http://news.linktv.org Link TV News Videos (Filtered by topics: Eric Holder) en-us Tue, 14 May 2013 14:16:00 -0700 Copyright 2011 Link Media, Inc. http://news.linktv.org/videos/holder-fed-ap-spying-appropriate-for-serious-leak?start=0 Attorney General Eric Holder defended the Justice Department's decision to seize two months of Associated Press phone records (including for the AP phone in the House of Representatives press gallery) because of one of the "most serious leaks" he has seen that put people "in jeopardy." Some observers believe the story that sparked fed surveillance was an AP report of a foiled terror plot in Yemen that exposed the existence of a CIA operation. Tue, 14 May 2013 14:16:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/holder-fed-ap-spying-appropriate-for-serious-leak First Amendment to the United States Constitution, Associated Press, Subpoena, CIA, Eric Holder, US Department of Justice, Attorney general, Yemen, US House of Representatives Attorney General Eric Holder defended the Justice Department's decision to seize two months of Associated Press phone records (including for the AP phone in the House of Representatives press gallery) because of one of the "most serious leaks" he has seen that put people "in jeopardy." Some observers believe the story that sparked fed surveillance was an AP report of a foiled terror plot in Yemen that exposed the existence of a CIA operation. http://news.linktv.org/videos/feds-spy-on-ap-wire-service-furious?start=0 The president of the Associated Press has sent a strongly worded letter of protest to US Attorney General Eric Holder after the Department of Justice acknowledged seizing two months of phone records of reporters and editors. The department offered no explanation for why the information was seized. AP's president blasted the surveillance as a "massive and unprecedented intrusion." &nbsp; Mon, 13 May 2013 16:06:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/feds-spy-on-ap-wire-service-furious Surveillance, Associated Press, First Amendment to the United States Constitution, Journalism, Media, US Department of Justice, Eric Holder, US Attorney General, Russia Today The president of the Associated Press has sent a strongly worded letter of protest to US Attorney General Eric Holder after the Department of Justice acknowledged seizing two months of phone records of reporters and editors. The department offered no explanation for why the information was seized. AP's president blasted the surveillance as a "massive and unprecedented intrusion." http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-february-5-2013?start=676 The Obama administration&rsquo;s internal legal justification for assassinating U.S. citizens without charge has been revealed for the first time. The Boy Scouts of America opened a three-day meeting on Monday in which the group&rsquo;s national board will consider lifting its controversial ban on openly gay members. A federal appeals court has ruled the government can continue to keep secret its efforts to pursue the private information of Internet users without a warrant. And a lawsuit challenging a law that gives the government the power to indefinitely detain US citizens is back in federal court this week. <br /> Tue, 05 Feb 2013 14:19:00 -0800 http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-february-5-2013 United States, American Civil Liberties Union, Barack Obama, Drone, Anwar al-Awlaki, Boy Scouts of America, Jacob Appelbaum, National Defense Authorization Act, Indefinite detention, Targeted killing The Obama administration's internal legal justification for assassinating U.S. citizens without charge has been revealed for the first time. In a secret Justice Department memo, the administration claims it has legal authority to assassinate U.S. citizens overseas even if there is no intelligence indicating they are engaged in an active plot to attack the United States. We're joined by Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union. "If you look at the memo ... there's no geographic line," says Jaffer. "The Obama administration is making, in some ways, a greater claim of authority [than President Bush]. They're arguing that the authority to kill American citizens has no geographic limit." The Obama administration's internal legal justification for assassinating U.S. citizens without charge has been revealed for the first time. According to a secret Justice Department document obtained by NBC News, the Obama administration claims it has the legal authority to target citizens who are, quote, "senior operational leaders," of al-Qaeda or "an associated force" — even if there's no intelligence indicating they are engaged in an active plot to attack the U.S. In September 2011, a U.S. drone strike in Yemen killed two American citizens: Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan. The following month, another U.S. drone strike killed al-Awlaki's 16-year-old son Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, who was born in Denver. The document obtained by NBC News is described as a "white memo" that was provided to members of the Senate Intelligence and Judiciary Committees as a summary of a classified memo prepared by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel. Last month, a federal judge denied a request by the American Civil Liberties Union and The New York Times for the Justice Department to disclose its legal justification for the targeted killing of Americans. The Obama administration's secrecy around the drone program is expected to be a top issue at this week's confirmation hearing of White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan to be director of the CIA. Brennan has been dubbed by critics to be Obama's "assassination czar." Joining us now is Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director of the ACLU and director of the ACLU's Center for Democracy. You've looked at the white memo. This is something you've been asking for for quite some time, Jameel. Talk about its significance. Go through it with us point by point. Sure. Well, it's a very significant document, and it's a remarkable document, and it's something that everybody really ought to read, in the same way that everybody ought to read the torture memos from the last administration. It sets out, or professes to set out, the power that the government has to carry out the targeted killing of American citizens who are located far away from any battlefield, even when they have not been charged with a crime, even when they do not present any imminent threat in any ordinary meaning of that word. So it's a pretty sweeping power that's been set out. And the memo purports to provide a legal justification for that power and explain why the limits on that power can't be enforced in any court. The confidential Justice Department white paper that you're talking about, Jameel Jaffer, introduces a more expansive definition of "self-defense" or "imminent attack" than any articulated by the U.S. government before. It reads, quote: "The condition that an operational leader present an 'imminent' threat of violent attack against the United States does not require the United States to have clear evidence that a specific attack on U.S. persons and interests will take place in the immediate future." Can you talk about the significance of that and how exactly "imminent" is defined in this document— Sure. —or not defined? Yeah, well, I mean, I think you—you know, you have to start with the acknowledgment that there are circumstances in which the government has the authority, and maybe even the responsibility, to use lethal force. Even if you think about it domestically—somebody is running down the street, waving a gun around, threatening civilians—the government doesn't have to go to a judge beforehand to seek a warrant to carry out that use of lethal force. But that's a situation in which the threat is imminent, in the ordinary meaning of the term: There's not time to go to a judge; there's not time for deliberation. But the kind of imminence that the government is defining here, or the way that the government has defined the term here, is much, much broader. They're talking about situations in which the person presents no immediate threat, there's no known plot. These people are located far away from any actual battlefield, so you're not talking about a situation in which there are battlefield exigencies that the government has to worry about. You're really talking about something that looks a lot more like a law enforcement context. And in that context, the traditional rule is the government has the authority to use lethal force only in very narrow circumstances. And this memo really redefines those circumstances entirely. Let's turn to Attorney General Eric Holder, a comment he made last March when he outlined what the White House billed as the legal rationale for its claimed right to kill U.S. citizens who belong to al-Qaeda or associated forces. ATTORNEY GENERAL ERIC HOLDER: It is an unfortunate but undeniable fact that some of the threats that we face come from a small number of United States citizens who have decided to commit violent attacks against their own country from abroad. Based on generations-old legal principles and Supreme Court decisions handed down during World War II, as well as during this current conflict, it's clear that United States citizenship alone does not make—does not make such individuals immune from being targeted. Jameel Jaffer, respond to Attorney General Eric Holder. Well, it's not a question of immunity. This is kind of a straw man. Nobody is arguing that Americans are entirely immune from the government's use of lethal force. The question is: Under what circumstances can the government use lethal force? And again, for a very good reason, those circumstances have traditionally been defined very narrowly. Now what the government is doing is creating an extremely broad category of people who can be targeted without judicial review before the fact, without judicial assessment of the evidence after the fact. It's a very dangerous thing that the government is doing. And I think that at some level, I think the people who have written this memo and the people who are exercising this authority in the Obama administration must be convinced of their own trustworthiness. But even if you accept that the people who are now in office are trustworthy in this sense, this power is going to be available to the next administration and the one after that, and it's going to be available in every future conflict, not just the conflict against al-Qaeda. And according to the administration, the power is available all over the world, not just on geographically cabined battlefields. So it really is a sweeping proposition. But what does it mean, though, that it's not an official legal memo, it's a white paper? Does that have any legal significance or implications? Well, you know, some people have been saying that this is a kind of transparency that the administration, through these kinds of leaks, is giving the public the ability to assess the strength of the administration's legal arguments. And the truth is that this is really just a briefing document, it's not a legal memo. It does tell us a little bit about the authority that the government is claiming, but the actual legal memos are still secret. We've been litigating for those memos now for 18 months or two years. The administration has refused to release them. We have just appealed one case to the 2nd Circuit here in New York, to the appeals court here in New York. Can you explain the case? What is the case that your organization, the ACLU, is— So, there are two—there are two Freedom of Information Act cases that we're litigating right now. One is—one is here in New York, and the other one is in D.C. One of them is an effort to get the legal memos. We're litigating that case with The New York Times; they have a parallel request. The other case, which is in D.C., is about, principally, civilian casualties, the question of who has been killed in these—in these drone strikes, because the administration has not released numbers. And we're reliant on the work of very good organizations outside the administration to do that kind of work. We think that the administration should release its own numbers. So— And "who has been killed," you mean U.S. citizens and non-U.S. citizen who have been killed. Right, absolutely. So, most of the people who are being killed in these drone strikes aren't U.S. citizens, right? There have only been four U.S. citizens—three in 2011, one in 2002. The rest have been noncitizens killed, some of them in Pakistan, some of them in Yemen, some of them in Somalia. According to the figures of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism in the U.K., we're now talking about somewhere on the order of 4,000 people who have been killed with these drones. And the administration still hasn't released the legal memos that purport to justify that program. So, one of the cases that we're litigating, the one here in New York, is the effort to get that justification. This memo, this briefing paper, provides us a little more information about that justification, but it's not the justification itself. For the same reasons that the government was right in 2009 to release the torture memos, we think the government should release the targeted killing memo. Let's get specific. I saw you in Sundance at one of the premieres of Jeremy Scahill and Rick Rowley's film called Dirty Wars: The World is a Battlefield. And it tells the story, among others, of Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, 16-year-old kid born in Denver, killed in a drone strike two weeks after his father was killed in a drone strike in Yemen. Talk about his case and how this relates. Right. When does the U.S. stop? What is the justification for killing this 16-year-old boy? Well, so two things about that. First, I think one of the most chilling aspects of the power that the government is claiming here is that they're claiming the authority to do all of this in secret, not just keep it secret from the courts or keep their justification secret from the courts, but keep the exercise of this power secret, so they can carry out these killings of American citizens, among many others, without even acknowledging to the public or to any court that they have exercised that authority. And that really is a chilling proposition. But that's one thing, and that's one of the things that they've done in the Abdulrahman case: They have failed to acknowledge that they actually carried out this killing, although everybody knows it to be true. But we have other litigation which we're doing with the Center for Constitutional Rights. It's a constitutional case on behalf of the three U.S. citizens who were killed in 2011, including Abdulrahman, the 16-year-old. And that's a case in which we are raising claims under the Fourth Amendment and the Fifth Amendment, the due process clause, arguing that the government does not have the right, again, except in these extremely narrow circumstances, to carry out targeted killings without judicial review. And the government's response to that lawsuit has not been to defend their authority on the merits. They're not actually saying, "We have the right to do this." They haven't actually filed any of those arguments in court. Instead what they're arguing is: This question of whether the government acted lawfully or not is a political question committed to the political branches, and the judges have no role to play, no role whatsoever to play, in assessing whether the killing of an American citizen was lawful or not. How does it stop? Where does it stop? You kill them in Yemen, American citizens and others—no trial, no charge. What about in the United States? There's no line. You know, if you look at the memo, the briefing paper that was released yesterday, there's no geographic line. And you can remember how most of the country reacted when President Bush declared the authority to hold American citizens detained in the United States: Most of the country said, "You can't be serious. You're going to treat the United States as part of the battlefield. You're going to detain American citizens inside the United States as enemy combatants." And now, the Obama administration—you know, if you accept the memo on its face, you accept the briefing paper on its face, the Obama administration is making, in some ways, a greater claim of authority. They're arguing that the authority to kill American citizens has no geographic limit. I want to turn to comments made by John Brennan, John Brennan who is Obama's counterterrorism adviser and now his pick for CIA director. He made these comments last May and publicly confirmed that the United States has used drones to conduct targeted killings overseas. JOHN BRENNAN: President Obama believes that, done carefully, deliberately and responsibly, we can be more transparent and still ensure our nation's security. So let me say it as simply as I can: Yes, in full accordance with the law, and in order to prevent terrorist attacks on the United States and to save American lives, the United States government conducts targeted strikes against specific al-Qaeda terrorists, sometimes using remotely piloted aircraft often referred to publicly as "drones." And I'm here today because President Obama has instructed us to be more open with the American people about these efforts. That was Obama's nominee for CIA director, John Brennan, speaking last May. Jameel Jaffer, your comments on what he said about drone attacks? Well, this is—this is, I think, you know, in some ways, good timing for the release of this briefing paper, because, you know, as you mentioned, John Brennan has been nominated to head the CIA. There's going to be a vote on his nomination later this week. And some senators have said that the nomination should not go forward unless the administration is more forthcoming with its legal analysis, unless they release the OLC memo. And I think that's exactly right. The administration should release that memo. There are also open questions about the role that Brennan played in the torture program, and those questions, too, ought to be answered before the vote goes forward. So, you know, I think it's good timing. There are some very serious questions that ought to be asked by— Do you think the Democrats will be asking these questions of a Democratic administration? Well, you know, there were a group of senators yesterday that wrote to the administration asking for the release of the legal memo and seeming to connect the release of the legal memo to—to these votes, to the Hagel vote and to the Brennan vote. And I think that that's an important thing. And it was a group led by Senator Wyden. So I think that there—you know, there are definitely senators who think this is important. And if people can make it known to their senators that they think it's important, I think that would be a very good thing. And your thoughts on John Brennan being the CIA pick? Already, four years ago, when President Obama wanted to do it the first time around, he was forced to withdraw his name because there was such outcry. Well, right. I mean, I definitely have reservations about it. I think that there are these questions, these important questions about his role in the torture program. And also, you know, people have said that John Brennan is an advocate for transparency about the drone program. If that's true, now is the right time to release the OLC memo, the legal counsel memo. And I think that the debate about his nomination should be informed by whatever's in that memo. We had a report in headlines about Open Society Justice Initiative—and you're a fellow at the Open Society right now, on leave from the ACLU—putting out a new report that's revealed a detailed look at global involvement in the CIA's secret program of prisons, rendition and torture since 9/11. The initiative says 54 countries aided the CIA until President Obama stopped the program in 2009. It's called "Globalizing Torture," also reveals at least 136 people were held by the CIA during those years—the largest tally to date. How significant is this? I think it's a hugely significant report. I think it's the most comprehensive report thus far about the people who are held by the CIA and what happened to them, and also the complicity of other countries in the CIA's program. Some of those other countries have begun to grapple with the question of accountability for their role in that program. As you know, the United States has not. The Obama administration has interfered with civil suits that seek to hold officials accountable for their role in that program, and it has failed to bring criminal charges against senior officials who supervised the program. But I think it's a very important thing, what the Open Society Justice Initiative has done here, and I think that it will create pressure not just on other countries to begin to grapple with that question of accountability, but on the United States, as well. Final question on this issue of targeted killings: Is this President Obama's answer to attempting to close Guantánamo? You don't need prisons if you kill people before they go to prison. I hope not. You know, without more information about who it is that the administration is killing and on what basis, it's difficult to make—to draw a conclusion on that question. But I think when you see the kinds of authority that the government is claiming in briefing papers like this, it certainly raises the question about to what extent this program, the drone program, is in fact a substitute for detention. And as you said, don't they say—don't the documents say that they will kill someone if it puts U.S. personnel at risk? That's right. I mean, I think that one of the—you know, one of the really troubling things about the document is the way that it defines this phrase, "Capture is infeasible," because once you see that phrase in the first paragraph, "Capture is infeasible," it sounds like a real restriction on the government's authority to use lethal force. But halfway through the memo, they redefine the phrase, "Capture is infeasible," to mean something more like: "Capture is inconvenient." And once you redefine the phrase in that way, then you've opened up the possibility of the use of lethal force much more broadly. And again, it does raise the question of whether they are using the use of lethal force as a substitute for detention, and even if they're not, whether that possibility is open for another administration in the future. http://news.linktv.org/videos/inside-story-americas-is-bps-45-billion-fine-just-a-slap-on-the-wrist?start=0 It has been two-and-a-half years since the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded, killing 11 workers and spilling nearly 5 billion barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Now, oil giant BP has reached a settlement with the US government. The company agreed to pay $4.5bn -- the largest criminal fine in US history -- in an attempt to resolve charges related to its oil spill. Although this is a record-setting penalty, it is one the company can comfortably afford to pay. So, as the region continues to suffer, Inside Story Americas asks: does BP's $4.5bn settlement go far enough? Fri, 16 Nov 2012 14:05:00 -0800 http://news.linktv.org/videos/inside-story-americas-is-bps-45-billion-fine-just-a-slap-on-the-wrist Deepwater Horizon oil spill, BP, Gulf of Mexico, US Government, Environmental disaster, Oil spill, US Department of Justice, Bob Dudley, Deepwater Horizon, Eric Holder It has been two-and-a-half years since the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded, killing 11 workers and spilling nearly 5 billion barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Now, oil giant BP has reached a settlement with the US government. The company agreed to pay $4.5bn -- the largest criminal fine in US history -- in an attempt to resolve charges related to its oil spill. Although this is a record-setting penalty, it is one the company can comfortably afford to pay. So, as the region continues to suffer, Inside Story Americas asks: does BP's $4.5bn settlement go far enough? http://news.linktv.org/videos/bp-pays-out-biggest-ever-criminal-fine-for-deepwater-oil-spill?start=0 BP will pay the biggest ever criminal fine in US history as part of a $4.5bn settlement. The oil giant has pleaded guilty to 14 criminal charges relating to the Deepwater Horizon disaster, which killed 11 workers. Thu, 15 Nov 2012 15:22:00 -0800 http://news.linktv.org/videos/bp-pays-out-biggest-ever-criminal-fine-for-deepwater-oil-spill Deepwater Horizon oil spill, BP, Environmental disaster, Deepwater Horizon, Gulf of Mexico, US Government, US Department of Justice, Eric Holder, Bob Dudley, Oil spill BP will pay the biggest ever criminal fine in US history as part of a $4.5bn settlement. The oil giant has pleaded guilty to 14 criminal charges relating to the Deepwater Horizon disaster, which killed 11 workers. http://news.linktv.org/videos/inside-story-americas-will-us-personnel-ever-face-torture-charges?start=0 As the Obama administration drops any attempts to prosecute those responsible for the torture of prisoners during the Bush administration, Inside Story Americas asks if this will affect the US's standing in the world, and if we can be sure such abuses have stopped. Wed, 05 Sep 2012 12:17:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/inside-story-americas-will-us-personnel-ever-face-torture-charges Gul Rahman, Manadel al-Jamadi, Abu Ghraib prison, Waterboarding, Enhanced interrogation techniques, Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse, Torture, Stress position, Immunity from prosecution, Iraq War As the Obama administration drops any attempts to prosecute those responsible for the torture of prisoners during the Bush administration, Inside Story Americas asks if this will affect the US's standing in the world, and if we can be sure such abuses have stopped. http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-july-9-2012?start=1631 The US Justice Department and Texas legislature are squaring off in court today over the state's controversial voter ID law. The law requires voters to show photo ID at the polls, and Texas hopes to implement it before the November election. Mon, 09 Jul 2012 14:17:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-july-9-2012 United States, Bashar al-Assad, Kofi Annan, Syrian Civil War, Politics of the United States, Syria, Kofi Annan peace plan for Syria, War Crime, Heat wave, Oakland City Council The Justice Department and the Texas legislature are squaring off in court today over the state's controversial voter ID law. The law requires voters to show photo identification at the polls, and Texas hopes to implement it before the November election. The DOJ blocked Texas' voter ID law in March, saying it will disenfranchise at least 600,000 voters — a disproportionate number of which are Latinos and other minority groups. Currently, 16 states have passed restrictive voting laws that have the potential to impact the 2012 election, including vital swing states such as Florida and Pennsylvania. We speak with Robert Notzon, the legal redress chair for the Texas State Conference of the NAACP and co-counsel in a lawsuit challenging Texas' voter ID law; and Ari Berman, who covers voting rights for The Nation and Rolling Stone magazines. "Not only is Texas such a large state, but it has probably the strictest voter ID law on the books right now," Berman says. "You can vote with a handgun permit but not a student ID. Hispanics are anywhere from 46 to 120 percent more likely to not have IDs than white voters. ... In some ways, it really is 'as goes Texas, so goes the nation,' in terms of demographic change and the Republican response." Today, the Department of Justice and the Texas legislature head to court over Texas's voter ID law. The law requires voters to show their photo ID at the polls, and Texas hopes to implement it before the November election. A three-judge panel will hear the groundbreaking case, which could challenge the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965, a cherished safeguard for voters of color around the country. In March, the Department of Justice blocked Texas's voter ID law, saying it will disenfranchise at least 600,000 voters, a disproportionate number of which are Latinos and other minorities. This is U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder speaking in April at the Reverend Al Sharpton's National Action Network 14th annual convention. ATTORNEY GENERAL ERIC HOLDER: We will continue to oppose discriminatory practices while also vigorously defending Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act against challenges to its constitutionality. Now, let me be very clear. This administration will do whatever is necessary to ensure the continued viability of the Voting Rights Act, our nation's most important civil rights statute. However, supporters of voter ID laws claim such measures are crucial for preventing voter fraud. This is Republican Governor Rick Perry of Texas defending his state's voter ID law on Fox News. GOV. RICK PERRY: We had multiple cases where voter fraud was in various places across the state. And this isn't a Democrat or Republican issue. I think any person who does not want to see fraud believes in having good, open, honest elections, transparent. And one of the ways to do that, one of the best ways to do that, is to have a identification, photo identification, so that you prove you are who you are and you keep those elections fraud-free. Governor Perry. Texas is one of nine states that must get any changes to their election law cleared by the Justice Department under the Voting Rights Act due to a history of discrimination. Currently, 16 states have passed restrictive voting laws that have the potential to impact the 2012 election. These include vital swing states like Florida and Pennsylvania. All together, these states account for 214 electoral votes, or nearly 79 percent of the total needed to win the presidency. For more, we're going to Houston, Texas, to speak with Robert Notzon, the legal redress chair for the Texas State Conference of the NAACP. He's co-counsel in a lawsuit challenging Texas's voter ID law, in Houston for the NAACP national convention, which is focusing this year on voter participation in the wake of restrictive voting laws. The theme of the conference: "NAACP: Your Power, Your Decision — Vote." Can you explain, Robert Notzon, about the lawsuit that the NAACP has brought? Well, actually, the state of Texas has brought it, because they're seeking pre-clearance for the Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act to get the voter ID law to become law under federal law, under the Voting Rights Act. So, they have asked the district court in the District of Columbia for pre-clearance, and that is a trial which starts today. They need to prove that the—their law has no discriminatory intent or no discriminatory effect in the way it's operated. And talk about the significance of this hearing that is taking place this week. Well, it's critical, because, as you said, there's several states that have attempted to or that have passed voter ID laws. But in Texas, we always do things different. And they seem to be—I won't say unapologetic, because they don't wear race on their sleeves when they do it, but the way they go about passing their voting laws in the state of Texas, historically, for decades, regardless of party, is to be—take advantage of race and use it as a tool to stay in power and to keep the minority vote down. So, in Texas, when they pass a law like this voter ID law, it's different than other states. They restrict the number of IDs that are available to be used. And the impact on that is disproportionately on the minority community. Explain more why it impacts the minority community—in Texas, we're talking particularly Latinos, though African Americans, as well—why presenting a photo ID does this. Right. Well, on all the—I like to call them the "pursuit of happiness" indexes on the census, the minority populations in Texas, historically and currently, are on the lower end of the economic scale. So the effects of having to get voter IDs, having to have the documentation necessary to get those voter IDs, having to get to the place where you need to get the ID, having to take off work, having to get transportation, having to—I guess, if you move often, the minority populations are going to have more trouble keeping a current voter ID. And also, the voter ID— Robert Notzon— No, go ahead. Explain what can be used as an ID. What are they requiring in this law? What photo ID? There's a—the driver's license. There's a passport. There's a fishing and hunting licenses. There's a state ID. Some of these, you need to actually have a birth certificate before you can get it. So, I think there's been some argument that these voter IDs are free, some of them are free, but you need to have these documents with you, and you need to be able to get there and get the IDs. In addition to Robert Notzon, we're also joined by Ari Berman, who covers voting rights for The Nation magazine and Rolling Stone, as well. Ari, put Texas, this law and the hearing that's taking place this week, in the national context. Well, it's very important, because not only is Texas such a large state, but it has probably the strictest voter ID law on the books right now, because, as Robert mentioned, you can vote with a handgun permit but not a student ID. Hispanics are anywhere from 46 to 120 percent more likely to not have IDs than white voters. It's also much more difficult for them to get IDs, because they're more likely to live in counties without DMV offices. They're less likely to have a car to get to a DMV. They may have to travel a very far distance, up to 170 miles round trip. So, Texas has had such a strict law. They're so brazen in terms of what they're doing, and the minority growth in Texas is so rapid, it's an indicator of where the country is moving as a whole—that, in some ways, it really is "as goes Texas, so goes the nation," in terms of demographic change and the Republican response to that change. I want to go back to this issue of not a student I.D., but you can have a gun license. Talk further about that. Well, look at who is going to own guns in Texas and look at who students are in Texas, and which parties they are going to support. It's very likely that gun owners in Texas are going to be overwhelmingly Republican, while young voters are going to be more Democratic. Similar with Hispanics, with African Americans, with people of color in the state: they are going to be more Democratic than Republican-leaning. And this is the theme of voter ID laws, in general, and restrictive voting laws, is this is an attempt by Republicans to shape the electorate in their own favor and to make it harder for Democratic and progressive-leaning voters to have access to the electoral process at every level—harder to register to vote, harder to cast a ballot, harder to participate in the political process itself. And so, that's the grand scheme of the Republican Party, in Texas and elsewhere, passing all these restrictive voting laws since the 2010 election. And what it means for the 2012 election? Are you saying that this could–it could definitely throw the election? It could throw the election. As you mentioned earlier in your introduction, the states that have passed restrictive voting laws account for 214 electoral votes, nearly 80 percent of what is needed. We're talking about very, very significant swing votes—swing states, like Pennsylvania, like Florida, like Wisconsin. These are going to be very close states in November. And so, what is going on in these states could swing the election in terms of who makes it to the ballot box and then in terms of whether their votes are counted. So I've always said, since the 2010 election, this has been one of the biggest sleeper issues there is out there, where people weren't paying enough attention, but it clearly had a major impact. Now people are starting to pay a lot more attention, but the problem is, a lot of these laws are already on the books, or they're in court, but we don't know what the outcome will be. Pennsylvania? Pennsylvania is huge. As you mentioned, it's going to be a very major swing state. There was just a study released last week that said that 758,000 Pennsylvanians may lack the ID needed to vote. That's 10 percent of statewide voters, but what's most interesting, 18 percent of people in Philadelphia don't have that ID. Philadelphia is the Democratic and progressive hub of the state. It's 44 percent African American. So you're looking again at a case where voter ID is carried out in such a way that's disproportionately going to impact Democratic and progressive-leaning voters, and it's going to make it a lot harder to vote in the next election. The number of people in Pennsylvania without ID is larger than the margin of victory for Barack Obama in 2008 in the state. Say that one more time. The number of people without ID is larger than the margin of victory for Barack Obama in the state in 2008. Barack Obama won by about 600,000 votes in 2008 in Pennsylvania; 758,000 Pennsylvanians don't have ID. The Justice Department has ordered Florida, a likely key swing state in the 2012 election, to end a controversial voter purge that's primarily targeted Latino, Democratic, independent-minded voters. I want to turn to a clip of the Florida Republican governor, Rick Scott, who was on Fox News defending the voter purge. I want fair, honest elections. I don't know anyone that doesn't. Holder says you're suppressing votes. No. I mean, I want people to vote, register to vote, but U.S. citizens. Yeah, but he says you're suppressing Democrat votes. No, I want everybody to vote that wants to vote, but only U.S. citizens. Let's bring Robert Notzon back into this conversation. As the NAACP meets where you are in Houston, taking on these voter rights and voter ID laws around the country, the significance of what's happening right now, the showdown between the Justice Department and Florida? Oh, that's really what is happening in Texas. They're trying to link the immigration issue with the voting—or the alleged voter fraud issue. It's their—have a solution searching a problem. There really is no voter fraud problem. The clip that you played from Governor Perry, that's just inaccurate. I think between 2002 and 2009, there were zero prosecutions for voter fraud during that time. And even the kind of voter fraud that has been prosecuted is not addressed by the voter ID law. It's about—you know, the voter ID law is about protecting against voter impersonation. And there's already voter ID laws in the—on the books. But in Texas, when you link the immigration issue with voter fraud, which just isn't there, it creates this fear, and it's driving the public opinion. So it's the politicians driving the public opinion and not vice versa, because there is no voter fraud in any degree in Texas. Ari Berman? Well, it's true. If you look at Texas between 2008 and 2010, there was five cases of possible in-person voter impersonation, which a voter ID would theoretically stop, out of 13 million votes. So, clearly this is not a significant problem in Texas. But there is an accurate point that this idea that illegal immigrants are somehow voting and influencing American elections has been peddled not only in Texas but in Florida. And so, Rick Scott in Florida had this huge voter purge list of so-called non-citizens. When people took a closer look at it, the state's data was not only discriminatory, but it was totally inaccurate. Right now, 98 percent of the people on that so-called non-citizen list remain on the voter rolls because the county election supervisors couldn't confirm that they were actually non-citizens. And so, what Florida did is they essentially put out a list of people of color, because the purge list was 80 percent people of color, even though minorities in Florida are only 30 percent of the electorate. They put out this very inaccurate list of people of color. It started to be scrutinized, and Florida had to backtrack there. But the larger message that illegals are voting in U.S. elections, which is totally unproven, is still something that Republicans are saying every single day on Fox News and similar outlets. Former Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain and former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell have a new video arguing that voter ID laws are actually on the side of civil rights. Let's go to that clip. Why is Eric Holder demanding that Florida stop removing illegal voters from their rolls. Elections should never be about color. Unless it's purple. Now, purple is a very nice color. Yes, it is. And states should not have to sue the federal government to be able to protect their citizens' sacred right to vote. Help us keep America free. Help us protect your vote. Tell Eric Holder to do his job. Which is to keep politics out of the Justice Department. There you have it. Former presidential candidate Herman Cain, former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, both, of course, African American. Ari Berman, your response to their point that passing these voter ID laws is actually a civil rights issue? Well, it's incredibly ironic, what Herman Cain and Ken Blackwell are saying, because if you look at who's affected by voter ID laws, it's disproportionately people of color. Ten percent of U.S. citizens don't have this ID, but it's 18 percent of Hispanics and 25 percent of African Americans. And you look at what the GOP is doing, they're not only passing these restrictive voting laws, they're challenging the Voting Rights Act, which is the most important civil rights accomplishment, in many respects, of the 20th century. And so, when these people say that the GOP is trying to fight for civil rights, you have to question, well, why are they doing it in such a way that discriminates against minority voters and undercuts the most important minority voting achievement of the 20th century? Robert Notzon, what do you expect to come out of the hearing today in Washington, D.C.? Well, it's actually a trial, and it's going to go on this whole week. Texas gets to go first, because they're the plaintiff, so they're going to put on their evidence. And I think what's going to happen is, Texas is going to show that their—they have woefully little evidence to support their claims about what the voter ID does and the fact that it doesn't have a discriminatory purpose or that there is no discriminatory effect. So, we feel very confident that the experts and the evidence will bear out that this law should not be pre-cleared. Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act is very important to Texas. We are a covered jurisdiction, so they have to get everything pre-cleared. And in Texas, there hasn't been an election cycle where there's been an issue that hasn't been objected to by the DOJ or that has failed to gain pre-clearance, because they're always trying new and different ways to harm minorities' opportunity to vote. Ari Berman, Michigan, Mississippi? Well, Michigan was significant because it's the first place where a GOP governor actually vetoed a restrictive voting law since 2010. These laws had been passed in concert with Republican legislators and Republican governors. Governor Rick Snyder of Michigan said, "No, I don't want to get my state involved with this so close to the election." So, to me, that was a sign that the public pushback against these restrictive voting laws is having some impact, even among some Republicans. Mississippi is a situation where, to actually get the free voter ID now required by the state, you have to have a birth certificate or some sort of ID to obtain a birth certificate, so it really is a catch-22, where you need an ID to get the ID. The same sort of situation is playing out in other states, like South Carolina. And that's why these laws are being referred to as a 21st century poll tax or a new Jim Crow law, because their effect is essentially to exclude certain people from the political process who either don't have the money to pay for this documentation or don't have access to obtain the documentation needed to vote in the next election. Finally, Robert Notzon, as you're at the NAACP national meeting there in Houston, talk about the grassroots organizing that's going on to challenge these laws around the country. Well, we are just having people stay vigilant, keep records of what's happening, why people are being affected this way, the fact that they're being affected. We don't just come at these laws when they happen; we're always protecting against them, because every election cycle it happens. So we know it, so we keep records. We keep communications open. We document when these voter intimidation and voter fraud cases—alleged voter fraud cases are put forward and are—the minority votes are impacted. So that's what we do. And I'm in the middle of the CLE program, the continuing legal education, and we had a presentation on the redistricting cases in Texas, which are still ongoing. The Section 5 in D.C. and the Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act trial in San Antonio, we're still waiting for resolutions from those trials, as well. So Texas does not stop. They don't sleep. They continue to come after the minority vote, doggedly. Robert Notzon, I want to thank you for being with us, with the Texas NAACP, at the national meeting in Houston of the National organization. Ari Berman, here, covering voting rights for The Nation and Rolling Stone magazines, thank you. http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-june-28-2012?start=0 As Mexico prepares to vote Sunday, will the PRI return to power or could the Occupy-inspired Yo Soy 132 movement help Andrés Manuel López Obrador pull off an upset? Plus US health care reform, headlines, and more. Thu, 28 Jun 2012 15:28:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-june-28-2012 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Health care in the United States, Supreme Court of the United States, US health care reform, Health insurance, US-Mexico relations, Yo Soy 132, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Mexican general election, 2012, Mexican Drug War As Mexico prepares to vote Sunday, will the PRI return to power or could the Occupy-inspired Yo Soy 132 movement help Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a former Mexico City mayor who narrowly lost the 2006 election, pull off an upset? US Attorney General Eric Holder faces a contempt vote by the House of Representatives today in a dispute involving an alleged botched gun-running probe, but a new investigation says federal agents "never intentionally allowed guns to fall into the hands of Mexican drug cartels." And a new film "Escape Fire" takes a look at waste and overspending in the US health care system. Plus headlines, and more. http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-june-28-2012?start=2243 US Attorney General Eric Holder faces a contempt vote today in a dispute involving an alleged botched gun-running probe. But a new investigation says federal agents "never intentionally allowed guns to fall into the hands of Mexican drug cartels." Thu, 28 Jun 2012 15:28:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-june-28-2012 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Health care in the United States, Supreme Court of the United States, US health care reform, Health insurance, US-Mexico relations, Yo Soy 132, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Mexican general election, 2012, Mexican Drug War U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder faces a contempt vote by the House of Representatives today in a dispute involving an alleged botched gun-running probe. Republican lawmakers have accused Holder of withholding documents about a gun-running sting operation on the U.S.-Mexico border codenamed "Fast and Furious." For months, Republican lawmakers have alleged that U.S. agents encouraged the sale of thousands of guns to middlemen for Mexican drug cartels in an attempt to gain access to senior-level figures within Mexico's criminal organizations. Federal agents then lost track of as many as 2,500 guns. But a new six-month investigation by Katherine Eban in Fortune magazine concludes that federal agents "never intentionally allowed guns to fall into the hands of Mexican drug cartels." Eban joins us to discuss her findings. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder faces a contempt vote by the House of Representatives today in a dispute involving an alleged botched gun-running probe. Republican lawmakers have accused Holder of withholding documents about a gun-running sting operation on the U.S.-Mexico border codenamed "Fast and Furious." House Speaker John Boehner said the contempt vote was needed after talks with the White House failed to produce the documents. SPEAKER JOHN BOEHNER: The American people have a right to know what happened. And we're going to proceed. We've given them ample opportunity to comply, even as late as yesterday. The White House sat down with some of our staff to outline what they'd be willing to do. Unfortunately, they're not willing to show the American people the truth about what happened. Last week, President Obama asserted executive privilege over the documents. It was Obama's first use of executive privilege in response to a congressional investigation. Democrats have called today's contempt vote a political stunt ahead of the November election. Politico reports members of the Congressional Black Caucus plan to walk off the House floor during the vote. Now a dispute is emerging over crucial details about the Fast and Furious program. For months, Republican lawmakers have alleged that U.S. agents encouraged the sale of thousands of guns to middlemen for Mexican drug cartels in an attempt to gain access to senior-level figures within Mexico's criminal organizations. Federal agents then lost track of as many as 2,500 guns. But a new six-month investigation by Fortune magazine concludes that federal agents, quote, "never intentionally allowed guns to fall into the hands of Mexican drug cartels." We're joined now by an award-winning investigative reporter, Katherine Eban, who wrote the piece for Fortune magazine. The piece is called "The Truth about the Fast and Furious Scandal." Welcome to Democracy Now! Thanks for having me. What is the truth, Katherine? The truth is that ATF agents, over almost a year, tried in every way possible to seize guns that were being purchased by straw purchasers for the cartels but were thwarted at every turn by prosecutors who, in their interpretation of the laws, said that the purchases were legal. And you note that in—Arizona had some of the weakest gun control laws of any state in the union, right? Absolutely. I mean, if you're 18 and have no criminal record, you can go into a gun dealership, put down cash and come out with 15 AK-47s, with no waiting periods, no requirement for extra permits. So, in fact, according to copious documentation that I have reviewed, prosecutors made the determination that the transactions that the agents were watching were in fact legal, and they did not have grounds to make the seizures or the arrests. You begin your piece, Katherine Eban, by saying, "In the annals of impossible assignments, Dave Voth's ranked high." Who was Dave Voth? Dave Voth was the group supervisor of Phoenix Group VII, whose task was to oversee this unit that was dedicated to stopping guns from being trafficked across the Mexican border. He was the ATF law enforcement agent of the year in 2009 for dismantling two violent street gangs in Minneapolis. The ATF determined that he was the best man for the job to tackle this assignment, but he went down to Arizona and found himself in a kind of, you know, Alice in Wonderland with guns. I mean, in Arizona, best business practices, you can—there's a gun dealer there who does not want to sell to straw purchasers. He has a sign on his door that says, "One AK-47 per customer per day." And that is basically the—you know, how you limit gun purchases. So the situation was like none he had ever encountered, and prosecutors there and ATF agents had clashed for years over the question of how and when you are able to seize guns. Your article also raises questions as to the way that the ATF has become almost dysfunctional because of congressional oversight over what it can do responding to the gun lobby, internal battles within the agency, the lack of a permanent leadership. Could you talk about the problems that the ATF is having? Yeah, I mean, first of all, this is a bureau that has always been a sort of poor stepchild, first of the Treasury Department, and then it was moved in Homeland Security under the Justice Department. It has not had permanent leadership for six years. There is no comprehensive real-time database of gun purchases in the United States, which would be absolutely easy to have. I mean, we certainly have the technology to do it. But consequently, the only way that ATF agents can know if there are mass purchases of guns is through this archeological exercise. And why is there no database? Because the NRA has fought against it. So the ATF's congressional appropriation specifically prohibits it. Katherine Eban, tell us what really the House Republicans are—and a handful of Democrats who are going to vote against Holder today, vote—hold him in contempt—what is their theory of what happened? Well, I can't say what is in their head, and the theory has changed as it's been promulgated, you know, over months, but one of the theories is that somehow there was a Justice Department cover-up of this operation and that they are withholding documents to conceal this from Congress, and therefore Holder should be held in contempt. But that also this is a conspiracy to regulate guns? Yes, that basically allowing the situation to become so bad, allowing these guns to get into the hands of Mexican drug cartels, would be a way to illustrate the need for gun control. But, you know, I should hasten to add that it was ATF agents who were able to track and uncover the purchase of these guns. Without that, guns, day after day, hour after hour, pour across the Mexican border, and some estimates are as high as 2,000 guns a day are smuggled across the border. And what are the specific documents that Holder, according to Congress, is withholding? Unclear what exactly. You know, and some people call this a fishing expedition. But, in theory, the documents being withheld are internal Justice Department documents that discuss how the Justice Department should respond to the congressional inquiry. So this is really far afield from documents related to the actual Fast and Furious investigation. And the significance of the death of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry? Right. Well, that's what actually brought this whole dispute within Group VII into the public, which is, in December 2011, a Border Patrol agent, Brian Terry, was gunned down on the border. Two weapons that were found at the scene of his murder were linked to purchases by Fast and Furious suspects. Now, you know, these are guns that, it has been alleged, were allowed to flow into the hands of Mexican criminals, who then killed Brian Terry. But in my reporting and according to a contemporaneous case report I obtained, the ATF agents only learned about these guns three days after they were purchased. Clearly, these are not guns that they allowed to walk. These are not guns that they would have been able to seize under any theory. Well, a spokesperson for the House Oversight Committee has refuted key arguments made in your article. He said the story was, quote, "a fantasy made up almost entirely from the accounts of individuals involved in the reckless tactics that took place in Operation Fast and Furious. It contains factual errors—including the false statement that Chairman Issa has called for Attorney General Holder's resignation—and multiple distortions. It also hides critical information from readers — including a report in the Wall Street Journal — indicating that its primary sources may be facing criminal charges." Spokesperson for the House Oversight Committee. Your response? I mean, there are many, many parts of that statement. Several weeks ago, Representative Issa said that Holder should either lead or resign. You can get that from a two-second Google search. So, I'm not sure that I mischaracterized his statement there. You know, the information that they offered me is some of the same information that they've been offering to journalists for a year, and much of which has been accepted by the mainstream press. I chose, in my reporting and in weighing the veracity of my sources and in analyzing documents, that some of what they were offering me was either not relevant or not true. And those are the kinds of decisions that you make in this kind of reporting when you put various facts on the scale. Some of what they did tell me and shared with me is in the article. So, you know, I respectfully disagree with that statement. I want to play for you a recent comment by Darrell Issa, the chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Speaking on This Week on ABC, he accused the Obama administration of using the Fast and Furious sting operation to push for greater gun control legislation. REP. DARRELL ISSA: But here's the real answer as to gun control. We have emails from people involved in this that are talking about using what they're finding here to support the—yeah, basically assault weapons ban or greater reporting. So, chicken or egg? We don't know which came first; we probably never will. We do know that during this Fast and Furious operation, there were emails in which they're saying, "We can use this as part of additional reporting or things like assault weapons ban." So, the people involved saw the benefit of what they were gathering. Whether or not that was their original purpose, we probably will never know. That's Chairman Darrell Issa. Katherine Eban, your final response? Some of what was called for by ATF agents makes sense, which is that if an 18-year-old kid goes into a gun dealership and buys 15 AK-47s, it would be a good idea for the gun dealers to tell ATF agents that that occurred. I mean, that is the reporting requirement that the administration has actually fought for. Had that occurred, then they would have known in real time about the guns that ended up killing Brian Terry. A reporting requirement like that does not currently exist but was imposed—now has been imposed on a temporary basis. The NRA is fighting it. So, you know, you can debate, but—the merits of this, but the idea that somehow the Fast and Furious operation was a plot to restrict gun rights, I don't see any evidence for that. And if Eric Holder—if Holder is held in contempt today, the significance of this? Hard to say, because it's hard to say what will happen with that. I mean, you know, is the Justice Department going to investigate Eric Holder and have him removed? That's highly unlikely. So, some people have said, you know, this is a largely symbolic contempt vote that is—that is entirely political. Katherine Eban, I want to thank you very much for being with us. Her piece in Fortune magazine is called "The Truth about the Fast and Furious Scandal." We'll link to it at democracynow.org. This is Democracy Now! We'll be back in a minute. http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-june-14-2012?start=2945 Protesters confronted JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon on Wednesday as he testified on Capitol Hill about how his bank lost up to $3 billion in risky bets; lawmakers, however, gave him a warmer reception. A draft agreement leaked Wednesday shows the Obama administration is pushing a secretive trade agreement that could vastly expand corporate power and directly contradict a 2008 campaign promise. And a bipartisan dispute has emerged on Capitol Hill over how to investigate a series of national security leaks, including disclosures about President Obama's secret "kill list." Plus headlines, and more.<br /> Thu, 14 Jun 2012 10:02:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-june-14-2012 JPMorgan Chase, Jamie Dimon, United States Senate Committee on Banking Housing and Urban Affairs , Barack Obama, United States, Syria, Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership, National security, Syrian Civil War, Crimes Against Humanity A bipartisan dispute has emerged on Capitol Hill over how to investigate a series of national security leaks, including disclosures about President Obama's secret "kill list" as well as the U.S.-Israeli use of cyberweapons to target Iran's nuclear program. Attorney General Eric Holder has appointed two prosecutors to head a probe into the leaks but Republicans have criticized him for refusing to appoint an independent special counsel. Some analysts question if this is truly a case of whistleblowing, in the public interest, or a case of covertly authorized leaking for political gain. Government accountability groups are waiting to see how vigorously the Obama Administration will pursue those responsible for the leaks, especially given its aggressive prosecution of whistleblowers in the past. We speak to former Justice Department whistleblower Jesselyn Radack. http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-may-24-2012?start=743 President Obama's counterterrorism chief John Brennan is heading up a new team to determine who should be targeted by US drone strikes overseas. But there is growing concern over how easy it has become to kill someone under the administration's policy. Thu, 24 May 2012 10:07:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-may-24-2012 John Brennan, Egyptian presidential election, 2012, Egypt, Ahmed Shafiq, Politics of Egypt, Predator drone, Egyptian Revolution, United States, Drone, Obama administration foreign policy President Obama's counterterrorism chief John Brennan is heading up a new team to determine who should be targeted by armed U.S. drones overseas. The newly revealed procedure for drone attacks means Brennan's staff consults the Pentagon, the State Department and other agencies before ultimately deciding who will be targeted. One official said there is growing concern over "how easy it has become to kill someone" under the administration's drone strike policy. We speak with investigative blogger Marcy Wheeler of the website, "Empty Wheel." "I think we're now calling Brennan the 'assassination czar,'" she says. Wheeler disputes the government's assertion the drone attacks are finely targeted, noting that it is unclear who the targets really are and that civilians have been killed. As President Obama expands the use of armed drones to assassinate suspects overseas, the White House is reportedly taking up a key role in determining who should be targeted. Since Obama has taken office, deadly drone strikes have been carried out in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia. According to the Associated Press, a small team at the White House led by counterterror chief John Brennan has taken the lead for drafting lists of individuals to target. One official said there is a growing concern over, quote, "how easy it has become to kill someone" under the administration's drone strike policy. Late last month, Brennan publicly confirmed that the United States has used drones to conduct targeted killings overseas. President Obama believes that, done carefully, deliberately and responsibly, we can be more transparent and still ensure our nation's security. So let me say it as simply as I can. Yes, in full accordance with the law, and in order to prevent terrorist attacks on the United States and to save American lives, the United States government conducts targeted strikes against specific al-Qaeda terrorists, sometimes using remotely piloted aircraft often referred to publicly as drones. And I'm here today because President Obama has instructed us to be more open with the American people about these efforts. That was John Brennan, President Obama's top counterterrorism adviser. The newly revealed procedure for drone attacks means Brennan's staff consults the Pentagon, the State Department and other agencies in deciding who will be targeted. According to the Associated Press, this makes a military-run review process in place since 2009 less relevant. Pentagon spokesperson George Little has defended the program, saying the department was, quote, "entirely comfortable with the process by which American counterterrorism operations are managed." For more, we turn to Marcy Wheeler, an investigative blogger who runs the website EmptyWheel.net. Marcy, welcome to Democracy Now! Talk about the significance of John Brennan being at the hub, being in charge of—well, what would you call this? A White House assassination team? Yeah, right. I think we're now calling Brennan the "assassination czar." There are a couple of factors to this, Amy. I think one is, the suggestion that the recommendation of who to have on the assassination list is going to come from other entities. The AP describes it as coming from other agencies, possibly the State Department. But that means it's coming from people that aren't the special forces guys on the ground in Yemen. It may mean—and we'll get back to this, but it may mean that it's coming from Saudi Arabia. The other thing is, it's unclear whether these assassination strikes are going to be overseen by the Senate intelligence community or by the armed services committees. In other words, it doesn't—it's unclear whether—what kind of oversight there will be. And since the Congress has a very difficult time subpoenaing or getting testimony from the National Security Council, it may mean that there is much less oversight for what's going on. And then, finally, the clip you had with John Brennan, he kept emphasizing that these are targeted strikes. But the decision, as the AP—as the AP reported it, the decision of this happened not yesterday but actually in April, around April 22nd. And that means it coincides with the decision that the White House made to embrace not just personality strikes, but signature strikes, which means we're shooting drones at people whose identity we don't actually know. We're shooting at them because they look like terrorists from the sky, because they seem to have certain levels of security. In other words, Brennan was not telling the full truth when he said that these are targeted killings. What they are, in fact, are not targeted. We don't know who we're shooting at. And the fact that that's all brought into the White House all at the same time, I think, really means we've lowered the level at which we're targeting people in Yemen, and probably means it's going to be a lot easier for us to target not al-Qaeda members in Yemen, but insurgents who really aren't trying to target the United States but are instead fighting the government of Yemen. Marcy Wheeler, you mentioned Saudi Arabia as possibly being involved in helping to identify targets. Now, Brennan used to be a station chief for the CIA in Saudi Arabia and is supposedly close to Saudi intelligence—the intelligence machinery of the Saudi state. Could you talk about Saudi Arabia's role in this, from what we know? Right, yeah. Well, we don't know, I mean, for sure about the drone strikes, but if you recall after the undie bomb plot was revealed a couple weeks ago—and that actually was delivered up to us in the same week where the White House embraced signature strikes, when John Brennan started managing the targeting of these things, so that all happened around April 20th, April 22nd. Around that time— And explain—remind us of what the undie bomb plot was. Right. It was a Saudi infiltrator into al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and he brought out a similar bomb to the one that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab used in the Christmas Day bombing in Detroit. He was under Saudi—you know, he was being managed by the Saudis the entire time. He was able to bring the bomb out. The FBI has it. They're doing analysis. But that plot was revealed to John Brennan, at least, to the U.S., at least, back in April, probably around April 20th. So this is all happening around the same time. The Saudis, you know, deliver us this alleged terrorist plot, and then, around the same time, we decide we're going to change the way we're targeting people in Yemen. And at the same time, in the discussions of this undie bomb plot, there were Saudi sources who were saying, "We're the ones who pinpoint. We're the ones who provide the HUMINT, the human intelligence on the ground, for what you're doing in Yemen." And that's particularly concerning, because the Saudis not only have very different interests in Yemen than we do, they're—you know, this is their backyard. They're worried about the instability in the Middle East generally. They have a big push against the Arab Spring. Their installment of the current president, Hadi, in Yemen is part of that. In addition, they've struck at Houthi rebels in the north of Yemen as recently as 2010. And when they were doing that, they actually asked us, "Well, you know, if we had drone strikes, our targeting against these Houthi rebels would be more accurate." So they've got far different interests in Yemen than we do, and they're running around saying, "We're the ones providing human intelligence for the targeting that you guys are doing in Yemen." Marcy, I want to turn to a comment Attorney General Eric Holder made in March, when he outlined what the White House billed as the legal rationale for its claimed right to kill U.S. citizens who belong to al-Qaeda or associated forces. ATTORNEY GENERAL ERIC HOLDER: It is and unfortunate but undeniable fact that some of the threats that we face come from a small number of United States citizens who have decided to commit violent attacks against their own country from abroad. Based on generations-old legal principles and Supreme Court decisions handed down during World War II, as well as during this current conflict, it's clear that United States citizenship alone does not make—does not make—such individuals immune from being targeted. Marcy Wheeler, your response? Well, what he was talking about, ostensibly, was the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, Anwar al-Awlaki's 16-year-old American citizen son, Abdulrahman, and also Samir Khan, also an American citizen. So he was trying to say, "Well, we OK using drone strikes against American citizens if they reach a certain level of being involved with al-Qaeda." Now, Abdulrahman, the 16-year-old, there's no evidence that he had any active—I mean, he was a 16-year-old kid, playing soccer like everybody else. But as the government moves drones to the U.S., and they're rolling out drones in civilian airspace, you've got to really wonder what the legal basis for using drones is and whether—after he made those comments, a number of people in Congress asked him or asked Robert Mueller, the FBI director, whether the U.S. could use drone strikes in the United States, and they really didn't answer that. They kind of said, "Well, you've got to ask the—you've got to ask DOJ." And we still don't have any answer to that. Ron Wyden, the senator from Oregon, has said he doesn't know, and he's actually on the Intelligence Committee. So, we don't know even whether the government claims they could use drones against American citizens in the United States. Marcy Wheeler, the people you're all talking about were killed by drone strikes in Yemen, the poorest country in the Arab world despite receiving over $300 million in military and security aid from the United States over the last five years. Much of that money has gone into an aggressive and controversial counterterrorism campaign rather than programs of humanitarian relief. We recently spoke to Democracy Now! correspondent Jeremy Scahill, who had just returned from Yemen. He said U.S. counterterrorism operations have ignited an Islamist uprising in the country. JEREMY SCAHILL: The Obama administration began an air war in Yemen. Sometimes the strikes hit the people that were the intended targets, but oftentimes civilians were killed. And so, what happened is that the prophecy envisioned by the leaders of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and envisioned by Anwar al-Awlaki, came true. And that was that the United States intended to turn Yemen into its next Afghanistan, its next Iraq, its next Pakistan. So you had the one-two punch—or actually, there were three punches. The first one is the air strikes. The second one is supporting Saleh family military units. And then the third is not funding any humanitarian programs and allowing the vast majority of the U.S. money to go toward units which were then used as agents of domestic repression. Independent journalist Jeremy Scahill. Marcy Wheeler, can you continue to respond to that? Yeah, I mean, two more things to add to that. One is, the State Department just released a kind of talk sheet of aid that goes to Yemen. And what it actually shows is for things like humanitarian aid, it's going down, whereas military aid is going up. And so, I really think we need to be asking how much we're sucking dry what little humanitarian aid we're giving to Yemen and instead putting it in drone strikes. But the other thing is—and Jeremy, I think, mentioned this on the program when he was there—is that one of the reasons why al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is having some success is because they're kind of taking the same approach that the Taliban or Hezbollah did, which is they're providing services. They're trying to turn the electricity on. And if we're bombing them, and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is turning on the electricity, we're going to have a really hard time winning that battle for hearts and minds, because we're not providing the really basic things that people need. And instead, since this new drone targeting procedure rolled out on the 15th, I think, we've already killed a number of civilians. So, you know, we're still killing civilians at the same time as al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is trying to turn the electricity on. Marcy, John Brennan spoke late last month at the Woodrow Wilson Center for—International Center for Scholars, and he was disrupted by Medea Benjamin of CodePink. Let's go to a clip of that incident. How many people are you willing to sacrifice? Why are you lying to the American people and not saying how many innocents have been killed? MODERATOR: Thank you, ma'am, for expressing your views. There will be time for questions and answers after the presentation. MEDEA BENJAMIN: I speak out on behalf of Tariq Aziz, a 16-year-old in Pakistan, who was killed because he wanted to document the drone strikes. I speak out on behalf of Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, a 16-year-old born in Denver, killed in Yemen, just because his father was someone we don't like. I speak out on behalf of the Constitution, on behalf of the rule of law. I love the rule of law. I love my country. You are making us less safe by killing so many innocent people. For our radio listeners, as Medea Benjamin was speaking for those last 30 seconds, she was being actually dragged and lifted up in the air by a security guard and removed from the offices of the Woodrow Wilson Center—from the auditorium. Marcy, your response? And also, could you talk a little bit about Brennan's role prior to becoming counterterrorism chief? Under the Bush administration, he had been in the CIA, been a supporter of enhanced interrogation techniques? Right. Medea Benjamin's interruption, right after she was pulled away, John Brennan picked up his speech again. And if I recall, it was something like, "Oh, and al-Qaeda keeps killing other people." And it was this wonderful contrast, because she had just listed all these people that we've killed, including citizens. And Brennan just kept going, suggesting that it was al-Qaeda who was killing citizens, after she had just made it clear that that's not all that was going on. Brennan, yeah, right, and in—he was at the CIA until, I want to say, 2004, 2005, went—he was a contractor after that. In addition to being a supporter of enhanced interrogation, he also was involved in the targeting for Cheney's illegal wiretapping program. So he's got a lot of complicity with some of the things that were done in the Bush administration. And as you already pointed out, he was the Riyadh station chief going back into the '90s. So he's got ties to the CIA in the region going back some time and to a lot of the illegal things that were started under the Bush administration. And as Glenn Greenwald pointed out, Brennan's support of enhanced interrogation techniques forced him to withdraw from consideration as President Obama's CIA director, because of the controversy that swirled around that. And so, one of the things we've got now is that, had he been CIA director, he would have been running these targeted strikes, or these not-targeted strikes, with oversight from Congress. But now that he's running the Yemen war from inside the NSC, it's not entirely clear whether he'll have any oversight. Same guy running the war as we otherwise would have had, except that it's buried in the White House, so it's going to be less accessible to oversight. Marcy Wheeler, we want to thank you for being with us, investigative blogger who runs EmptyWheel.net, speaking to us from Chicago. This is Democracy Now! Back in a minute. http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-april-25-2012?start=842 Hundreds of supporters of former death row prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal marked his 58th birthday Tuesday with a protest outside the US Department Justice, calling for a federal probe into his case. As US student debt reaches $1 trillion, a coalition of groups plan to protest record-high college costs. Mumia Abu-Jamal speaks exclusively to Democracy Now! from prison on life after death row and his quest for freedom -- and talks to Danny Glover for the first time. Plus headlines, and more. Wed, 25 Apr 2012 10:16:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-april-25-2012 Mumia Abu-Jamal, Occupy movement, US Department of Justice, Life imprisonment, Death row, Protest, State Correctional Institution – Mahanoy, Solitary confinement, Prison, Eric Holder Hundreds of supporters of former death row prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal marked his 58th birthday Tuesday with a protest outside the U.S. Department Justice in Washington, D.C., calling for a federal probe into his case. For decades, Abu-Jamal has argued racism by the trial judge and prosecutors led to his conviction for the killing of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. Last year, the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with a lower judge, who set aside his death sentence after finding jurors were given confusing instructions that encouraged them to choose the death penalty rather than a life sentence. In January this year, Abu-Jamal was transferred from solitary confinement to the general prison population. We get legal update from Abu-Jamal's attorney, Judith Ritter. Later in the broadcast we speak directly with Abu-Jamal by telephone. http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-april-25-2012?start=2832 Hundreds of supporters of former death row prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal marked his 58th birthday Tuesday with a protest outside the US Department Justice, calling for a federal probe into his case. As US student debt reaches $1 trillion, a coalition of groups plan to protest record-high college costs. Mumia Abu-Jamal speaks exclusively to Democracy Now! from prison on life after death row and his quest for freedom -- and talks to Danny Glover for the first time. Plus headlines, and more. Wed, 25 Apr 2012 10:16:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-april-25-2012 Mumia Abu-Jamal, Occupy movement, US Department of Justice, Life imprisonment, Death row, Protest, State Correctional Institution – Mahanoy, Solitary confinement, Prison, Eric Holder For the first time ever, actor and activist Danny Glover speaks to prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal. Glover has supported Abu-Jamal for more than two decades. "I just want to tell you that — and I'm really emotional because I didn't expect to hear your voice this morning — that we continue to struggle and will continue to struggle to fight for your release. ... We love you, brother," Glover tells Abu-Jamal. "I am as pleased as punch and thrilled to hear you there," Abu-Jamal responds. On Occupy Wall Street, Abu-Jamal calls the protests "one of the greatest advances in the democracy movement in our modern period," but one that is only in its nascent stages. "They have something more important to do, and that's to connect with other people's movements around the country and build a kind of resistance that can transform this country." Mumia Abu-Jamal, Danny Glover is here also to talk about your case. Hello, Mumia. Yes, Brother Danny. How are you? How are you doing, brother? Good, good, good, good. Good to hear your voice. It's good to hear you, as always. And I certainly would be—feel a lot better, be a lot better, if you were out of jail, not simply just off of death row. Me and you both. But certainly, I just want to tell you that—and I'm really emotional because I didn't expect to hear your voice this morning—that we continue to struggle and will continue to struggle to fight for your release. We sent a letter to the attorney general, Holder, that we convene a meeting and the federal government use its own authority to investigate your case. And certainly, we—people are out here, and we love you, brother. Thank you so much. I assure you I did not expect to hear your voice, either, and I'm pretty emotional about that. You are a hero, for the acting community and the arts community and the drama community and, of course, the black community, and, beyond that, the international community, for the work you've done in the arts. And I am as pleased as punch and thrilled to hear you there. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Mumia, I think it's interesting that you are talking to Danny Glover, who is currently playing Thurgood Marshall—that's going to be coming out in an HBO series on Muhammad Ali—the Supreme Court justice. I think—I think Thurgood himself would get a real chuckle out of that. That's wonderful. I mean, so— Good, good. This is—you know, you're— Well, I'm looking forward to seeing you soon. All right, brother? We shall make that happen. We will make that happen, OK. All right. Mumia Abu-Jamal, your access, outside of death row right now, to people, to the media, to the phone? You have had so much trouble reaching out over the years, though you have managed. Well, if you recall, it's been—it's maybe 15 years, I think, since I last called your show. I was in conversation with you, perhaps 1996 or thereabouts, and the phone went dead. And I looked out of my cell, and I saw a guard come up and literally pull the wire out of the wall that connected the phone. And I remember saying, "Hello? Hello? Hello? Hello?" And it was dead because there was no wire to connect us. So, as you can see, the wires are a little tighter now. But— Well, you sued—you sued the Pennsylvania prison authorities over them pulling out the phone from the wall when we were speaking on Democracy Now! Indeed, I did. And thanks to the efforts of some really brave and conscientious lawyers and judges, I won—at least most of the issues in that suit. Abu-Jamal v. Price I think was the name of the case. This call is from the State Correctional Institution at Mahanoy and is subject to monitoring and recording. And thanks to that case, I was able to write and continue to, you know, be in contact with our people. So, I'm real glad he pulled that wire out the wall. That was very helpful. Danny Glover, what do you think Thurgood Marshall would do in the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal? Well, surprisingly—no, not surprisingly, I think Thurgood Marshall would have been one of the few justices who would perhaps hear the case, would argue to hear the case, even though there were moments during the civil rights movement that Thurgood Marshall had even trouble with Martin Luther King and disagreed a great deal. But I think—I feel that he would be one who would want to hear the case. Thurgood Marshall—for nothing else, during those dark years in the '30s and '40s, Thurgood Marshall was there, before Brown v. Board of Education, fighting cases all the time of men who on death row who were about to have—for murder or for rape, all over the South, you know. We often know Thurgood Marshall from his work on Brown v. Board of Education, but clearly his work around inmates, around prisoners, around those who have been accused, accused falsely, and fighting for them was something he did all over the country. I'm afraid we're going to lose Mumia Abu-Jamal in a moment. Mumia Abu-Jamal, your thoughts on what Danny Glover just said about the Supreme Court justice, Thurgood Marshall, and also if you could comment on the Trayvon Martin case and the Occupy movement? Well, I would concur largely with, not surprisingly, Danny Glover's remarks, because, you know, from what I've read and what I've heard, Justice Thurgood Marshall was not just a brilliant legal mind and not just a brilliant judge or jurist, he was an incredible lawyer who fought for people who were poor, who were dispossessed, who were powerless, in the apartheid South. And also because he was a black lawyer, his experiences in the South were such that not only were his clients endangered, but he himself was endangered. And many times he would be told that he had to leave town before nightfall, or he would face death. I mean, this was the American South in the middle 20th century. The good thing about that, if there can be a good thing about such an experience, is that when he came to the Supreme Court, those experiences of being a defense lawyer of the poor and the dispossessed and those facing death, he was able to share with his fellow justices, because these were people, largely, who, let's say, came from a completely different background. And I don't mean racially; I mean class, and I also mean that many of them—most of them were not defense lawyers. They were either lower court judges, or some were legislators, and, you know, mostly they were prosecutors and so forth. So, he was able to expand their perspective of what the law really meant in the real world and—through his own life experiences. Now, I think he had a profound impact, if you really check it, on the former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. If you look at her early jurisprudence and then look at her later jurisprudence, I think it's a direct effect of the influence of Thurgood Marshall. As for Trayvon, the little boy who could have been the son of the President of the United States, when we look at what happened in that case, and in my—my real view is that, in a matter of weeks or months, or months, we may see an immunity hearing that will wipe out the charges completely, and Mr. Zimmerman will never see the inside of a prison. As for the Occupy movement, I think it's one of the greatest advances in the democracy movement in our modern period. And it's pushed because of the economic crisis— You have 60 seconds remaining. It's pushed because of the economic crisis that's facing the United States and especially young people who have come out of college and have no hope for a job, have no hope for a future, have no hope for a life without terrifying, crippling loans over their heads. I think they did something wonderful, but it's a first step. They have something else to do, something more important to do, and that's to connect with other people's movements around the country and— You have 30 seconds remaining. —and build a kind of resistance that can transform this country. I thank you all for these brief moments. I really do. Thank you very much. Mumia Abu-Jamal, happy birthday. Happy 58th birthday. Oh, thank you. Thank you, Amy. Happy birthday, Mumia. Thank you, Danny. OK. All the best. On a move. See you soon. All right, brother. All right. Mumia Abu-Jamal, speaking to us from SCI Mahanoy, the prison in Pennsylvania where he is no longer on death row. Are you still there, Mumia? His phone has been cut off at this point. Danny Glover, your thoughts right now as you sit down and hear Mumia Abu-Jamal speaking to you, no longer from death row? Well, it's a beginning, as he says. As he mentioned in terms of the Occupy movement, it's a beginning. We have to find, by—as someone would say, by any means necessary, legally, to free—and collectively, as a community, not only in this country, but around the world, to free and to bring him home. Danny Glover, your thoughts on Trayvon Martin and Mumia Abu-Jamal? We've just spoken to. Is the criminal justice system very different now than it was when Mumia Abu-Jamal was convicted? Certainly, it's framed now in a different way. It is simply still the place. I know those places, and I visit those places Mumia talks about, where there is a wheelchair caravan of men who are serving life sentences. You take, for instance, Soledad State Prison in California. Forty percent of the prisoners there are on death—excuse me, on life sentences. And you take Vacaville, two places that I visited last year. Also 40 percent of the prisoners are life—lifers, as they've been calling them, lifers. So, the reality is that that has not changed. The course, from prisons to—from high school to communities to prison, is still the same course that has happened. What is essentially—and we must be reminded that at the point that Mumia was charged with this crime—and certainly, there were a number of activities, the COINTEL program and other programs, to incite and not only to dismantle those movements and to dissuade young people from becoming progressive and radicalized in different ways within the community. So, here's a journalist. And that's what Mumia is first— We have five seconds. —is a journalist. And then we'll continue off air. He's the person who is attacked—a journalist now, first—who's attacked in here because of what he has to say. Danny Glover, we want to thank you very much for being with us. We're going to continue this conversation and post it online in a web exclusive at democracynow.org. http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-april-17-2012?start=807 The Associated Press wins a Pulitzer prize for exposing NYPD's CIA-linked intelligence program, which led to widespread spying on Muslims. After 40 years in solitary confinement, two members of the "Angola Three" remain in isolation in a Louisiana Prison. And Norway's Johan Galtung, a peace amnd conflict pioneer, reflects on the Norwegian massacre and Afghanistan War. Plus today's headlines, and more. Tue, 17 Apr 2012 10:08:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-april-17-2012 NYPD, Muslim, Angola Three, Johan Galtung, Norway, CIA, United States, Solitary confinement, Anders Behring Breivik, Islam in the United States as I said before, it would be surprising to me if people didn't have strong—this is an important issue, so it would be surprising to me if editorial writers and pundits and regular people didn't have strong feelings about this one way or the other. You know, some of your viewers probably have strong feelings. The New York Post editorial staff has strong feelings. That's what democracy is all about, right? And democracy needs information. And we try to provide that information so people can make informed decisions. So, not surprised that there are strong feelings. And again, this wasn't a series we set out to do, so whether it continues, I think it continues if more information makes itself available. And we'll go where the story leads. Matt Apuzzo, I want to thank you for being with us. Again, congratulations. Matt is a reporter— Thanks a lot. —for the Associated Press. He and his colleagues were awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting for their series of articles revealing the extensive domestic surveillance program deployed by the New York Police Department in the wake of 9/11. http://news.linktv.org/videos/mosaic-news-030512-world-news-from-the-middle-east?start=763 The White House plans to outline a legal backing for targeted killings. The UN has condemned targeted killings as a violation of international law, and Washington has also come under fire from human rights organizations, reports Press TV. Mon, 05 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0800 http://news.linktv.org/videos/mosaic-news-030512-world-news-from-the-middle-east United States, Barack Obama, Iran, Israel, Nuclear program of Iran, Quran desecration, Bagram Airfield, Quran, US-Israel relations, Benjamin Netanyahu Presenter, Female #1 The White House plans to outline a legal backing for targeted killings. The United Nations has condemned targeted killings by the US outside of its borders as a violation of international law. Washington has also come under fire from human rights organizations over its rights record. Here's a full report. Reporter, Male #1 A US drone buzzing skyward from an American base on an unknown mission. The drones have been the main tools used by the US for targeted killings around the world. Legal reports say the White House is planning to outline legal backing for such assassinations. According to the reports, Attorney-General Eric Holder will argue how the US laws empower the government to kill Americans overseas who are accused of terrorism against their country. This comes months after Anwar al-Awlaki, a US citizen, was slain in an American drone strike in Yemen. The US government is under pressure from civil liberties groups to offer justification for what has been described as a top-secret targeted kill program. The defense department has said that the program pursues legitimate military targets overseas. But it rejected suggestions that the US is engaged in assassinations. Guest, Male #2 (Allen Roland, Online Journalist in California) There is no justification. This is the beginning, this is coincidental. This is the ACLU bringing a suit, a civil suit, against the Obama administration for these targeted killings for which they have no justification. But this is directly coincidal with the Occupy movement, the big spring uprising. Reporter, Male #1 Earlier, US media revealed that the administration of President Barack Obama has assembled an apparatus which is hidden from public view to advance its counterterrorism operations abroad. The secretive apparatus has a panel which decides who will live and who will die. In 2010, the United Nations condemned the US as the most prolific abuser of targeted killings in the world, accusing Washington of grossly violating international law. International human rights organizations have also blasted Washington over its bleak rights record. All this contradicts the US' image as the self-proclaimed defender of human rights worldwide. Paradoxically, the country uses the issue of human rights as political leverage to exert pressure on other countries. http://news.linktv.org/videos/mosaic-news-092011?start=1145 <p>Syrian students vow to resume classes only after Assad is brought down, Saleh's forces continue bloody assault on demonstrators for third day, and Saudi Arabia backs counterterrorism strategy as Egypt calls for peaceful battle against terrorism.</p> Tue, 20 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/mosaic-news-092011 United Nations, Syria, Mahmoud Abbas, Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinians, UN Security Council, Syrian Civil War, Libya, 2011 Libyan Uprising, Sirte While a week of high level meetings on a number of subjects have gotten underway at the United Nations, one key symposium dealt with international cooperation on counterterrorism. The United Nations was prepared for anything on Monday as foreign ministers and leaders from around the world gathered to talk key issues, including women in politics, disease, and crucially counterterrorism. The environment was appropriate for the counterterrorism discussion as no one without proper credentials was safe from scrutiny. Little more than a week after the tenth anniversary of 9/11, US Attorney General Eric Holder tried to differentiate between the policies of his boss, American President Barack Obama and Obama's predecessor George W. Bush. http://news.linktv.org/videos/anger-at-sept-11-victims-phone-hacking-allegations?start=0 The FBI is examining allegations that Rupert Murdoch's News Corp may have tried to hack into the phone records of victims of the Sept 11, 2001, attacks on the US. Fri, 15 Jul 2011 09:15:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/anger-at-sept-11-victims-phone-hacking-allegations Rupert Murdoch, News of the World, FBI, News of the World phone hacking affair, Eric Holder, News Corporation, September 11, 2001 attacks, US Attorney General, Fox News, James Murdoch The FBI is examining allegations that Rupert Murdoch's News Corp may have tried to hack into the phone records of victims of the Sept 11, 2001, attacks on the US. http://news.linktv.org/videos/us-attorney-general-us-drone-strikes-in-pakistan-legal?start=0 Eric Holder, United States Attorney General, tells Channel 4 News that US drone strikes in Pakistan are consistent with international law.<br /> Thu, 12 May 2011 15:22:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/us-attorney-general-us-drone-strikes-in-pakistan-legal Eric Holder, Pakistan, Drone attacks in Pakistan, US Attorney General, Drone, International law, United States, Channel 4 News Eric Holder, United States Attorney General, tells Channel 4 News that US drone strikes in Pakistan are consistent with international law.