08/19/16 08/19/16 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from pacifica, this is democracy now! of a you are convicted federal crime and the u.s. and you are a noncitizen, consider it a low consider -- considered a low threat, you're likely to be separated. those presence are nearly really wants the federal bureau of prisons has privatized, is contracted out to private companies. amy: in what some are calling a historic change of policy, the justice department says it will phase out the use of privately-run federal prisons, ending contracts with corrections corporation of america, geo group, and management and training corporation.

we will speak with investigative three reporters who exposed the for-profit-prisons' substandard conditions and medical care. then the olympics in rio where police are contradicting claims by olympic gold medalist swimmer ryan lochte that he and three other teammates were robbed by gunmen impersonating police officers. at this exact moment, what the police can say is there was no robbery the way the athletes reported. they were not victims of the criminal facts they described. the police can say that now. we will get reaction from the nation's sports columnist dave zirin. his latest piece headlined "ryan lochte is one of many privileged first world tourists and brazilians are fed up." all of that and more coming up. welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman.

in a historic announcement, the justice department has told the bureau of prisons to end the use of private prisons. in a memo released yesterday, deputy attorney general sally eight road that private prisons "simply do not provide the same level of correctional services, programs, and resources, do not save substantially on costs do not maintain the same level of safety and security" as facilities operated by the bureau of prisons. this is former president bill clinton, speaking earlier this year about the need for prison reform. >> we need prison reform. he will tell you, we overdid it in putting too many young, nonviolent offenders in jail for too long. [applause] now federal government can set an example. this is something a lot of republicans agree. let these people out of jail. give them education, training.

amy: that was bill clinton. laws enacted during clinton's presidency increased the national prison population by more than 60%. the justice department's directive willffect 13 federal prisons, but does not mean all federal agencies will necessarily stop using private companies for detentions. the department of homeland security's immigration and customs enforcement also uses private corrections industry, and is not included in the order. we'll have more on this announcement after headlines with the investigative reporter seth freed wessler, democracy now!'s renee feltz, and shane bauer, who worked as a private prison guard and was himself imprisoned as a hostage prisoner in iran. u.s. homeland security secretary jeh johnson visited parts of louisiana that were devastated by historic floods and said the federal government will help for as long as long as it takes for them to recover. at least 13 people were killed and more than 86,000 people have assistance,deral 40,000 homes have been damaged

or destroyed. this is secretary johnson speaking in baton rouge. >> our hearts are broken, but our faith is strong. the federal government is here and we have been here, we will be here as long as it takes to help this community recover. of people have returned to flood-hit homes as waters have receded on thursday. about 4000 people were in shelters. the local paper has criticized president obama for continuing his vacation on martha's vineyard amidst the flooding, comparing his failure to visit the region to president george to travel tolure new orleans in the wake of hurricane katrina in 2005. in the editorial, the advocate wrote "we have seen the story before louisiana and we don't deserve you sequel." meanwhile in california, the blue cut fire is still raging your los angeles. over the last two days, the fires has overtaken 36,000 acres and prompt of the evacuation of

80,000 people. so far, california fires have killed eight people and destroyed hundreds of homes. the major thoroughfare highway 138 remains closed. in news from the campaign trail, republican presidential candidate donald trump has said he regrets some of the remarks he has made. in recent weeks, trump has attacked the khan family, whose son was killed in iraq, suggested supporters of the second amendment shoot hillary clinton, and been abandoned by a number of prominent republicans as a result. this is donald trump speaking yesterday in north carolina. mr. trump: sometimes in the heat of debate and speaking on a multitude of issues, you don't choose the right words or you say the wrong thing. i have done that. and believe it or not, i regret it. and i do regret it. particularly, where it may have caused personal pain.

amy: the clinton foundation will stop accepting international donations if hillary clinton is elected president. critics of clinton allege the foundation benefited inappropriately from her time as secretary of state. former president bill clinton said he will also refrain from delivering paid speeches before the november election and will no longer give paid speeches if hillary clinton is elected president. both clintons have been criticized for their high speaking fees. and a discussion has begun about whether the clinton foundation should be closed if hillary clinton is elected. the state department has said a plane filled with $400 million in cash for iran was leverage to ensure that five american prisoners held by iran were released. republicans, including donald trump, have said the money was a ransom for the prisoners. the money was sent to iran in january. the obama administration has said the money was a pre-planned transfer that was part of the landmark nuclear deal and that the negotiations regarding the two issues were separate. but state department spokesman

john kirby has now said the money's delivery was held up with concern karen would not fulfill its end of the agreement. including implementation of the nuclear deal, the prisoner talks, and the settlement of an outstanding tribunal claim, which save american taxpayers digitally billions of dollars. as we said at the time, we deliberately leveraged that moment to finalize these outstanding issues nearly simultaneously. amy: the money is spent 02 entrances 1970's when the u.s. refused to send weapons karen had already paid for. in news from the olympics, brazilian police have accused a group of u.s. olympic swimmers of vandalism during an incident at a gas station last weekend and say they are considering whether to recommend charges against the white john mann, which include -- against the four men, which includes gold

medalists ryan lochte. the swimmers told authorities they were robbed by gunmen impersonating police officers in the early hours of sunday as they returned in a taxi to the athletes village from a party in rio. however, after an investigation, rio police said there had been no robbery. u.s. olympic committee ceo scott blackmun said in a statement -- "we apologize to our hosts in rio and the people of brazil for this distracting ordeal in the midst of what should rightly be a celebration of excellence." this comes as the olympic games enters its final weekend in rio. there have been a number of historic firsts for american athletes. for the first time ever, american women placed first, second, and third in the 100 meter olympic hurdles. the runners brianna rollins, nia ali, and kristi castlin are all african american. the american olympic gymnastics team also made history. the so-called final five women's gymnastics team concluded their run in rio with a historic nine medals. they are the most diverse gymnastics team to ever represent the united states.

simone biles and gabby douglas are african-american. new jersey-born lauren hernandez is of puerto rican descent. madison kocian and aly raisman are white. we'll have more on the olympics later in the broadcast with dave zirin. in turkey, president recep tayyip erdogan has accused followers of u.s.-based turkish cleric fethullah gulen of being involved in attacks by kurdish militants that killed 10 people in the country's southeast. erdogan has already accused gulen's supporters of planning a failed military coup last month. but it is the first time he has linked the coup supporters to the kurdistan workers party, more commonly called the pkk. turkey has fought a war against the pkk since the 1980's. erdogan offered no evidence to back up the claim, but called again on thursday for the u.s. to extradite gulen so he can stand trial in turkey. >> there is no need for further delay. the development in our country are going toward a different

direction, a strategic partner should not make things different -- difficult for a strategic partner. on the contrary, they should facilitate. amy: that was turkish president recep tayyip erdogan. the state department has said it is considering the extradition request. gulen lives in its of a now. in yemen, doctors without borders says it will withdraw staff from six hospitals in the north of the country after an airstrike by the u.s.-backed saudi-coalition hit one of the hospitals, killing 19. the attack was the fourth and monday deadliest on the group's facilities in yemen. doctors without borders has said it provided the saudis coordinates of their hospitals in order to avoid accidental strikes and that they are not satisfied with saudi claims that the strikes are accidental. the group said local staff will continue to operate the hospitals. this is doctors without borders legal director francoise bouchet-saulnier. >> but it is devastating for the medical personnel and for our ability to maintain medical

capacity and a country that are affected. if a civilian cannot be treated, they have no other choice but to flee. whene wants to receive -- --it is a realf nightmare. amy: in news on syria, a viral image of 5-year-old boy who survived a syrian government airstrike is once more drawing international attention to the plight of civilians there. the photo shows the boy, omran daqneesh, caked in dust and blood. he sits alone in the back of an ambulance, staring directly ahead in shock. the boy lives in the aleppo, where the syrian government and rebels are involved in a fierce battle for control of syria's largest city. some have pointed out that last year, a picture of dead two-year-old syrian boy on a turkish beach garnered widespread attention and outrage, but did not result in

any changes. alan kurdi died while trying to cross the mediterranean sea with his family, but the number of deaths of refugees on the mediterranean this year has increased significantly from last year. in mexico, the country's national human rights commission has said federal police killed at least 22 people on a ranch last year before moving the bodies and planting guns to support the official account that the deaths happened in a gun battle. one police officer was killed in the confrontation, which took place in the state of michoacan. federal police have been implicated in other mass killings in the past two years. the government has said the dead were suspected members of a drug cartel. the commission said officers also tortured at least two suspects. in los angeles, video has emerged of police choking 56-year-old african american man vachel howard shortly before he died. the police department has suppressed the release of the video.

howard died in a los angeles police jail in 2012. the video shows the grandfather of seven handcuffed to a bench after having been strip-searched. howard was arrested on suspicion of driving while intoxicated. the video does not show how the altercation between howard and officers began, but does show six officers pinning howard to the ground before he died. it also shows them laughing as he lay motionless on the ground before medical help arrives. a coroner listed three causes of death for howard -- cocaine intoxication, heart disease, and the chokehold used by officer juan romero. romero was suspended for 22 days but prosecutors decided not to , press charges against him. in 2015, the city of los angeles agreed to pay howard's family nearly $3 million to settle a wrongful death claim. in media news, the digital outlet gawker will shut down next week. gawker was ordered to pay $140 million in a lawsuit for

publishing the sex tape of wrestler hulk hogan. hogan's lawsuit was financially backed by silicon valley billionaire peter thiel, who was outed as gay by a now-defunct gawker blog. and in north dakota, indigenous activists gathered in the capital bismarck thursday to protest the proposed $3.8 billion dakota access pipeline, which they say would threaten to contaminate the missouri river. the activists also responded to recent claims by morton county sheriff kyle kirchmeier that there have been reports of weapons at sacred stone spirit camp. >> turning into a known lawful protest with some of -- and the lawful protest and has been compromised up to this point. we have had incidents and reports of weapons, of type bonds, of some shots fired. amy: at thursday's protest, activists denounced the sheriff's claims, saying their actions were non-violent and there were no weapons at the camp. this is tara houska, national campaigns director for honor the

earth. >> people are here to stand in prayer. for their children insurance children. water is life. [inaudible] there is dancing and singing. at the same time, everything is peaceful. [inaudible] amy: more than 1000 indigenous activists from dozens of different tribes across the country have traveled to the spirit camp. the protests have so far shut construction along parts of the pipeline. this comes as on activists from thursday, the pine ridge reservation in south dakota reported experiencing traffic checkpoints manned by state and local police who stopped cars to look for tribal members planning to travel to north dakota.

activists said more than 100 cars were stopped and those suspected of heading toward the protest were turned back. to see our interview with indigenous leaders, go to democracynow.org. and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. juan: and i'm juan gonzalez. welcome to all of our listeners and viewers from around the country and around the world. we begin with news that some are calling a major reversal of u.s. prison policy. on thursday, the justice department announced it plans to phase out the use of privately-run federal prisons. in a memo describing the policy shift, deputy attorney general janet yates said research showed private prisons "simply do not provide the same level of correctional services, programs, and resources" and "do not save substantially on costs" either. yates added that government education and training programs for prisoners "proved difficult

to replicate and outsource" in the private sector. in the memo, she said as the contracts for 13 private federal facilities come to the end of their terms over the next five years, "the bureau should either decline to renew that contract or substantially reduce its scope." some 22,000 federal prisoners out of a total of 193,000 will eventually be impacted by the move. most are immigrants convicted of crossing the border without permission -- charges that currently account for 50% of all federal prosecutions. amy: the department of justice announcement will have no direct impact on private immigrant detention facilities, which contract with the department of homeland security. it also has no direct bearing on contracts for privately-run prisons at the state level, which house less than 7% of the total state prison population. but the news still sent stocks plummeting corrections corporation of america, the geo group, and management & training

corporation, which operate the 13 federal prisons. cca issued a statement today saying -- "we are disappointed with the bop's decision to reduce its utilization of privately operated facilities to meet their capacity needs, and believe our value proposition remains strong. at this time the contracts at the three facilities cca operates on behalf of the bop remain unchanged, and the bop will determine whether to extend these contracts at the end of their respective contract terms." the statement noted the contracts account for 7% of cca's total annual revenue. all of this comes after a report released last week by the federal inspector general that found federal prisons run by private companies are substantially less safe and secure than ones run by the bureau of prisons and feature higher rates of violence and contraband. it also follows a series of reports by investigative journalists. some documented riots at these facilities in recent years,

sparked by substandard food and medical care, and poor conditions. in other cases, inmates have suffered in silence until their plight was exposed. for more, we're joined by of three these journalists. seth freed wessler's yearlong probe for the nation and reveal news uncovered dozens of questionable deaths and years of dire warnings from internal monitors at the private prisons now set to lose their contracts. he joins us via democracy now! video stream. joining us from manchester, new hamsher, -- hampshire, is shane bauer, whose 18-month investigation for mother jones recently took up its entire issue headlined "my four months , as a private prison guard," it chronicles his time as an undercover correctional officer at louisiana's winn correctional center, run by the corrections corporation of america. his most recent article is headlined "this prisoner hanged , himself at the private prison where i worked. his family says he didn't have to die."

also joining us here in new york ,s democracy now!'s renee feltz criminal justice correspondent who has reported for about a decade on private immigrant detention centers. we welcome all of you to democracy now! seth freed wessler, let's begin with you. talk about the significance of this historic announcement out of the justice department that they are closing for-profit prisons that are run by the doj. >> yesterday's announcement by the department of justice came as a surprise to nearly everybody outside and inside the bureau of prisons. what the announcement says is that the bureau of prisons, the federal bureau of prisons over the neck several years, will have to start shutting down its private prisons. you know, few people know that the federal government has established over the last two decades a sort of subsystem a federal, private prisons used

exclusively to hold noncitizens convicted of federal crimes. these prisons have been the sites of repeated protests by prisoners, as i have documented, and as i found an investigation for the nation, deep and systemic failures to provide baseline levels of care to prisoners held inside dozens of deaths of men who are held in these facilities after substandard, negligent medical care. so this decision by the department of justice will begin the process of shuttering these very facilities that i have been investigating where protests have erupted over the years. in over the next five years, we're going to see these prisons close. there are 13 of these federal prisons operating right now, scattered around the country in texas and california and the south and elsewhere. and i spoke yesterday to the

relatives of several men who died inside of these facilities after pretty extreme kinds of medical neglect. both of those family said that they felt this decision a close these facilities brought some kind of justice. it is too late for them. it is a big decision. juan: seth, you mention this policy has been in effect for about two decades. it was the mid 1990's during the bill clinton administration, actually, that this began. we normally associate privatization of government services with republicans. this actually started under democratic president. what was the original rationale for them? >> that's right. as the federal government was beginning to incarcerate more and more people, and the size of the federal prison population was growing, the federal government, congress, and the white house decided to begin a process of privatizing a subset

of federal prisons to meet their capacity needs. several years after the process begin, the government decided quite explicitly that immigrants, noncitizens, would be an ideal group of people to be held in these stripped-down federal prisons. the government has said in statements, the bop is that in statements, the immigrants, because they were later we transferred to immigration authorities and deported, the government does not have to provide them with the same kinds of rehabilitative or reentry services that they might provide to u.s. citizens, that immigrants are not ideal group for these kinds of segregated subsystem of prisons. these facilities have expanded rapidly over the last 15 years as the number of immigrants who are prosecuted criminally for crossing the border has grown massively. last year, 70,000 people were

prosecuted in federal courts for border crossing crimes, for injury after deportation, or illegal entry. this has helped to expand the federal criminal justice system and expand these private prisons. amy: we're going to go to break and come back to this conversation. seth freed wessler is an investigative reporter. his series on federal prisons, latest piece "federal officials , ignored years of warnings about deaths in private prisons." this is democracy now! we will be back in a minute. ♪ [music break]

amy: this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman with juan gonzalez. we are talking about a historic decision, and announcement out of the justice department to close the federal government has contracts -- governments contracts with private prisons. shane bauer is with us,

award-winning reporter with mother jones. as well as seth freed wessler, an investigative reporter and democracy now!'s renee feltz. shane, we last had you on just a little while ago based on this remarkable issue of mother jones magazine. that you wrote. ,s an undercover prison guard you acted as in louisiana. your most recent article, "this prisoner hanged himself at the private prison where i worked. his family says he did not have to die." this based on your four month investigation as a private prison guard. talk about your reaction to this news and what actually happened to this prisoner you spoke of. >> well, this news is certainly unprecedented and surprising. i mean, the findings of the inspector general's office are

not surprising. their consistent with findings from the department of justice over the years from reports by journalists consistent with things that i saw at winn in louisiana, but this measure is certainly bigger than anything i expected. damien, he was somebody who i had met while i was working at winn. after i left the prison, i learned in inmate had committed damien.and that it was he was somebody who was very troubled. over the years, he reported being suicidal. he been trying to cca providedy that services, mental health services. at that prison, there was only one part-time psychiatrist, one part-time psychologist, and one full-time social worker.

damien had been trying to get into mental health programs. he had been waitlisted for two years. he frequently went on suicide watch. just to describe briefly what that is, it is solitary confinement cell where a prisoner is naked, has only a blanket. he is given worst food, it follows dust falls below usda standards. it usually has no reading material or anything in his cell. this is the mental health services that damien had. he went on hunger strike. he tried to get but so -- better minnow help services. eventually, damien was put on suicide watch and he was taken off them even though he was still coming to be suicidal, he was not checked on the way he was supposed to and from what i saw at winn, this was standard procedure. he hung himself. at the time of his death, he weighed 71 pounds. juan: shane, you mentioned this happened in a cca prison.

i want to ask about the role of cca in particular. after the doj announced thursday it would no longer use private prisons, stock prices for corrections corporation of geo both plunged about 40%. but a financial analyst at, core genuity said "the massive falloffs in the stocks imply the risks will spread to other federal state and local jurisdictions. we believe it is unlikely. as such think today's stock action is based more on fear than actual cash flow risk." but in the ceo of corrections june, corporation of america damon hininger, told a forum of investors his firm will be "just fine" no matter who is elected to the white house this fall. this is him speaking. >> we've had some nice growth in our business under those three respective presidents. yet a lot of growth under clinton and bush and we've had a lot of growth under president

obama. so with that, if we continue to do a good job on the quality -- and we can demonstrate savings, both on capital voice but also cost savings in our services, then i think we will be just fine. juan: that was the ceo of corrections corporation of america just in june. talk about this company. how did it rise and its role within this general federal prison contracting. and geo both started operating prisons in the 1980's. this was a time when the prison population was skyrocketing, states were trying to build some of thatke up increased population and they could not build them fast enough. look, wein and said, will operate prisons and we will build prisons. we will run the more cheaply. we will be helping you deal with the overcrowding problem. so they kind of had -- there was

a need for them at one point and their argument now has consistently been they are saving money. this is questionable as the department of justice inspector general pointed out. but what is important is to look at how they are saving money. the main way they save money is through staffing costs. the prison i worked at, guards were paid nine dollars an hour. this was three dollars 50 in celeste than the starting pay of guards at state-run facilities. medical costs. the company at the prison i worked, if they sent a prisoner out for medical care, they had to bear that cost. there's a lot of resistance to sitting prisoners out of the hospital. they had less mental health staff. there were days i came into work where there were 24 guards for 1500 prisoners. this is far below what the contract requires. this problem has been found throughout cca's state and

federal prisons. the inspector general has made reports on their audit showing, in one prison where there were byts, the riot was caused understaffing and poor medical care. after they issued the report, they went back and found that problem had not been corrected. this has happened in several states as well. you know, to answer your question about how this is going to affect the states, it remains to be seen, but what i did see winn at is that the company was under a lot of pressure by the state at that time to kind of get its act together, to improve security, improve health care, prevent escapes. there had been a skates while i was there. you know, the question is, how is this affected in the country? i had this is from inside that one prison, the company was struggling to try to hang onto it.

amy: shane, in your remarkable investigation were you when undercover at the winn correctional facility, run by cca, corrections corporation of america, you met a prisoner who had lost his fingers and legs because of inadequate medical care. we want to go to a clip from one of the videos that accompanied your report for mother jones. >> gangrene. mr. scott complained about that for months to the medical staff at winn. they gave him some equivalent of couple of motrin and told him to go away. >> he is now suing the prison. >> the people that are working there as nurses and all that, they're really not that qualified. >> there are doctors they can hire. they are doctors were more or less affordable. i did some background checking on them and one of them was a pediatrician who had lost his privileges to treat children.

amy: corrections corporation of america said it is "committed to ensuring all individuals entrusted to our care have appropriate access to medical services as needed." now i want to turn to a clip from our other guest, seth freed wessler's report, that also deals with substandard medical report a private prisons. this is part of his interview with dr. john farquhar the former clinical director at the federal correctional institution in big spring texas, run by the , geo group. it was featured on reveal, a podcast from the center for investigative reporting. >> there are times when i was critical. i'm a critical person, starting with myself. " you wrote one point, i feel bad for his shabby care. cook i stand by that statement. i don't know who is it is about. i cannot, on any single record of any person, but there are times when the care was not what i wanted for any patient,

period. amy: the former clinical director at the federal correction institution. seth freed wessler w,eigh in here. >> i talk to medical workers, doctors, physician assistants, nurses who work in this subsystem of federal prisons that will now begin to be shut down and across the board, they said they were pressed to cut cost. that particular doctor said his corporate bosses soon after he got his job as a medical director, had come to town to tell them to cut down on the number of 911 calls made because they were expensive. and that very prison shortly after he left his job come a prisoner died after suffering a stroke in the prison decided to just leave him in his cell until morning. the only medical worker on the shift that night was a licensed vocational nurse with about a year of training. and across the board, these

prisons are operating at deep understaffing, using undertrained workers. and i found stories and 30,000 pages of federal records i obtained through an open records request, an open records lawsuit, i found stories of people who went months, even more than a year in some cases, seeing only nursing staff. often, only licensed vocational nurses, complaining of increasing pain and illness until they became so ill, they died inside these prisons. what is remarkable about the documents i obtained in the interviews i did with people who worked in these prisons as well as letters from prisoners who later died, is that the bureau of prisons knew for years about the very problems that i am talking about. after the bureau prisons set up this subsystem of federal private prisons, they actually established a moderating -- monitoring system to check on

his facilities. these monitors would flag repeat systemic failures, specially a medical care, over and over again, send those flights to washington in hopes that something would change. in fact, when those flags went up, federal officials in theington refused to impose full penalties available to them. and when monitors try to shut down federal prisons that were failing, the top officials in the bureau of prisons in washington actually refused to let those monitors shut these prisons down. so the decision today about -- rather yesterday, to shut down these types of prisons, comes as a great surprise because monitors have been saying for years these prisons are failing, document and these problems -- the very same problems, in some cases, that the inspector general found in his report and then i found in my reporting,

now finally am a these facilities are going to start being closed as their contracts come up for renewal. juan: i want to bring in renee feltz, who is been covering a lot of these issues with a private prisons, especially in terms of immigrants across the country. this only affects the federal prisons, it does not affect private detention facilities run by homeland security or even by the states themselves who contract many -- many of the state's contract with these private companies. the detention watch network has called on the doj to have this policy also for the homeland security network. can you talk about that? >> is important to understand this policy shift will not impact immigrant detention centers. many people think about the prisons that will be impacted that seth described because their immigrant only facilities.

essentially, separate but equal prisons he helped to expose. we want to be clear the decision from the doj will not impact anything that has to do with dhs, department of homeland security. however, that is where the momentum is. people are saying if there are flaws without private prison operators accused of shortcuts run federal facilities under one agency, what about under another agency? something else i think that is important is things -- juan: the same companies, more or less. >> cca and geo primarily. they also have the contracts for the immigrant detention centers, which are largely privatized, but not all. we thing i want to mention, talked about the federal prisons that are closing that hold so-called criminal aliens -- that is what the government calls them. their largely accused of crossing the border, being charged with a misdemeanor.

after a few times, being convicted of a felony for the same offense. they are in prison for crossing the border without permission. it seems like an immigration offense, but it is not. they then go on to immigrant detention. one thing that is interesting about immigrant detention centers, not everyone there has this prior criminal background. we're talking about people who largely are committed of civil offenses coming to the country without permission step no crime, but held essentially in a controlled environment with barbed wire, guards. what is interesting recently at these detention centers, the obama administration has brought that family detention centers. are talking about cca and geo running a facility for children as young as two years old are being held with their parents. amy: talk about the berks facility. >> berks facility in pennsylvania, which is run interestingly your contract with the county in ice is also having problems being accused of for wayimmigrants there

too long. there is a mandate of 20 days from its monday's. women are on a hunger strike. they had been held for more than a year. that points to another quick thing i would say about how ice characterizes these facilities. they're saying the ice detention centers that are private are short-term processing centers, where people are held for a brief amount of time. so we're talking about different types of facilities. amy: there is a hunger strike going on at berks. democracy now! was able to speak to one of the women who are part of that hunger strike this week inside berks. we know we have not committed any crime. we only came to ask for help in this country. help that still has not been offered to us. there are many children who have thought about throwing themselves out of the window of escaping. there are others who want to break the window, saying maybe

sacrificing their own let's will be a sacrifice to free us all. it is very sad that children and adolescents are thinking of committing suicide, when really they should be focusing on their studies. amy: we will continue to follow these issues. the prisons that closed in the prisons that don't. i want to thank seth freed wessler for joining us as well as democracy now!'s renee feltz. shane bauer, we want to stay with you for one more moment, but on a different issue. i want to ask about the recent developments in iran. in addition to your recent reports for mother jones, in 2009, you spend more than two years in evin prison after you and two other americans, not your wife sarah shourd, and joshua fattal were captured while hiking or the unmarked iran-iraq border. you recount this in your book. this is a clip of you speaking shortly after your release.

the only explanation for our prolonged detention is the 32 years of mutual hostility between america and iran. we were convicted of espionage because we are american. it is that simple. no evidence was ever presented against us. that is because there is no evidence and because we are completely innocent. many times, too many times, we heard the screams of other prisoners being beaten and it was nothing we could do to help them. confinement was the worst experience of all of our lives. that had tohtmare endure for 14 months -- sarah had to endure for 14 months. we had a total of 15 minutes telephone calls with our families and one short visit from our mother.

our mothers. we had to go on hunger strike repeatedly just to receive letters from our loved ones. amy: this week, the state desktment sent a plane said a plane with $400 million was leverage to ensure five other american prisoners held by iran were released. republicans, putting donald trump, said the money was ransom for the prisoners and was sent to iran in january. it obama administration said it was a preplanned transfer that was part of the landmark nuclear deal and the negotiations regarding the two issues were separate. state farm a spokesman john kirby admitted the negotiations had been linked to some extent. >> we were able to conclude diplomacy within 24 hour. , including of limitation of the nuclear deal, christer talks, and the settlement of an outstanding hate tribunal claim, which saved american taxpayers potentially billions of dollars. as we said at the time, we don't

really leveraged that moment to finalize these outstanding issues nearly simultaneously. amy: that $400 million had been 1970's iran since the when the u.s. refused to send weapons and ran at already pay for following the iranian revolution. shame, we're wondering your response to this news and the latest controversy over whether this money was actually ransom, given your situation and how you ultimately got out of iran. >> i think the claim this money was a ransom is absurd. like you said, this money had been owed it to iran since the time s of the overthrow of thehaw. this was a previous negotiation and using this as leverage to get a rent to release the prisoners is exactly what should have been done. i could easily see criticism

from the opposite direction from republicans saying, what if the obama administration had not done this and let these prisoners sit in there are not included them in the negotiations? that would be way more ridiculous. amy: actually, that was donald trump's criticism of the iran. deal. early on when the deal was struck, he said this is pathetic. it is included in this that prisoners do not get released. >> exactly. these criticisms are ridiculous some in my opinion. when i have been in prison, there had not been, as far as i know, much in terms of negotiations between the u.s. and iran. the fact that the administration moves towards this, and including these prisoners in those negotiations, is exactly the right thing to do. amy: how did you ultimately get out, shane? >> i have been released, as well

as sarah and josh, through negotiations with oman. the had initiated negotiations themselves. they were interested in using tensions between the u.s. and iran and ultimately moving toward a nuclear deal. they made trips to iran and to d.c. and kind of went back and forth bringing offers from each side. after our release, that avenue that have been created through our situation was the way the u.s. and iran began nuclear talks before they were publicly negotiating. amy: shane, thanks for being with us, shane bauer, award-winning senior reporter at mother jones. his most recent article is called "this prisoner hanged , himself at the private prison where i worked. his family says he didn't have to die." it is part of an amazing series he did "my four months as a , private prison guard,"

which chronicles his time as an undercover correctional officer at louisiana's winn correctional center. shane also wrote the book together with sarah and josh called, "a sliver of light: three americans imprisoned in iran." when we come back, we will talk about the olympics. shame, thank you for being with us. stay with us. ♪ [music break]

amy: this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman with juan gonzalez. juan: we turn now to the olympics, which are heading into the final weekend in rio de janeiro. brazilian police have accused a

group of u.s. olympic swimmers of vandalism during an incident at gas station last weekend and say they are now considering whether to recommend charges against them, including gold medalists ryan lochte and jimmy feigen. the swimmers said they were robbed by gunmen impersonating police officers in the early hours of sunday as they returned in a taxi to the athletes village from a party in the city. however, after an investigation, rio police said there had been no robbery. this is the head of rio de janeiro's civil police, fernando veloso. >> at this exact moment, what the police can say is there was no robbery the way the athletes reported. they were not victims of the criminal fact that they described. the police can say that now. in theory, they can be charged with giving false testimony and vandalism. in theory.

they stopped at the gas station. they went to the toilets as the images showed. and one or more than one, we're still investigating that, started vandalizing inside the toilets of the gas station. juan: u.s. olympic authorities later apologized to brazil after two u.s. swimmers kept in the country for questioning about the incident were allowed to go home. u.s. olympic committee ceo scott blackmun said in a statement -- "we apologize to our hosts in rio and the people of brazil for this distracting ordeal in the midst of what should rightly be a celebration of excellence." the incident was just one in an olympic games plagued by everything from green pools to empty seats. brazil is also battling an economic recession, a massive zika outbreak, and the recent ouster of its democratically elected president dilma rouseff. human rights organizations have also expressed concern about the

impact of the games on rio's most vulnerable communities. amy: but the olympics were not without its success stories. thursday night, jamaica's usain bolt dominated the men's 200 meters final, clinching his eighth olympic gold medal. brianna rollins led the american women in sweeping the 100 meter hurdles wednesday. and the so-called final five women's gymnastics team, the most diverse team ever to represent the u.s., concluded their run in rio with a historic nine medals. to talk more about the rio olympics, we're joined now by dave zirin in washington, d.c. he writes for the nation magazine. his recent article "ryan lochte , is one of many privileged first-world tourists -- and brazilians are fed up." he's the author of "brazil's dance with the devil: the world cup, the olympics and the fight for democracy." dave, talk about the lochte scandal. >> absolutely. we're breaking news on this in addition to what you have already reported. jimmy feigen, one of the two swimmers along with lochte who

is probably going to be charged for making false statements to the police and vandalism, has been released. he is on his way home step in return, he a to get $11,000 terrible donation to a foundation called reaction -- charitable donation to a foundation called reaction as a way to bring silicates into the mainstream of rio. it is a place that the brazilian judoka from the city, that is where she trained as well. that might sound small to some folks, but in a city where the business leaders, construction leaders, and real estate leaders want a rio without the villas and have built these exclusion games were the for villas are monetaryupation, any ability to give anything helps. jimmy is on his way back to the united states. as for ryan lochte, he could still be indicted and absentee for making false they must and vandalism.

-- making false statement and mentalism. it would not require any extradition. the criminal part is largely done. having just returned from rio, the anger about this is not going anywhere because ryan lochte has done the impossible. he is managed to unite people in rio were both against the olympics and people who are for the olympics. it is paradoxical down there because on the one hand, i spoke to teachers and people who depend on brazil's ram shackled radical system. people are furious about the fact that billions of dollars are being spent to put on these games at a time when they're so much economic and social upheaval in the country, when the country is mired in its worst recession in decades. but paradoxically, there is a lot of pride and the fact that people are kind of holding this together, that volunteers, that low-wage workers are somehow keeping this together and holding the kinds of games that can have the kinds of events,

amy, that you described, that can create these kinds of moments. to have ryan lochte and friends literally and figuratively urinate all over their efforts and also be the kinds of stereotypes of the ugly american who believes there is no sin below the equator, who exploits people's biggest stereotypes and crime, and attempts to leverage the fact that they are wealthy and white and olympians and can somehow just blame it on the brown people, get on a plane and go home -- what it manages to do is touch every nerve in brazilian society right now and create a kind of bizarre unity of brazilians who are saying, wait a minute, we deserve a lot better than this for the effort that we have put in the staging ablee games under unendur circumstances. juan: i want to follow up on that. this scandal had two periods. the early narrative that was reinforcing, well, rio is a

place of commonality, the athletes are not safe for the first couple of days, until the actual story came out. and now there has been a reversal. it reminded me of -- people man forgotten man more than 30 years ago now, bobby knight. in puerto knight was rico and the pan-american games with the u.s. team and ends up getting arrested because he assaulted a police officer there and then flees the country and becomes, really, a pariah in latin america as a result. >> bobby knight, a trump supporter. he assaulted a puerto rican police officer. then as he said later, he entire mooned the country as the plane was taking off. it is that kind of ugly american .tereotype that helps nobody and fulfilling that stereotype certainly helps nobody. i tell you who is also really upset, when i was in rio, a met a ton of people from the u.s.

who were tried to do the right kind of work, trying to do so develop support, help train people with independent media. catalyticons like communities. when he an american behave like this, behave with this kind of unfettered privilege, what it does is affects everybody who is asked to try to do the right work and build solidarity. that is why this is more than just this kind of small story of americans behaving badly. i'm sure that is what ryan lochte thinks it is, this -- his comments have already elected a the of brain-deadness about international incident aspect of this. a for people who are down there and ask lee have to deal with police violence, for people who have to do with the very real thing in rio, which is police actually robbing you, for people in the favelas that have to do with police violence, to have the people most likely protected by police to tell a story about being robbed by police? that manages to offend people who fight police corruption and also people who are defending

the way that rio has been able to create a secure games, even though rumors before hand said that these would be some of the least secured games in history. juan: what about that? how has rio managed to pull off these games? we're heading into the last weekend. we only have 30 seconds. scotchcally, through tape, hard work, and unpaid labor. a report was out today that the day laborers working in the olympic village make only $15 a day, yet ioc officials get spending money, per diem, $900 per day. so people are doing it only out of a sense of national pride at this point. to have their efforts just absolutely slapped around by ryan lochte and friends as if they are somehow less than human, believe me, that really touches the third rail of brazilian -- amy: we want to continue this conversation and post it online at democracynow.org. that does it for our show. democracy now! is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning.

e-mail your comments to outreach@democracynow.org or mail them to democracy now! p.o. box 693 new york, new york 10013. [captioning made pos

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