EMMA BRIANT: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: Do you think that’s the starting point for companies like Facebook, like Google and others?
EMMA BRIANT: I think that’s a big part of it. I do think that Elizabeth Warren’s recommendations when it comes to that and antitrust and so on are really important. And we have legal precedents to follow on that kind of thing.
But I also think that we need an independent regulator for the tech industry and also a separate one for the influence industry. So, America has some regulation when it comes to lobbying. In the U.K., we have none. And quite often, you know, American companies will partner with a British company in order to be able to get around doing things, for instance. We have to make sure that different countries’ jurisdictions cannot be, you know, abused in order to make something happen that would be forbidden in another country.
We need to make sure that we’re also tackling how money is being channeled into these campaigns, because, actually, there’s an awful lot we could do that isn’t just about censoring or taking down content, but that actually is, you know, about making sure that the money isn’t being funneled in to the — to fund these actual campaigns. If we knew who was behind them, if we were able to show which companies were working on them and what other interests they might have, then I think this would really open up the system to better journalism, to better — you know, more accountability.
And the issue isn’t just about what’s happening on the platforms, although that is a big part of it. We have to think about, you know, the whole infrastructure.
AMY GOODMAN: Propaganda researcher Emma Briant; Jehane Noujaim and Karim Amer, the directors of The Great Hack, the Netflix documentary just shortlisted for an Academy Award; and Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Brittany Kaiser, author of Targeted: The Cambridge Analytica Whistleblower’s Inside Story of How Big Data, Trump, and Facebook Broke Democracy and How It Can Happen Again.
To see the first hour of our discussion, go to democracynow.org.


democracynow--2020-01-10--"Democracy For Sale": Cambridge Analytica & Big Tech's History of Manipulating Elections

This is a rush transcript .
Copy may not be in its final form .
AMY GOODMAN : A longtime Facebook executive has admitted the company ’ s platform helped Donald Trump win the 2016 election , and predicted it may happen again this year .
In an internal memo , Facebook Vice President Andrew Bosworth wrote , “ So was Facebook responsible for Donald Trump getting elected ?
I think the answer is yes , ” he said .
Bosworth , who was a backer of Hillary Clinton in 2016 , went on to write that the company should @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to hurt Trump ’ s re-election chances .
Bosworth credited Trump for running , quote , “ the single best digital ad campaign I ’ ve ever seen from any advertiser.
” In his memo , Bosworth referenced the role of the shadowy data firm Cambridge Analytica but downplayed its significance .
However , a new Netflix documentary called The Great Hack argues Cambridge Analytica has played a critical role in the U.S. election , as well as elections across the globe .
Cambridge Analytica was founded by the right-wing billionaire Robert Mercer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Bannon was the company ’ s vice president and claims to have named the company .
Cambridge Analytica harvested some 87 million Facebook profiles without the users ’ knowledge or consent and used the data to sway voters during the 2016 campaign .
The story of Cambridge Analytica is featured in the new documentary The Great Hack , which has been shortlisted for an Oscar .
AMY GOODMAN : Well , earlier this week , I spoke to the directors of The Great Hack , Jehane Noujaim and Karim Amer , as well @ @ @ @ @ @ @ former employee at Cambridge Analytica , Brittany Kaiser , who has begun posting online a trove of documents detailing the company ’ s operations , including its work with President Trump ’ s former national security adviser John Bolton .
Kaiser has also written about her experience at the company in the book Targeted : The Cambridge Analytica Whistleblower ’ s Inside Story of How Big Data , Trump , and Facebook Broke Democracy and How It Can Happen Again .
Kaiser is one of two former Cambridge Analytica employees featured in The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Wylie .
AMY GOODMAN : I asked Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Brittany Kaiser to talk about how she became involved with Cambridge Analytica .
And when I say “ psychographic targeting , ” I ’ m sure you probably are a little bit more familiar with the Myers-Briggs test , so the Myers-Briggs 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 .
It ’ s called the OCEAN five-factor model @ @ @ @ @ @ @ openness , C for conscientiousness , whether you prefer plans and order or you ’ re a little bit more fly by the seat of your pants .
Extraversion , whether you gather your energy from being out surrounded by people , or you ’ re 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 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ need messages that are about benefits to you .
And then the worst is neurotic .
You know , it ’ s 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 fear-based messaging , so people can use tactics in order to scare you to doing what they want to do .
AMY GOODMAN : Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Brittany Kaiser .
When we come back , we speak to the directors of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s just been shortlisted for an Academy Award .
AMY GOODMAN : “ Let Me Steal Your Secrets , ” soundtrack from the documentary The Great Hack .
This is Democracy Now !
I ’ m Amy Goodman , as we continue our look at Cambridge Analytica , Facebook , and their roles in the 2016 U.S. election and other elections .
Earlier this week , I spoke to the directors of The Great Hack , Jehane Noujaim and Karim Amer , as well as propaganda researcher Emma Briant and a former @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I asked Karim Amer to talk about what Cambridge Analytica effort to suppress the vote in Trinidad and Tobago did .

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: A longtime Facebook executive has admitted the company’s platform helped Donald Trump win the 2016 election, and predicted it may happen again this year. In an internal memo, Facebook Vice President Andrew Bosworth wrote, “So was Facebook responsible for Donald Trump getting elected? I think the answer is yes,” he said. Bosworth, who was a backer of Hillary Clinton in 2016, went on to write that the company should not change its policies in an effort to hurt Trump’s re-election chances. Bosworth credited Trump for running, quote, “the single best digital ad campaign I’ve ever seen from any advertiser.”
In his memo, Bosworth referenced the role of the shadowy data firm Cambridge Analytica but downplayed its significance. However, a new Netflix documentary called The Great Hack argues Cambridge Analytica has played a critical role in the U.S. election, as well as elections across the globe.
Cambridge Analytica was founded by the right-wing billionaire Robert Mercer. Trump’s former adviser Steve Bannon was the company’s vice president and claims to have named the company.
Cambridge Analytica harvested some 87 million Facebook profiles without the users’ knowledge or consent and used the data to sway voters during the 2016 campaign. The story of Cambridge Analytica is featured in the new documentary The Great Hack, which has been shortlisted for an Oscar.
DAVID CARROLL: All of your interactions, your credit card swipes, web searches, locations, likes, they’re all collected, in real time, into a trillion-dollar-a-year industry.
CAROLE CADWALLADR: The real game changer was Cambridge Analytica. They worked for the Trump campaign and for the Brexit campaign. They started using information warfare.
DAVID CARROLL: Cambridge Analytica claimed to have 5,000 data points on every American voter.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, earlier this week, I spoke to the directors of The Great Hack, Jehane Noujaim and Karim Amer, as well as propaganda researcher Emma Briant and a former employee at Cambridge Analytica, Brittany Kaiser, who has begun posting online a trove of documents detailing the company’s operations, including its work with President Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton. Kaiser has also written about her experience at the company in the book Targeted: The Cambridge Analytica Whistleblower’s Inside Story of How Big Data, Trump, and Facebook Broke Democracy and How It Can Happen Again. Kaiser is one of two former Cambridge Analytica employees featured in The Great Hack. The other is Christopher Wylie.
CHRISTOPHER WYLIE: It’s incorrect to call Cambridge Analytica a purely sort of data science company or an algorithm company. You know, it is a full-service propaganda machine.
AMY GOODMAN: I asked Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Brittany Kaiser to talk about how she became involved with Cambridge Analytica.
BRITTANY KAISER: I think it’s very important to note this, because there are people all around the world that are working for tech companies, that I’m 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 get people more engaged in important issues. And they don’t realize that while you’re 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 and the Cambridge Psychometrics Centre at Cambridge University in order to start doing experiments with Facebook data, to be able to gather that data, which we now know was taken under the wrong auspices of academic research, and was then used in order to identify people’s psychographic groupings.
AMY GOODMAN: Now, explain that, psychographic groupings, and especially for people who are not on Facebook, who don’t understand its enormous power and the intimate knowledge it has of people. Think of someone you’re talking to who’s never experienced Facebook. Explain what is there.
BRITTANY KAISER: Absolutely. So, the amount of data that is collected about you on Facebook and on any of your devices is much more than you’re really made aware of. You probably haven’t 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 to understand — it’s written in legalese — you would realize that you are giving away a lot more than you would have ever agreed to if there was transparency. This is your every move, everywhere you’re going, who you’re talking to, who your contacts are, what information you’re actually giving in other apps on your phone, your location data, all of your lifestyle, where you’re going, what you’re doing, what you’re 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 like Cambridge 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,” I’m sure you probably are a little bit more familiar with the Myers-Briggs test, so the Myers-Briggs 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. It’s called the OCEAN five-factor model. And OCEAN stands for O for openness, C for conscientiousness, whether you prefer plans and order or you’re a little bit more fly by the seat of your pants. Extraversion, whether you gather your energy from being out surrounded by people, or you’re 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, it’s 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 fear-based 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 hundred 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 you’re going to click on and exactly what you care about.
AMY GOODMAN: 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.
BRITTANY KAISER: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: And then it becomes Cambridge Analytica, for Cambridge University, right? Where Kogan got this information that he culled from Facebook.
BRITTANY KAISER: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: 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 presidential 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. STEPHEN BANNON: All Cambridge Analytica is the data scientists and the applied applications here in the United States. It has nothing to do with the international stuff. The Guardian actually tells you that, and The Observer tell you that, when you get down to the 10th paragraph, OK? When you get down to the 10th paragraph. And what Nix does overseas is what Nix does overseas. Right? It was a data — it was a data company.
And by the way, Cruz’s campaign and the Trump campaign say, “Hey, they were a pretty good data company.” But this whole thing on psychographics was optionality in the deal. If it ever worked, it worked. But it hasn’t worked, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to work. So, it was never even applied.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s Steve Bannon in 2018, key to President Trump’s victory and to his years so far in office, before he was forced to — before he was forced out. What was your relationship with Steve Bannon? You worked at Cambridge Analytica for over three years. You had the keys to the castle, is that right, in Washington?
BRITTANY KAISER: Yes, for a while I actually split the keys to what is Steve’s house, with Alexander Nix, because we used his house as our office. His house is also used as a Breitbart office in the basement. It’s called the “Breitbart Embassy” on Capitol Hill. And that’s where I would go for meetings.
AMY GOODMAN: Who funded that?
BRITTANY KAISER: I believe it was owned by the Mercer family, that building. And we would come into the basement and use that boardroom for our meetings. And we would use that for planning who we were going to go pitch to, what campaigns we were going to work for, what advocacy groups, what conservative 501(c)(3)s and (c)(4)s he wanted us to go see.
And I didn’t spend a lot of time with Steve, but the time I did was incredibly insightful. Almost every time I saw him, he’d be showing me some new Hillary Clinton hit video that he had come out with, or announcing that he was about to throw a book launch party for Ann Coulter for ¡Adios, America!, which was something that he invited both me and Alexander to, and we promptly decided to leave the house before she arrived.
But Steve was very influential in the development of Cambridge Analytica and who we were going to go see, who we were going to support with our technology. And he made a lot of the introductions, which in the beginning seemed a little less nefarious than they did later on, when he got very confident and started introducing us to white right-wing political parties across Europe and in other countries and tried to get meetings with the main political parties, or leftist or green parties instead, to make sure that those far-right-wing parties that do not have the world’s best interests at heart could not get access to these technologies. heart could not get access to these technologies.
AMY GOODMAN: You said in The Great Hack, in the film, that you have evidence of illegality of the Trump and Brexit campaigns, that they were conducted illegally. I was wondering if you can go into that. I mean, it was controversial even, and Carole Calwalladr, the great reporter at The Observer and The Guardian, was blasted and was personally targeted, very well demonstrated in The Great Hack, for saying that Cambridge Analytica was involved in Brexit. They kept saying they had nothing to do with it, until she shows a video of you, who worked for Cambridge Analytica, at one of the founding events of leave it, or Brexit.
BRITTANY KAISER: Yeah, Leave.EU, that panel that I was on, which has now become quite an infamous video, was their launch event to launch the campaign. And Cambridge Analytica was in deep negotiations, through introduction of Steve Bannon, with both of the Brexit campaigns. I was told, actually, originally we pitched remain, and the remain side said that they did not need to spend money on expensive political consultants, because they were going to win anyway. And that’s actually what I also truly believed, and so did they.
So, Steve made the introductions to make sure that we would still get a commercial contract out of this political campaign, and both to Vote Leave and Leave.EU. Cambridge Analytica took Leave.EU, and AIQ, which was Cambridge Analytica’s essentially digital partner, before Cambridge Analytica could run our own digital campaigns, they were running the Vote Leave side, both funded by the Mercers, both with the same access to this giant database on American voters.
AMY GOODMAN: The Mercers funded Brexit?
BRITTANY KAISER: There was Cambridge Analytica work, as well as AIQ work, in both of the leave campaigns. So, a lot of that money, in order to collect that data and in order to build the infrastructure of both of those companies, came from Mercer-funded campaigns, yes.
AMY GOODMAN: And again, explain what AIQ is.
BRITTANY KAISER: AIQ was a company that actually ran all of Cambridge Analytica’s digital campaigns, until January 2016, when Molly Schweickert, our head of digital, was hired in order to build ad tech internally within the company. AIQ was based in Canada and was a partner that had access to Cambridge Analytica data the entire time that they were running the Vote Leave campaign, which was the designated and main campaign in Brexit.
AMY GOODMAN: So, when did you see the connection between Brexit and the Trump campaign?
BRITTANY KAISER: Actually, a lot of it started to come when I saw some of Carole’s reporting, because there were a lot of conspiracy theories over what was going on, and I didn’t know what to believe. All I knew was that we definitely did work in the Brexit campaign, “we” as in when I was at Cambridge Analytica, because I was one of the people working on the campaign. And we obviously played a large role in not just the Trump campaign itself, but Trump super PACs and a lot of other conservative advocacy groups, 501(c)(3)s, (4)s, that were the infrastructure that allowed for the building of the movement that pushed Donald Trump into the White House.
AMY GOODMAN: I mean, it looks like Cambridge Analytica was heading to a billion-dollar corporation.
BRITTANY KAISER: That’s what Alexander used to tell us all the time. That was the carrot that he waved in front of our eyes in order to have us keep going. “We’re building a billion-dollar company. Aren’t you excited?” And I think that that’s what so many people get caught up in, people that are currently working at Facebook, people that are working at Google, people that are working at companies where they are motivated to build exciting technology, that obviously can also be very dangerous, but they think they’re going to financially benefit and be able to take care of themselves and their families because of it.
AMY GOODMAN: So what was illegal?
BRITTANY KAISER: The massive problems that came from the data collection, specifically, are where my original accusations come from, because data was collected under the auspices of being for academic research and was used for political and commercial purposes. There are also different data sets that are not supposed to be matched and used without explicit transparency and consent in the United Kingdom, because they actually have good national data protection laws and international data protection laws through the European Union to protect voters. Unfortunately, in the United States, we only have seen the state of California coming out and doing it.
Now, on the other side, we have voter suppression laws that prevent our vote from being suppressed. We have laws against discrimination in advertising, racism, sexism, incitement of violence. All of those things are illegal, yet somehow a platform like Facebook has decided that if politicians want to use any of those tactics, that they will not be held to the same community standards as you or me, or the basic laws and social contracts that we have in this country.
AMY GOODMAN: Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Brittany Kaiser. When we come back, we speak to the directors of The Great Hack, the documentary that’s just been shortlisted for an Academy Award.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: “Let Me Steal Your Secrets,” soundtrack from the documentary The Great Hack. This is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman, as we continue our look at Cambridge Analytica, Facebook, and their roles in the 2016 U.S. election and other elections. Earlier this week, I spoke to the directors of The Great Hack, Jehane Noujaim and Karim Amer, as well as propaganda researcher Emma Briant and a former Cambridge Analytica whistleblower, Brittany Kaiser. I asked Karim Amer to talk about what Cambridge Analytica effort to suppress the vote in Trinidad and Tobago did.
KARIM AMER: It was important for us to show in the film the expansiveness of Cambridge’s work. This went beyond the borders of the United States and even beyond the borders of the EU and the U.K. Because what we find is that Cambridge used the — in pursuing this global influence industry that they were very much a part of, they used different countries as Petri dishes to learn and get the know-how about different tactics. And from improving those tactics, they could then sell them for a higher cost — higher margin in Western democracies, where the election budgets are, you know — we have to remember, I think it’s important to predicate that the election business has become a multibillion-dollar global business, right? So, we have to remember that while we are upset with companies like Cambridge, we allowed for the commoditization of our democratic process, right? So, people are exploiting this now because it’s become a business. And we, as purveyors of this, can’t really be as upset as we want to be, when we’ve justified that. So I want to preface it with that.
Now, that being said, what’s happened as a result is a company like Cambridge can practice tactics in a place like Trinidad, that’s very unregulated in terms of what they can and can’t do, learn from that know-how and then, you know, use it — parlay it into activities in the United States. What they did in Trinidad, and why it was important for us to show it in the film, is they led something called the “Do So” campaign, where they admit to making it cool and popular among youth to get out and not vote. And they knew —
AMY GOODMAN: So, you had the Indian population and the black population.
KARIM AMER: And the black population. And there is a lot of historic tension between those two, and a lot of generational differences, as well, between those two. And the “Do So” campaign targeted — was was done in a way to, you know, by looking at the data and looking at the predictive analysis of which group would vote or not vote, get enough people to dissuade them from voting, so that they could flip the election.
AMY GOODMAN: Targeted at?
KARIM AMER: Targeted at the youth. And so, this is really — when you watch —
AMY GOODMAN: “Do So” actually meant “don’t vote.”
KARIM AMER: “Do So,” don’t vote.
JEHANE NOUJAIM: Don’t vote.
KARIM AMER: Yes, exactly. And when —
AMY GOODMAN: With their fists crossed.
KARIM AMER: With their fists.
AMY GOODMAN: And that it became cool not to vote.
KARIM AMER: Exactly. And you look at the level of calculation behind this, and it’s quite frightening. Now, as Emma was saying, a lot of these tactics were born out of our own fears in the United States and the U.K. post-9/11, when we allowed for this massive weaponization of influence campaigns to begin. You know, if you remember President Bush talking about, you know, the battle for the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people, all of these kinds of industries were born out of this.
And now I believe what we’re seeing is the hens have come home to roost, right? All of these tactics that we developed in the name of, quote-unquote, “fighting the war on terror,” in the name of doing these things, have now been commercialized and used to come back to the biggest election market in the world, the United States. And how do we blame people for doing that, when we’ve allowed for our democracy to be for sale?
And that’s what Brittany’s files today, that she’s releasing and has released over the last couple days, really give us insight to. The Hindsight Files that Brittany has released show us how there is an auction happening for influence campaigns in every democracy around the world. There is no vote that is unprotected in the current way that we — in the current space that we’re living.
And the thing that’s allowing this to happen is these information platforms like Facebook. And that is what’s so upsetting, because we can actually do something about that. We are the only country in the world that can hold Facebook accountable, yet we still have not done so. And we still keep going to their leadership hoping they do the right thing, but they have not. And why is that? Because no industry has ever shown in American history that it can regulate itself. There is a reason why antitrust laws exist in this country. There’s a tradition of holding companies accountable, and we need to re-embrace that tradition, especially as we enter into 2020, where the stakes could not be higher.
AMY GOODMAN: Brittany Kaiser, can you talk about the “Crooked Hillary” campaign and how it developed?
BRITTANY KAISER: Absolutely. So, this started as a super PAC that was built for Ted Cruz, Keep the Promise I, which was run by Kellyanne Conway and funded by the Mercers. That was then converted to becoming a super PAC for Donald Trump. They tried to register with the Federal Election Commission the name, Defeat Crooked Hillary, and the FEC, luckily, did not allow them to do that. So it was called Make America Number 1.
This super PAC was headed by David Bossie, someone that you might remember from Citizens United, who basically brought dark money into our politics and allowed endless amounts of money to be funneled into these types of vehicles so that we don’t know where all of the money is coming from for these types of manipulative communications. And he was in charge of this campaign.
Now, on that two-day-long debrief that I talked about — and if you want to know more, you can read about it in my book — they told us —
AMY GOODMAN: Wait, and explain where you were and who was in the room.
BRITTANY KAISER: So, I was in New York in our boardroom for Cambridge Analytica’s office on Fifth Avenue. And all of our offices from around the world had called in to videocast. And everybody from the super PAC and the Trump campaign took us through all of their tactics and strategies and implementation and what they had done.
Now, when we got to this Defeat Crooked Hillary super PAC, they explained to us what they had done, which was to run experiments on psychographic groups to figure out what was working and what wasn’t. Unfortunately, what they found out was the only very successful tactic was sending fear-based, scaremongering messaging to people that were identified as being neurotic. And it was so successful in their first experiments that they spent the rest of the money from the super PAC over the rest of the campaign only on negative messaging and fearmongering.
AMY GOODMAN: And crooked, the O-O in “crooked” was handcuffs.
BRITTANY KAISER: Yes. That was designed by Cambridge Analytica’s team.
AMY GOODMAN: Karim?
KARIM AMER: And one thing that I think it’s important to remember here, because there’s been a lot of debate among some people about: Did this actually work? To what degree did it work? How do we know whether it worked or not? What Brittany is describing is a debrief meeting where Cambridge, as a company, is saying, “This is what we learned from our political experience. This is what actually worked.” OK? And they’re sharing it because they’re saying, “Now this is how we want to codify this and commoditize this to go into commercial business.” Right?
So this is the company admitting to their own know-how. There is no debate about whether it works or not. This is not them advertising it to the world. This is them saying, “This is what we’ve learned. Based off that, this is how we’re going to run our business. This is how we’re going to invest in the expansion of this to sell this outside of politics.” The game was, take the political experience, parlay it into the commercial sector. That was the strategy. So, there is no debate whether it worked or not. It was highly effective.
And the thing that’s terrifying is that while Cambridge has been disbanded, the same actors are out there. And there’s nothing has been — nothing has changed to allow us to start putting in place legislation to say there is something called information crimes. In this era of information warfare, in this era of information economies, what is an information crime? What does it look like? Who determines it? And yet, without that, we are still living in this unfiltered, unregulated space, where places like Facebook are continuing to choose profit over the protection of the republic. And I think that’s what’s so outrageous.
JEHANE NOUJAIM: And I think it’s pretty telling that only two people —
AMY GOODMAN: Jehane.
JEHANE NOUJAIM: Only two people have come forward from Cambridge Analytica. Why is that? Both of the people that have come forward, Brittany and Chris, and also with Carole’s writing, have been targeted personally. And it’s been a very, very difficult story to tell. Even with us, when we released the film in January, every single time we have entered into the country, we have been stopped for four to six hours of questioning at the border. That —
AMY GOODMAN: Stopped by?
JEHANE NOUJAIM: Stopped by — on the border of the U.S., in JFK Airport, where you’re taken into the back, asked for all of your social media handles, questioned for four to six hours, every single time we enter the country. So —
AMY GOODMAN: Since when?
JEHANE NOUJAIM: Since we released the film, so since Sundance, since January, every time we’ve come back into the U.S.
AMY GOODMAN: And on what grounds are they saying they’re stopping you?
JEHANE NOUJAIM: No explanation. No —
AMY GOODMAN: And what is your theory?
JEHANE NOUJAIM: My theory is that it’s got something to do with this film. Maybe we’re doing something right. We were at first — we’ve been stopped in Egypt, but we’ve never been stopped in the U.S. in this way. We’re American citizens. Right?
AMY GOODMAN: You talk about people coming forward and not coming forward. I wanted to turn to former Cambridge Analytica COO, the chief operating officer, Julian Wheatland, speaking on the podcast Recode Decode. JULIAN WHEATLAND: The company made some significant mistakes when it came to its use of data. They were ethical mistakes. And I think that part of the reason that that happened was that we spent a lot of time concentrating on not making regulatory mistakes. And so, for the most part, we didn’t, as far as I can tell, make any regulatory mistakes, but we got almost distracted by ticking those boxes of fulfilling the regulatory requirements. And it felt like, well, once that was done, then we’d done what we needed to do. And we forgot to pause and think about ethically what was — what was going on.
AMY GOODMAN: So, if you could decode that, Brittany? Cambridge Analytica COO Julian Wheatland, who, interestingly, in The Great Hack, while he was — really condemned Chris Wylie, did not appreciate Chris Wylie stepping forward and putting Cambridge Analytica in the crosshairs in the British Parliament, he was more equivocal about you. He — talk about Wheatland and his role and what he’s saying about actually abiding by the regulations, which they actually clearly didn’t.
BRITTANY KAISER: Once upon a time, I used to have a lot of respect for Julian Wheatland. I even thought we were friends. I thought we were building a billion-dollar company together that was going to allow me to do great things in the world. But, unfortunately, that’s a story that I told myself and a story he wanted me to believe that isn’t true at all.
While he likes to say that they spent a lot of time abiding by regulations, I would beg to differ. Cambridge Analytica did not even have a data protection officer until 2018, right before they shut down. I begged for one for many years. I begged for more time with our lawyers and was told I was creating too many invoices. And for a long time, because I had multiple law degrees, I was asked to write contracts. And so were other —
AMY GOODMAN: Didn’t you write the Trump campaign contract?


democracynow--2020-01-10--Headlines for January 10, 2020

Headlines for January 10, 2020

The House of Representatives has voted to approve a nonbinding war powers resolution aimed at limiting President Trump ’ s ability to take further military action against Iran without congressional approval .
President Trump ratcheted up tensions with Iran by assassinating Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani in a targeted drone strike at the Baghdad International Airport last week .
Thursday ’ s 224-194 House vote included three Republicans voting yes and eight Democrats voting no .
The resolution now heads to the Senate .
The vote came as Iran ’ s ambassador to the United Nations blasted the United States at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ behalf of Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif , who was unable to address the Security Council himself after the U.S. denied him a visa in violation of a 1947 U.S.-U.N. agreement .
This is Ambassador Majid Takht Ravanchi .
Majid Takht Ravanchi : “ I ’ m here today to deliver a statement on behalf of his excellency Mr. Zarif , whose visa was denied by the United States in contravention of the Headquarters Agreement .
And here is his statement .
We are meeting today to discuss a momentous imperative we are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at a crossroads .
With the end of monopolies on power , one unhinged regime is frantically clamoring to turn back time.
” Thousands gathered in Chicago , New York , Seattle and dozens of other cities to protest war with Iran Thursday night .

The House of Representatives has voted to approve a nonbinding war powers resolution aimed at limiting President Trump’s ability to take further military action against Iran without congressional approval. President Trump ratcheted up tensions with Iran by assassinating Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani in a targeted drone strike at the Baghdad International Airport last week. Thursday’s 224-194 House vote included three Republicans voting yes and eight Democrats voting no. The resolution now heads to the Senate.
The vote came as Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations blasted the United States at the U.N. Security Council, speaking on behalf of Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, who was unable to address the Security Council himself after the U.S. denied him a visa in violation of a 1947 U.S.-U.N. agreement. This is Ambassador Majid Takht Ravanchi.
Majid Takht Ravanchi: “I’m here today to deliver a statement on behalf of his excellency Mr. Zarif, whose visa was denied by the United States in contravention of the Headquarters Agreement. And here is his statement. We are meeting today to discuss a momentous imperative we are all confronted with. The world is at a crossroads. With the end of monopolies on power, one unhinged regime is frantically clamoring to turn back time.”
Thousands gathered in Chicago, New York, Seattle and dozens of other cities to protest war with Iran Thursday night.


democracynow--2020-01-14--“Floaters”: Martín Espada Pays Tribute to Salvadoran Father & Daughter Who Drowned at U.S. Border

Acclaimed poet Martín Espada pays tribute to Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez and his 23-month old daughter Angie Valeria , who @ @ @ @ @ river in June 2019 trying to cross into the United States .
A photo of @ @ @ @ @ daughter caused widespread outrage at the humanitarian crisis at the U.S. southern border and also @ @ @ @ @ of exploiting such images in the press .
Espada ’ s poem “ Floaters ” @ @ @ @ @ its aftermath .

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Martín, we want you to be able to read one more poem. Introduce “Floaters” to us, please, and then just take it away.
MARTÍN ESPADA: Sure. Most of your viewers and listeners will be familiar with the photograph that went viral of Óscar and Valeria, two Salvadoran migrants, a father and daughter, who drowned in the Rio Grande. You may not be familiar with the “I’m 10-15” Border Patrol Facebook group, where there was some trutherism going on regarding that photograph. And so I wrote a poem in response. It’s called, indeed, “Floaters.” That’s the term the Border Patrol uses to describe those who have drowned crossing over.
Floaters
Ok, I’m gonna go ahead and ask…have ya’ll ever seen floaters this clean. I’m not trying to be an a$$ but I HAVE NEVER SEEN FLOATERS LIKE THIS, could this be another edited photo. We’ve all seen the dems and liberal parties do some pretty sick things. –Anonymous post, “I’m 10-15” Border Patrol Facebook group
Like a beer bottle thrown into the river by a boy too drunk to cry,
like the shard of a Styrofoam cup drained of coffee brown as the river,
like the plank of a fishing boat broken in half by the river, the dead float.
And the dead have a name: floaters, say the men of the Border Patrol,
keeping watch all night by the river, hearts pumping coffee as they say
the word floaters, soft as a bubble, hard as a shoe as it nudges the body,
to see if it breathes, to see if it moans, to see if it sits up and speaks.
And the dead have names, a feast day parade of names, names that
dress all in red, names that twirl skirts, names that blow whistles,
names that shake rattles, names that sing in praise of the saints:
Say Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez. Say Angie Valeria Martínez Ávalos.
See how they rise off the tongue, the calling of bird to bird somewhere
in the trees above our heads, trilling in the dark heart of the leaves.
Say what we know of them now they are dead: Óscar slapped dough
for pizza with oven-blistered fingers. Daughter Valeria sang, banging
a toy guitar. He slipped free of the apron he wore in the blast of the oven,
sold the motorcycle he would kick till it sputtered to life, counted off
pesos for the journey across the river, and the last of his twenty-five
years, and the last of her twenty-three months. There is another name
that beats its wings in the heart of the trees: Say Tania Vanessa Ávalos,
Óscar’s wife and Valeria’s mother, the witness stumbling along the river.
Now their names rise off her tongue: Say Óscar y Valeria. He swam
from Matamoros across to Brownsville, the girl slung around his neck,
stood her in the weeds on the Texas side of the river, swore to return
with her mother in hand, turning his back as fathers do who later say:
I turned around and she was gone. In the time it takes for a bird to hop
from branch to branch, Valeria jumped in the river after her father.
Maybe he called out her name as he swept her up from the river;
maybe the river drowned out his voice as the water swept them away.
Tania called out the names of the saints, but the saints drowsed
in the stupor of birds in the dark, their cages covered with blankets.
The men on patrol would never hear their pleas for asylum, watching
for floaters, hearts pumping coffee all night on the Texas side of the river.
No one, they say, had ever seen floaters so clean: Óscar’s black shirt
yanked up to the armpits, Valeria’s arm slung around her father’s
neck even after the light left her eyes, both face down in the weeds,
back on the Mexican side of the river. Another edited photo: See how
her head disappears in his shirt, the waterlogged diaper bunched
in her pants, the blue of the blue cans. The radio warned us about
the crisis actors we see at one school shooting after another; the man
called Óscar will breathe, sit up, speak, tug the black shirt over
his head, shower off the mud and shake hands with the photographer.
Yet, the floaters did not float down the Río Grande like Olympians
showing off the backstroke, nor did their souls float up to Dallas,
land of rumored jobs and a president shot in the head as he waved
from his motorcade. No bubbles rose from their breath in the mud,
light as the iridescent circles of soap that would fascinate a two-year old.
And the dead still have names, names that sing in praise of the saints,
names that flower in blossoms of white, a cortege of names dressed
all in black, trailing the coffins to the cemetery. Carve their names
in headlines and gravestones they would never know in the kitchens
of this cacophonous world. Enter their names in the book of names.
Say Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez; say Angie Valeria Martínez Ávalos.
Bury them in a corner of the cemetery named for the sainted archbishop
of the poor, shot in the heart saying mass, bullets bought by the taxes
I paid when I worked as a bouncer and fractured my hand forty years
ago, and bumper stickers read: El Salvador is Spanish for Vietnam.
When the last bubble of breath escapes the body, may the men
who speak of floaters, who have never seen floaters this clean,
float through the clouds to the heavens, where they paddle the air
as they wait for the saint who flips through the keys on his ring
like a drowsy janitor, till he fingers the key that turns the lock and shuts
the gate on their babble-tongued faces, and they plunge back to earth,
a shower of hailstones pelting the river, the Mexican side of the river.


democracynow--2020-01-14--"Morir Soñando”: Martín Espada Reads Poem About Luis Garden Acosta, Young Lord & Community Activist

Last week marked the first anniversary of the passing of Luis Garden Acosta , the founder and longtime president of the nationally known El Puente youth and community leadership program in Brooklyn .
Long regarded as one of New York City ’ s foremost human rights and Latino community activists , Garden Acosta died last January at the age of 72 .
A former seminarian who had been active in the Catholic antiwar movement , Garden Acosta joined the Young Lords Party in 1970 and later founded that group ’ s Massachusetts chapter while he was still a student at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to pioneer successful nonviolent direct action campaigns against segregated public schools and against environmental racism in New York City .
In his later years , together with his wife Frances Lucerna , Garden Acosta created an alternative public high school geared toward human rights activism , the El Puente Academy for Peace and Justice .
To honor his legacy , we speak with the renowned poet Martín Espada .
He is a professor of English at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the author of more than 20 books .
His latest collection @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Those Who Have Failed .
”

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan Gonzalez.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Last week marked the one-year anniversary of the passing of Luis Garden Acosta, the founder and longtime president of the nationally known El Puente youth and community leadership program in Brooklyn. Long regarded as one of New York City’s foremost human rights and Latino community activists, Garden died last January at the age of 72. A former seminarian who had been active in the Catholic antiwar movement, Garden joined the Young Lords Party in 1970 and later founded the group’s Massachusetts chapter while he was still a student at Harvard Medical School.
AMY GOODMAN: Luis Garden Acosta went on to pioneer successful nonviolent direct action campaigns against segregated public schools and against environmental racism here in New York City. In his later years, together with his wife Frances Lucerna, Garden Acosta created an alternative public high school geared toward human rights activism, the El Puente Academy for Peace and Justice.
Well, to honor his legacy, we’re joined now by the renowned poet Martín Espada. He is a professor of English at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, author of more than 20 books. His latest collection of poems is called Vivas to Those Who Have Failed.
You wrote a poem, Martín, dedicated to Luis Garden Acosta. I was wondering if you could talk about him and share your poem with us.
MARTÍN ESPADA: Yes, of course. Thank you. Luis Garden Acosta was an organizational genius. He was a visionary. He was also a beloved friend and mentor. And I wrote this poem based on an encounter that I had with Luis at the beginning of El Puente. It’s called “Morir Soñando,” which means “To Die Dreaming.”
Morir Soñando
For Luis Garden Acosta (1945-2019)
Brooklyn, New York
I saw the empty cross atop the empty church on South 4th Street, as if Jesus
flapped his arms and flew away, spooked by one ambulance siren too many.
I saw the stained glass windows I wanted to break with a brick, the mural
of Saint Mary and the Angels hovering innocent as spies over the congregation,
and wanted to know why you brought me here, the son of a man punched
in the face by a priest for questioning the Trinity, who punched him back.
This is El Puente, you said. The Bridge. I knew about the Williamsburg Bridge,
eight lanes of traffic and the subway stampeding in the open windows of the barrio
all summer. You spread your arms in that abandoned church and saw the spinning
of a carousel better than any wooden horses pumping up and down at Coney Island:
here the ESL classes for the neighbors cursed with swollen tongues in English;
there the clinics on contraception, the pestilence in the veins of the unsuspecting;
here the karate lessons, feet spearing the air to keep schoolyard demons away;
there the dancers in white, swirling their skirts to the drumming of bomba;
here the workshops on Puerto Rican history, La Masacre de Ponce where your
mother’s beloved painted his last words on the street with a fingertip of blood.
I was a law student, first year, memorizing law school Latin, listening to classical
guitar on my boom box as I studied the rules of property: It’s mine. It’s not yours.
I saw only what could be proven by a preponderance of the evidence: the church
abandoned by the church, the cross atop the church abandoned by the Son of God.
My belly empty as Saint Mary of the Angels, I told you I was hungry, and we left.
I wanted Chinese food, but you told me about the Chinese take-out down the block
where you stood behind a man who shrieked about the price of wonton soup,
left and returned with a can of gasoline, splashed it on the floor and pulled a box
of kitchen matches from his pocket. Will you wait till I pick up my egg roll and pork
fried rice? you said, with a high school teacher’s exasperated authority, so he did.
You could talk an arsonist into postponing his inferno till you left with lunch,
but you couldn’t raise the dead in the ER at Greenpoint Hospital, even in your suit
and tie. You couldn’t convince the girl called Sugar to rise from the gurney after
the gunshot drained the blood from her body. You couldn’t persuade the doctor who
peeled his gloves and shook his head to bring her back to life, telling him do it again,
an arsonist in medical scrubs trying to strike a wet match. You couldn’t jumpstart
the calliope in her heart so the carousel of horses would rise and fall and rise again.
Whenever you saw the gutted church, you would see the sheets of the gurney
dipped in red, all the gurneys rolling into the ER with a sacrifice of adolescents.
We walked to the luncheonette on Havemeyer Street. A red awning announced
Morir Soñando. To Die Dreaming, you said, from the DR, my father’s island.
The boy at the counter who spoke no English, brown as my father, called Martín
like me, grinned the way you grinned at El Puente, once Saint Mary of the Angels.
He squeezed the oranges into a drizzle of juice with evaporated milk, cane sugar
and ice, shook the elixir and poured it till the froth spilled over the lip of the glass.
Foam freckled my snout as I raised my hand for another. Intoxicated by morir
soñando number three and the prophet gently rocking at my table, I had a vision:
ESL classes healing the jaws wired shut by English, clinics full of adolescents
studying the secrets of the body unspeakable in the kitchen or the confessional,
karate students landing bare feet on the mat with a thump and grunt in unison,
bomba dancers twirling to a song in praise of Yoruba gods abolished by the priests,
the words of Puerto Rican rebels painted on the walls by brushes dipped in every
color, pressed in the pages of notebooks by a generation condemned to amnesia.
Morir soñando: Luis, I know you died dreaming of South 4th Street, the banners
that said no to the toxic waste plant down the block or the Navy bombarding
an island of fishermen for target practice thousands of miles away. Morir soñando:
I know you died dreaming of vejigantes, carnival máscaras bristling with horns
that dangled with the angels at El Puente. Morir soñando: I know you died dreaming
of the next El Puente. Morir soñando: I know you died dreaming of the hammer’s claw,
the drill whining to the screw, the dust like snow in a globe, then the shy genius
raising her hand in the back of the room. Morir soñando: I know you died dreaming
of the poets who stank of weed in the parking lot, then stood before the mike
you electrified for them and rubbed their eyes when the faces in their poems
crowded there, waiting for the first word, so we could all die dreaming, morir
soñando, intoxicated by the elixir of the tongue, oh rocking prophet at my table.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Martín Espada, award-winning poet and professor of English at the University Massachusetts Amherst. Tell us in your own words your — how you came to know Luis Garden. I know he was not only your friend but was a friend of your father, the late Frank Espada, the great photographer.
AMY GOODMAN: And, Juan, a dear friend of yours, as well.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Yes.
MARTÍN ESPADA: Yes. My father, Frank Espada, was indeed not only a documentary photographer and the creator of the Puerto Rican Diaspora Documentary Project, he was a community activist. He was the founder of something called East New York Action, on Blake Avenue in East New York. He worked for the Lindsay administration for a while.
And Luis was a political protégé of my father. We lived in the Linden projects in East New York. And I woke up one morning — and I must have been 7 or 8 years old, so this is, say, 1965 — and I found Luis sprawled on the couch asleep. I woke him up. And to keep me quiet so I didn’t wake up the rest of the household, he had me bring him a book. It was Macbeth. Apparently, he played Macbeth at school. He opened it up, he read these passages, and I was enthralled. He then asked me to memorize the same passage that he read. And then he was astonished when, a few weeks later, he came back, and it turned out that I indeed had memorized it.
He was a personal inspiration for me over the years. When I was 20 years old, he handed me an anthology called Latin American Revolutionary Poetry, edited by Roberto Márquez. And he said, “You will be a poet.” And here I am.


democracynow--2020-01-14--Moms 4 Housing: Meet the Oakland Mothers Facing Eviction After Two Months Occupying Vacant House

In Oakland , California , a group of mothers fighting homelessness is waging a battle against real estate speculators and demanding permanent solutions to the Bay Area housing crisis by occupying a vacant house with their children .
The struggle began in November , when working mothers in West Oakland moved into 2928 Magnolia Street , a vacant house owned by real estate investment firm Wedgewood Properties .
The firm tried to evict them , claiming they were illegally squatting on private property , but the mothers went to court and filed a “ right to possession ” claim , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Their name is Moms 4 Housing .
The battle for the house came to a head last week when an Alameda County judge ruled in favor of Wedgewood Properties and ordered the mothers to vacate the house .
But Moms 4 Housing has stayed to fight eviction .
Monday night , hundreds of protesters gathered at the house after receiving a tip that the Sheriff ’ s Office was coming to evict the families — a show of support that led the sheriff to abandon the eviction attempt .
We speak with Carroll @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment , and Dominique Walker , a member of Moms 4 Housing who has been living at the house with her family .
Our interview was interrupted by news of another possible eviction attempt .

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We turn now to Oakland, California, where a group of mothers fighting homelessness are waging a battle against real estate speculators and demanding permanent solutions to the Bay Area housing crisis by occupying a vacant house with their children. The struggle began in November, when working mothers in West Oakland moved into 2928 Magnolia Street, a vacant house owned by real estate investment firm Wedgewood Properties. The firm tried to evict them, claiming they were illegally squatting on private property, but the mothers went to court and filed a “right to possession” claim, saying housing is a human right. Their name is Moms 4 Housing.
AMY GOODMAN: This is a video by Brandon Jourdan and Marianne Maeckelbergh.
DOMINIQUE WALKER: My name is Dominique Walker. I am one of the co-founders of Moms 4 Housing. And the goal of our organization is to reclaim houses back into the hands of the community and to house unsheltered moms and children. There’s four vacant houses for every one homeless person in Oakland.
We are reclaiming this house from a billion-dollar corporation who bought this house at a foreclosed price. It has been vacant for two years while people are living out on the street.
We felt like this was necessary to take this step. Like, even when I personally tried to go through the proper channels to get help to move and be able to pay this rent, they’re still not affordable. So I feel like it was up to us to organize ourselves to be able to have housing.
MARIANNE MAECKELBERGH: In the last two years, homelessness in Oakland has increased by 47%. With average rental rates in Oakland rising to nearly $3,000 a month, there are few or no options for most people looking for housing.
DOMINIQUE WALKER: There are 6,000 to 8,000 folks sleeping on the streets. And that’s not even accounting for all of the unhoused people and housing-insecure. Homelessness affects your mental health, brain development in children, their physical health. And 28% of the homeless population now in Oakland is under the age of 18.
I have a 1-year-old and a 4-year-old. She’ll be 5 on Saturday. And they have been so happy to have a place to call home.
This is our fridge, stove, kitchen area. We had to do a lot of fixing up this house, and we’re still working on it. This house was not kept up to code.
My children are now so excited to be sheltered. My 1-year-old started walking since we’ve been in the house. And he’s had a baby zone where he can crawl around and stand up and start to take those first steps. And he did that here.
This house was owned by Wedgewood, a company that is a displacement machine. They’re composed of five different companies. They all play a role in the direct displacement of people.
We’re taking a stand, and it doesn’t end with one house. We want to take Oakland back from all speculators. We’re not going to stop organizing until we all have shelter.
AMY GOODMAN: Wedgewood Properties has offered to pay for moving expenses and temporary housing for the women for two months if they vacate the house, a proposal Moms 4 Housing has rejected. The battle for the house came to a head last week when an Alameda County judge ruled in favor of Wedgewood Properties and ordered the mothers to vacate the house. But Moms 4 Housing has stayed to fight eviction. Monday night, hundreds of people from the neighborhood and beyond gathered at the house after receiving a tip that the Sheriff’s Office was coming to evict the families.
PROTESTERS: Stop the eviction! We won’t move! Stop the eviction! We won’t move!
NICOLE DEANE: My name’s Nicole. I’m an organizer with Moms’ House Solidarity Committee. And we just got word that the sheriffs were on their way to evict Moms 4 Housing. And so we sent out a text blast to over 1,800 people. And that was maybe 15 minutes ago. As you can see, we’ve got hundreds of people showing up to defend the house, which is a really beautiful and awesome thing. And so, we’re here, and we’re holding fast.
MOMS 4 HOUSING MEMBER: Thank you for your support!
PROTESTER: We love you!
DOMINIQUE WALKER: People are out here. The community has had enough. We’ve had enough. And this shows you that we’ve had enough, and we’re going to fight back.
PROTESTERS: The rent, the rent, the rent is too damn high! The rent, the rent, the rent is too damn high! The rent, the rent, the rent is too damn high! The rent, the rent, the rent is too damn high!
CARROLL FIFE: The sheriffs had plans to run up in here tonight, and that didn’t happen. They were on the 5:00 news saying that they would be indoors any minute. And then they had another person here saying that they would come in at 7:00, and they didn’t. So I think they understand how — like Dominique said, how the town get down. So, we got report that it was on CNN that the sheriff said there would be no entry tonight. That is definitely reason for applause. And at the same time, we don’t trust the sheriff. … Please go home, if you have a home to go to, and get some rest, because this is still the beginning of a fight.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Carroll Fife, who’s joining us live in the studio, the piece produced by Brandon Jourdan and Marianne Maeckelbergh, as we go now to Berkeley, California, where we’re joined by Moms 4 Housing’s Dominique Walker and Carroll Fife, the director of the Oakland office for Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! I don’t know if you have gotten any sleep, but, Carroll, that’s you speaking last night. There are hundreds of people who are in front of the house. You say you heard on CNN that the sheriff said, OK, he’s not moving in. But explain what’s happening now.
CARROLL FIFE: Right. We got word from the daughter of Dorothy King of Everett & Jones that she saw it on the news that there would be no entry by the sheriffs last night. They did drive by a couple more times, but they did not attempt to enter the home to serve the eviction notice. So, we’re going into our second day of eviction defense for Moms 4 Housing.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Carroll, could you talk a little bit about the scope and the scale of the housing crisis that Oakland is facing, but that many cities across the country have similar problems, if not at the level of the situation right now in Oakland?
CARROLL FIFE: Right. After the housing crisis and the foreclosure crisis of 2008, many homeowners lost their primary residences — their only residences. And so that allowed speculators and the banks that were bailed out by the government at that time to come in and scoop up homes at rock-bottom prices. So, that is still happening, and we’re still experiencing the impacts of the foreclosure crisis, with speculators owning 35% of the housing stock in America.
So, some state that Oakland has the worst speculation crisis in the country. And that’s observable by how high the rents are. You have the median one-bedroom market-rate unit starting at around $2,500 a month. And so, the housing wage, which is different from the minimum wage or living wage, in Alameda County, where Oakland is located, is $40.88 per hour. And that is out of reach for many of Oakland’s working-class people.
AMY GOODMAN: Dominique Walker, you’re one of the women who, with your families, are occupying this house. Explain when you got into it and what is happening right now, how long you’ve been there and what this legal process has been, what your plans are.
DOMINIQUE WALKER: Yes. We moved in to Magnolia Street on November 18th. We’ve been there ever since. And we count that as a win. We’ve provided shelter for our children. This came out of absolute desperation, out of going through every program set up to help families in this predicament. Nothing helped. We were turned away. Programs were — the funding was cut from programs that were set up to help. This was an act of desperation. And it just gives light to the bigger issue going on here all over the world.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And could you talk a little bit about your situation before you decided to occupy this particular property, your housing situation with your family?
DOMINIQUE WALKER: Yes. I moved back to Oakland in April 2019 with my two small children, from Mississippi. And I was working full-time, with a part-time job, as well, and could not afford rents. First, I was staying housing-insecure, living with family members. But most of my entire community has been displaced. I was born and raised in Oakland. And most of folks are either displaced out, at least 45 minutes to a couple hours out, or they’re displaced onto the street. So, I was commuting for hours trying to get into Oakland to serve my community. And after situations didn’t work out living on couches and in rooms, I was living in hotel rooms. And being homeless is very violent.
And I’ve seen the development in my children since they’ve had shelter. My son took his first steps on Magnolia Street, said his first words. My daughter turned 5 in the house on Magnolia Street. It’s an absolute necessity to have shelter. And it’s a basic human right.
AMY GOODMAN: So, the San Francisco Chronicle says almost 70% of the people living in Oakland streets are African-American; however, African Americans constitute just 28% of Oakland’s population. I wanted to talk about one of the young people who are in the house. Let’s turn to Destiny Johnson. She’s one of the kids living in, well, what everyone is calling now Moms’ House.
DESTINY JOHNSON: OK, so what’s the what-what? What’s going on? What’s happening? My mom and lots of other moms, all who have young kids, all who are experiencing some kind of homelessness, took over this abandoned home, a vacant property, a house no one was living in for close to two years. We fixed it up. Now we live in it. We made it a home.
And here it is. And here it is! Now I have a clean and quiet place where I can do my homework. So, in the morning, when the sun comes up, I like to sit on the back steps and read. And it has this little front yard with the trees.
I worry. I do. I worry a lot. I worry for my mom, because she puts herself out there. And I worry for my little sister. She’s only 5. She’s a kid. She doesn’t really understand what’s — what’s going on. And I know she’s already falling in love with having a place to call home.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Destiny Johnson in a video produced by Zween Works. Juan?
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Yeah, I wanted to ask Carroll Fife about Wedgewood Properties. What can you tell us about the firm itself and also about the public relations guy by the name of Sam Singer that they’ve selected basically to be their spokesperson on the issue of what’s going on in Oakland?
CARROLL FIFE: I will speak about that because I have to. I hate to give credence and time to such awful individuals and such evil organizations.
Wedgewood Properties has approximately 96 subsidiaries. And they are the real estate speculator that is holding the deed for Moms’ House. They are in the business of buying homes at rock-bottom prices and flipping them. And that is part of the problem why housing is so unaffordable in cities like Oakland. They buy houses by bulk, so 100 to 200 properties per month, if not more, in distressed neighborhoods — their words — and then they flip them and sell them to the highest bidder. So it puts home prices out of reach for many working-class people. So they drive up the cost of rents and the cost of actually purchasing a home, which is why homeownership levels are so low.
And since they are such bad characters, they’ve also hired another bad character to get them out of this situation and make them look like the victim. And that is Sam Singer. And he’s doing everything in his power to villainize and criminalize the mothers. And we’re seeing old stereotypes and old tropes about black women on every single social media site where the moms are. There’s trolls every day that are really working to tear the mothers down. They’ve experienced different levels of violence, one mother in particular. And it’s just — it’s really sad, the levels that they’re going to to criminalize these moms.
AMY GOODMAN: Carroll, in Mother Jones magazine, they write, “In Oakland, where buyers routinely offer hundreds of thousands of dollars over asking prices, there are nearly four vacant properties for every homeless person.”
CARROLL FIFE: Right.
AMY GOODMAN: “It’s not so much an issue of scarcity, but of distribution.” Explain that further. And then explain what the judge ruled and where you see this headed now. I mean, the images of last night, of the hundreds of people who called when some kind of group text went out, within minutes coming to the house. But talk about that, the level of vacancy.
CARROLL FIFE: And that’s what’s criminal about this housing crisis. There are actually places where people can live. But because they’re private, they’re privately owned, it makes it difficult to even crack into what a solution could be, because the private industry doesn’t have to be held accountable. And that is what we’re saying is criminal. It should not be legal for anyone that owns property, particularly corporations.
And we want to make a distinction, because that’s what’s been thrown around a lot, too, is that if an individual mom-and-pop owner of a property left it empty because they’re on vacation, then somehow Moms 4 Housing is advocating taking people’s personal property. That is completely and patently false. What we’re saying is corporations should not be able to hold vacant properties when there is a housing crisis. There should not be people living on the streets when there are places where they can live.
This is — Oakland looks like an entirely different city than it did years ago, and it’s strictly due to corporations that are able to rent-gouge when they have homes for rent and charge way over market for homes that are not worth what they’re actually selling them for.
And so, this is starting a movement where people who are also experiencing housing insecurity, which means they pay more than 30% of their income in rent, are waking up, because they’ve seen this example of Moms 4 Housing define what the market trends are, and saying, “We deserve housing for all, not just for those who can pay the high price tags.”
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Carroll, what’s been the response of the local political leadership in Oakland? After all, Oakland is famous as the birthplace of the Black Panther Party. It was the place where Jerry Brown was a mayor for a while. How have the political leaders responded to this crisis and to the protests, in particular, of Moms 4 Housing?
CARROLL FIFE: It’s actually been mixed. Right? We have city councilmembers who have actually been at press conferences standing with the moms. And we are very grateful for their support and their leadership in thinking of creative ways that they can impact the housing crisis. But we also have city councilmembers who have been silent. And you mentioned the Black Panthers. And unfortunately, it’s our African-American leadership that’s been silent on this issue. We have had support from other community organizations, like the local NAACP.
And at the press conference that was recently held in Oakland regarding a Senate bill that’s supposed to develop additional housing, we heard on the podium that day — hadn’t heard before — that several assemblymembers and several senators also support Moms 4 Housing. But what we’re asking them, including our congresswoman, our governor, is to do more than just say that you support Moms 4 Housing. Make that tangible. Create some kind of — answer a phone call, answer an email and really show up, so there is like a tangible way to show that you are concerned about the housing crisis, not just words.
AMY GOODMAN: And, Dominique, can you talk about what it means to you when you looked outside last night and you saw how many hundreds of people, and what this home means to you and your children, what it has felt like being in this house that was vacant for two years, now for the last two months being there?
DOMINIQUE WALKER: Yes, last night was amazing. It just showed me that it’s still Oakland. We’re still Oakland. We are a town of resistance, and we fight back. And we saw our community have our full backs last night. Within 15 minutes, there were over, I think, 300 people mobilized, in 15 minutes. That’s people power.
It’s just been amazing to have a shelter for my children and to be this example for them. People always ask me — there’s children involved. And I want my children to know that their mother was on the right side of history.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you so much for being with us. Very quickly, Carroll, what’s the timeline now? Could Moms 4 Housing be evicted at any point?
CARROLL FIFE: Moms 4 Housing could be evicted at any point. And I just think it’s important to say that we need to take speculation out of real estate, and we need to decommodify housing. And everyone that’s showing up over the next two days, up until Wednesday, believes that, too. And we look forward to the fight.
AMY GOODMAN: Carroll, we just hear that there was a text that says the sheriff is knocking on the door and saying people have to clear out. Is that your understanding, as we’re speaking?
UNIDENTIFIED: They gotta go.
UNIDENTIFIED: Yes.
CARROLL FIFE: Oh, OK. Yeah, I think we gotta go.
DOMINIQUE WALKER: Yeah, we gotta go.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, we’ll continue to cover this. Go to democracynow.org. We’ll bring you updates throughout the day. I want to thank Carroll Fife of the Oakland office for Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment and also Dominique Walker, who’s one of the moms with her kids in the house the sheriff is knocking on right now. She’s with Moms 4 Housing.
This is Democracy Now! When we come back, we hear from Martín Espada. Stay with us.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: That’s The Roots singing “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around,” one of the chants from yesterday’s protest in Oakland.