>> from pacifica, this is democracy now! >> we have opened a pandora's box. we're going to turn the united states of america into a foreign nation for the purpose of dragnet, blanket surveillance. >> spying on americans. explosive article in the guardian newspaper reveals details about a massive domestic surveillance program under president obama. the national security agency is secretly collecting the telephone records of millions of customers of verizon under

classified court order issued in april. we will speak with two former nsa whistleblowers, thomas drake and william binney. they quit the agency deeply concerned about the growing surveillance of americans. then we will go from secret surveillance to secret trade negotiations. why is the album administration refusing to let members of congress and the public see drafts of the tpp, the trans- pacific partnership, the largest u.s. trade deal since the formation of the world trade organization. and just days before the 50th anniversary of the assassination of medgar evers in jackson, mississippi, the voters elect longtime black nationalist organizer and attorney chokwe lumumba to become mayor. radical.ay i'm too i remind them that fannie lou hamer was a radical. i remind them that medgar evers was a radical and martin luther

king was a radical. >> we will speak with chokwe lumumba here on democracy now! from jackson, mississippi. all of that and more coming up. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. a newly disclosed court order shows the telecom giant verizon is handing over the telephone records of millions of subscribers to the u.s. government without individual warrants. the guardian of london reports the fbi obtained a three and half -- three months surveillance mandate from the foreign intelligence surveillance court in april. it compels verizon to provide the national security agency with the metadata of all of its subscribers' phone calls, who they spoke to, where and what time the made the call, and for how long. in a statement, the aclu to announce the program as "beyond orwellian, "adding --

will have more on the story after the headlines. a u.s. soldier accused of massacring 16 afghan civilians last year has pleaded guilty to murder and other charges, thereby avoiding execution. on wednesday, staff sergeant robert bales formally amended to killing nine children and seven adults during a nighttime attack on two kandahar province villages in march 2012. defense attorneys say bales may have suffered a traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder from four tours in iraq and afghanistan. appearing before a military judge, bales expressed regret for the massacre, saying -- his trial last year featured the video testimony of more than a dozen afghan witnesses and victims. the witnesses, including several children, recalled being shot at and seeing their loved ones murdered. a hearing is set for august to determine if bales will be sentenced to life in prison with or without the chance of parole.

the u.s. military is sending a massive new contingent of guards to help contain the revolt of hunger striking prisoners at guantanamo bay. the miami herald reports the army reserve is deploying 125 troops to assist the holding of prisoners in solitary confinement and the force feeding of 39 hunger strikers. president obama has formally unveiled his latest picks for top foreign policy posts, the new national security adviser, susan rice, and her would-be replacement as u.n. ambassador, samantha power. appearing with obama at the white house, rice and power each voiced excitement to take on their new roles. >> i am deeply honored and humbled to serve our country as your national security adviser. i am proud to have worked so closely with you for more than six years, and i'm deeply grateful for your enduring confidence in me. >> as the most powerful and

inspiring country on this earth, with a critical role to play in assisting the institutions meet the necessities of our time. it can do so only with american leadership. it would be an incomparable privilege to earn the support of the senate and play a role in this essential effort, one on which our common security and common humanity depend. >> samantha power served as obama senior foreign-policy visor during his first run for the white house before she was forced to resign for calling hillary clinton a monster. she could face a tough confirmation process from republicans oppose our foreign policy views. right-wing opponents have begun circulating a 2003 article where she called for -- -- added on the other side of the spectrum, shias base charges

from progressive critics over the years of selectively ignoring u.s. backed atrocities while supporting humanitarian intervention abroad. you can go to democracynow.org to see our 2008 interview with samantha power as a lesser debate with jeremy scahill about kosovo, iraq sanctions, and interventionism. police in turkey are continuing a crackdown on mass anti- government protests. on wednesday, police fired teargas and water cannons at a large crowd rallying in the capital. at least 3300 people i've been arrested in five days of protests. one turkish activists of the protesters are undeterred. >> today we have the third person who was killed. there are more than 2000 people who were injured, when did, and so on. but the number of attendees, the

number of people taking part in this huge thing does not get less at all. nobody is afraid anymore. >> you can go to democracynow.org for the report fire -- out from inside taksim square. the u.s. and venezuela have launched a new bid to improve ties with the most high-level meeting in months. on wednesday, secretary of state john kerry sat down with the venezuelan foreign minister at a summit in guatemala. john kerry said the talks would continue. >> we agreed today, both of us, that venezuela and the united states, that we would like to see our countries find a new way forward, establish a more constructive and positive relationship, and find ways to do that. >> the sit-down came as venezuela released a u.s. filmmaker it had held for over a month on accusations of seeking to destabilize the government. the filmmaker, tim tracy,

returned u.s. on wednesday. he has rejected venezuela's allegations, which were never specified, and maintain he was in the country to make a documentary film. at the six people have been killed and another 14 wounded in the collapse of a building in philadelphia. the rescue effort continued overnight. the building was under demolition when it crumbled onto a neighboring thrift store. concerns have been razed the building may have lacked proper oversight. colorado has become the eighth u.s. state to grant driver's license to undocumented immigrants. the move, the race after florida governor rick scott vetoed a measure that would have allowed driver's licenses for young undocumented immigrants. the law would apply to all those granted a reprieve under president obama is deferred action program for immigration who came to the u.s. as children. in washington, the senate is set to begin consideration of the bipartisan immigration bill next week.

a federal appeals court has ordered the obama administration to immediately comply with an earlier court order to make certain forms of emergency contraception available without prescription and without other restrictions to women of all ages. the administration had requested a stay while it fights to preserve restrictions on how morning after pills are sold. one of the attorneys suing obama administration for unfettered access to emergency concert -- contraception called wednesday's ruling a watershed moment in the fight for reproductive rights. those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman with juan gonzalez. >> welcome to all our listeners and viewers from around the country and around the world. shalit top-secret order has revealed the obama administration has conducted a hamas domestic surveillance program recollecting telephone records of millions of of verizon business customers for it last night the guardian newspaper published a classified order issued by foreign intelligence surveillance court directing verizon business network services to give the

national security agency electronic data including all calling records on a "ongoing daily basis." the order covers each phone number dialed by all customers along with location and routing data, and with the duration and frequency of the calls, but not the content. the order expressed the compels verizon to turn over records for both international and domestic records. it also forbids verizon from disclosing the existence of the court order. it is not clear if other phone companies were ordered to handle similar information. >> according to legal analysts, the obama administration relied on a controversial provision in the patriot act that authorizes the government to seek secret court orders for the production of "any tangible thing relevant to a foreign intelligence or terrorism investigations clamp it comes just weeks after news broke the obama administration had been spying on journalists. we're now joined by two former

employees of the national security agency. thomas drake and william binney. in 2010, the obama administration charged drake with violating the espionage act after was accused of leaking classified information to the press about waste and mismanagement of the agency but the charges were later dropped. william binney worked for almost four years at the nsa. he resigned shortly after the september 11 attacks. he was concerned increasing surveillance of americans. we are joined in studio by shena. first, can you talk about the significance of what has just been revealed? >> we it had stories including one in usa today in may 2006 that says the government is collecting basically all of the phone records from large telephone companies. what is significant about yesterday it is the first time we've seen the order to really appreciate the sort of staggering and broad scope of

what was approved and the first time we cannot confirm this was under section 215 of the patriot act, which has been dubbed the library because people were most worried about the idea they could use the library records and now we know they're using it to get phone records. just to see the immense scope of this, warrant ordered, when most warrants are very narrow, is really shocking as a lawyer. a >> summit argue the obama administration at least went to the fisa court to get approval for this in the past. >> we don't know if the bush administration was getting the same orders and if this is just a renewal order. it was supposed to last for only three months, but they may have been getting one every three months since 2006 or urban earlier.- or one thing congress thought, at least they will have to present

these to a judge and get some judicial review. but when one order covers every single phone record for a massive phone company like verizon, reporting that is the congress will be very hollow. similarly, when the judge on the fisa court are handpicked by the chief justice and the government -- is to a judge and say, some order that is this broad, i think the oversight checks are minimal. >> this is just a verizon because that is what glenn greenwald got ahold of. that doesn't mean they're not other orders for other telephone companies. >> those were companies mentioned in the usa today story in 2006. nothing indicates it is tied in a particular national security investigation as the statute says it has to be.

some commentators yesterday said it came out 10 days after the boston attacks. but it goes forward for three months. why would anyone need to get every record from our verizon business in order to investigate the boston bombings after they happened? >> william binney, a decades- long veteran of the nsa, your reaction when you heard about this news? >> this was just the fbi going after data. it was their request. if they want to try to get -- they have to have approved by a court in order to get it as evidence into a courtroom read the nsa has been doing this all along and it has been all the companies, not just one brief of basically looked at that and said, well, it verizon got one, so did everybody else. which means they're continuing the collection of this kind of information on all u.s. citizens. it is one of the main reasons they could not tell senator wyden with his request of harm u.s. citizens are in the nsa

databases. in my estimate, it was, if you collapse it to all uniques, it is a little over 280 million u.s. edison's are in their data citizens are in there. >> a secret court order to obtain the verizon phone records was sought by the fbi under a section of the foreign intelligence attack that was expanded by the patriot act. wyden morenator ron about how the government was interpreting its surveillance powers under section 215 at the patriot act. >> when the american people find out how their government has secretly interpreted the patriot act, they are going to be stunned and they're going to be angry. and they're going asked senators, did you know to what this law actually permits? why didn't you know before you voted on it? the fact is, anyone can read the plain text of the patriot act, yet many members of congress

have no idea how the law is being secretly interpreted by the executive branch because that interpretation is classified. it is almost as if their work to the patriot act, and many members of congress have not read the one that matters. our constituents are totally in the dark. members of the public have no access to the secret legal interpretation, so there's no idea what their government believes the law actually means. >> that is senator ron wyden. he and senator udall have been raising concerns because they sit on the senate intelligence committee, but cannot speak out openly exactly about what they know. william binney, you left the agency after september 2001, deeply concerned, after you had been there for 40 years, about the amount of surveillance of u.s. citizens. in the end, in your house was

raided while you're in the shower. the authorities had a gun at your head. which agency was that, by the way? >> that was the at the eye. >> your not charged, though you were terrorized. we'reu link that to what seeing today? >> it is directly linked. it has to do with all of the surveillance of u.s. citizens that has been going on since 9/11. they were getting from just one company alone that i knew of, they were getting over 300 million call records a day on u.s. citizens. when you add the rest of the company's in, my estimate was there probably were 3 billion phone records collected every day on u.s. citizens. so over time, that is a local -- flow over 12 trillion in their databases since 9/11. and that is just phones, that

does stockout emails. they are avoiding talking about emails because that is also collecting content of what people are saying. it also tells you how closely they are related when the fbi asks for data and the court approves it, the data is sent to nsa because they have all the algorithms to do the diagnostics and community reconstructions and things like that. so the fbi -- it makes it easier for the fbi to interpret what is in there. >> we're also joined by thomas drake who was prosecuted by the obama administration after he blew the whistle on mismanagement and waste and constitutional violations at the nsa. thomas drake, your reaction to this latest revelation? >> my reaction? where is the mainstream media?

these are routine orders. this is nothing new. what is new is we are seeing an actual order and people are somehow surprised by it. the fact remains this program has been in place for some time. the patriot act was the enabling mechanism that allows the u.s. subscriberto acquire records from any company in the united states. i think what people are realizing now is this is not just a terrorist issue. this is simply the ability of the government on a vast scale to collect any and all phone call records and couldn't domestic to domestic, local, as well as other reformation. let's just call it the surveillance court. it is no longer about foreign intelligence. it is simply about harvesting millions and millions and millions of phone call records and beyond. this is only just verizon with

upwards of 100 million subscribers, what about the other telecoms and the other internet service providers? the government can classify, console, not only the surtax -- that only the facts, but the secret laws that are supporting surveillance. >> thomas drake, what can they do with this information, what is called metadata? they don't have the content of the conversation, supposedly the -- remember, we're just seeing this one for people watching, this one request that is specifically -- i also want ask you, it is the rise in business services. what does it mean to have the length of time and not the names up but where the call originates and where it is going, the phone numbers back and forth? >> you get incredible amounts of information about subscribers. basically, the ability to afford

a profile as well as look backwards all activities associated with those phone numbers and not only does the phone numbers, who you called in who called you, but beyond that. who were they calling? we're talking about a phenomenal set of records that is continually being added to year after year and what has become routine orders. now you add the location information, that is a tracking mechanism, monitoring tracking of all phone calls being made by individuals. this is an extraordinary breach. i've said this for years. we have been saying this for years and -- you have had as on your show in the past, but it is like, everybody kind of went to sleep while the government is harvesting all these records on a routine basis. remember, none of this is probable cause. this is simply the ability to

collect. as i was told shortly after 9/11, you don't understand, mr. drake, we just want the data. the secret surveillance regime really has a according complex and cannot get enough of it. here we are faced with a reality that the government in secret, abject violation of the fourth amendment, is routinely analyzing what was supposed to be private information. but it doesn't matter anymore, right? we can get to it. we of secret agreements with telecoms and internet providers and we can do anything we want with the data. , as ihere as an american did shortly after 9/11, and it is deja vu for me. fors targeted not just fraud, waste and abuse, i was targeted as the source for "the new york times" article in september 2005.

they thought i was the secret source regarding secret surveillance programs. ultimately, i was charged under the aspen lodge at. that should tell you something. it sends an extraordinary message. it is the deepest, darkest secret of both administration secrete expanded under obama administration, now routine practice. >> shayana kadidal, specifically about fisa court authorizing domestic surveillance. even with the little laws we have left, is there any chance for that to be challenged, that the fisa court is also authorizing domestic records being surveiled? >> two things. first, the statute says there has to be reasonable grounds to think this information is relevant to an investigation. obviously, this complaint judge approved this order but it doesn't seem like this is what

congress intended these orders would look like. it seems they thought would be somewhat more narrow. but there's a larger question, which is for years the supreme court since 1979 has said, we don't have the same level of protection over the calling records, the numbers we dial and how long the calls are and when the content as which the government needs a warrant. basically, they just need a subpoena under existing doctrine. the government uses the subpoenas to get your email records, web surfing records, documents and cloud storage, a banking records, credit records for all of these things they can get these broad subpoenas that don't even need to go through court. >> talk about the significance of president obama nominating james comey to be the head of the fbi and who he was. >> obama has nominated a republican who served in the bush a ministration for a long time, a guy with a reputation as being personally in correctable.

it is ironic. he named him to be the head of the fbi. he named him because i think he wanted to distract from the phone records scandal, the fact holder's justice department has gone after the phone records of the associated press and fox is reporter james rosen. what can you tell from these members? if you see a reporter called connections, then a report. we have this huge scandal over the fact the government went after the phone records of the ap, and now we know they're going after everyone's records. one of the grand irony is, he named james, because the of this reputation of being a stand-up said, we havely to cut back on what the nsa is

doing. what the nsa was doing is probably much broader than what "the new york times," --. greenwald be prosecuted? >> absolutely there will be some sort of actor to go after him punitively. the government really tries to prosecute people who are recognized as journalist. there are ways of going after them punitively that don't involve prosecution, like going after their phone records and other sources dry up. >> pete williams, now with nbc, he talked with attorney general eric holder who said, when he goes after the reporters, the ap reporters from the fox reporter, they're not so much going after them not to worry, they're going after the whistle blowers, try to get through them. what about that separation? >> in 2000, john solomon

reported a story about the boston investigation. the fbi did not like that here in the story of how they had dropped the ball. they went after his phone records. three years later he spoke to his sources that had not spoken to him and they said, we know they're getting your phone records so we're not going to talk to you. >> thank you for being with us, shayana kadidal, william binney and thomas drake. william binney and thomas drake worked for the nsa for years and both ultimately resigned. thomas drake was prosecuted. they were trying to get him under the espionage act. all of those charges were dropped. william binney held at gunpoint in his shower. both have expressed deep concern about the surveillance of american citizens by the u.s. government. you can go to democracynow.org for our hours of interviews with them as well. when we come back, we're going to be looking at a top secret trade deals the u.s. is involved with, then interviewing the new

mayor of jackson, mississippi. stay with us. ♪ [music break]

>> this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman with juan gonzalez. from domestic surveillance to secret trade deals. the obama administration is facing increasing scrutiny for the extreme secrecy surrounding negotiations around a sweeping new trade deal that could rewrite the nation's laws on everything from health care and internet freedom to food safety and the financial markets. the latest negotiations over the trans-pacific partnership or tpp, were recently held behind closed doors in peru, but the obama adnistration has rejected calls to release the

current text. even members of congress have complained about being shut out of the negotiation process. last year a leaked chapter from the draft agreement outlined how the tpp would allow foreign corporations operating in the u.s. to appeal key regulations to an international tribunal. the body would have the power to override u.s. law initial -- issue penalties for failure to comply with its rulings earlier leaks from the draft agreement exposed how included rules that could increase the cost of medication and make for dissipating countries adopt restrictive copyright measures. for more, we're joined by jim shultz. his organization just released a report called, "unfair, unsustainable, and under the radar: how corporations use global investment rules to undermine a sustainable future." in washington, we're joined by celeste drake, a trade with the afl-cio. she is testifying today at the

senate foreign relations on labor issues in bangladesh. jim, you're just about to head off to the u.n. most people have not even heard of, what does tpp mean? >> trans pacific partnership. it is part of this global web of trade agreements that are being negotiated and have been negotiated over the last 30 years. from the outsider, it seems like a bunch of legal mumbo jumbo. what is at stake is democracy. the report we put out look at a very troubling part of what these agreements involve, which are the special trade tribunals that used by corporations to directly undermine the ability of citizen movements to influence their government. the famous case is the one from bolivia where san francisco came in, privatized the water system, raised people's rates by more than 50%, was kicked out by a

popular rebellion, and turned around on a $1 million investment and sued bolivia for $50 million. almostases -- there are 500 a year now of these cases being filed all over the world. philip morris is suing uruguay for this in a putting health warnings on their cigarettes. >> what you mean? >> uruguay decided to put stiffer health warnings on cigarette packages. philip morris does not like that so they use a bilateral investment treaty between and is and switzerland suing uruguay for hundreds of millions of dollars. this is everywhere. one of the most egregious cases is in el salvador. here's this community that discovers this canadian mining firm is going to dump poisonous chemicals into their drinking water to soak cold of the

ground. they do was citizens are supposed to do, hammer on the government until they agreed not to let the mining move forward. the company turns around under one of these trade agreements and suits for $350 million. so what you have -- it is a win/win for the companies. they either win huge amounts of money -- this is 1% of gdp in el salvador. or just as important, they have a chilling affect on the ability and willingness of governments to protect their people. >> as many as 500 lawsuits a year related to these kinds of trades? >> and it is a new derivatives market. these companies bringing these cases will actually go to investors and say, we will sell you for a price 30% of the cut if we win the case. it is a marketplace, but the

bottom line is what it means is, if you are looking for the protection of your environment, watch out to be sued. this is not just poor countries. germany is getting sued because after fukushima, the citizen movements there were able to win a moratorium on nuclear power. involvededish company in nuclear power industry is suing them for 700 million euros. the tpp is just one to bring more of them. >> the other side of this is these corporations are reacting to an upsurge of citizen movements insisting on protecting their informant and their resources. your sense is that there's a huge spurt over the past decade or in terms of the citizen movements, forcing their governments to try to protect the resources? >> that is certainly true across latin america where citizen movements and more progressive governments have been able to take these kinds of actions.

if you talk to a lawyer who makes $1,000 an hour representing these corporations, they will say, look, we need legal security. countries need for investment rid of many legal security. we're just try to protect against the possibility someone comes in the soldiers and takes away our mine. but this is not just about them getting the $5 million they put in back. under these bilateral and passementeries, and certainly the same under the tpp, these corporations can sue for the profits they expected to earn in did not. that is where you get these off the chart sums. >> president obama has nominated michael froman as kirk's replacement for u.s. trade representative. last year he defended the trans pacific partnership during a speech at the center for strategic and international studies. >> i don't think back to tell the audience how important the asia-pacific market is to the

u.s. 40% of global trade. in 2010, u.s. goods exports totaled $775 billion, comprising almost 60% of almost all of our goods exports. we're up 25% in the last two years. for the farmers and ranchers, nearly three-quarters of our total exports go to asia-pacific customers. for our service providers, nearly 40% of their total services exports go to the region. these benefits are not just for the big multinational companies, but for americans -- america's small and medium-size enterprises who export over $70 billion to the asia pacific region. >> that is michael froman, the nominated as replacement for ron kirk as u.s. trade representative. celeste drake, if you could talk about the significance of what he said any tpp, where you're

coming from from the afl-cio? >> thank you very much. we question the wisdom of pursuing the tpp in the first place. we do have, for better for worse, the world trade organization, which has lower tariffs around the world that has allowed us to increase our exports as mr. froman was explaining in his speech. so what the tpp is about is all of these other things are around the terrace. it is about these investors tribunals, harmonizing rules for food safety, harmonizing rules for intellectual property. a lot of rules that if citizens are not really participating in the formation of those roles, they're not necessarily going to work out to the benefit of working people and american citizens. we are very active in the following the negotiations, advocating for better rules that

will help workers, real farmers, small businesses, because our past trade agreements starting with nafta and down the line have basically been big packages that benefit the 1%. and if anybody else benefits, it is really only by accident and not by design. >> celeste drake, your schedule to testify on bangladesh and the situation with workers there. how would these trade agreements impact on this whole issue of the race to the bottom in manufacturing and many international corporations to places like bangladesh which result in these tragedies like the tazreen fire and the recent building collapse with more than 1000 workers killed? >> in trade agreements and beginning with nafta, which was a really poor example, the u.s. has tried to put in so-called labor obligations but in nafta, it was a side agreement largely unenforceable. they have gotten better through

the years. but they're really kind of a band-aid that tries to fix some of the really destructive patterns that have been caused by globalization. globalization on the corporate model has led to this race to the bottom were the world's biggest corporations really play a game of arbitrage and hitting, especially developing countries, one against the other, who can provide the lowest wages, the weakest workers rights regime, the fewest unions. the winner is really the loser because they have got workers who are working hard to put in a hard day's work and very possibly putting their lives at risk, and definitely not raising their standards of living. when workers in any one country are allowed to be abused like that and have their rights repressed, it lowers the wages and the rights for workers all around the world. we can try to improve slightly through these trade agreements, but that is never going to be the silver bullet to really fix

the problem. we have got to address a globally because it is a global problem. >> i also want to point out michael from has been in the news, longtime white house economic aide, nominated to be a bennis trade representative, for having nearly half a million dollars in a fund based in the cayman islands according to financial documents provided to the senate finance committee. the new york times as according to 2011 document, froman had $490,000 in a fund managed by as aroup widely cited symbol of tax avoidance. jim shultz, what is the significance of that and hold u.s. position on trade, who is lobbying for? >> i don't think there's any question, it is all about a u.s.

corporations and large corporations because if you think about it, what is the biggest threat to the ability of corporations to go into a country whether it is el salvador, bolivia, anywhere, and sat out the natural resources without any regard for the informant or labor standards? the threat is democracy. citizens will be annoying, get in the way, and the manner governments take action. what corporations need is a need to become more powerful than sovereign states. the way they become more powerful is by tangling sovereign states in a web of these trade agreements that allow them to go to tribunal systems like the one at the world bank and force governments to take these kinds of actions. i was at the u.n. yesterday talking about this and there was a man from kenya who was explaining, look, these bilateral investment treaties, these investors dispute resolutions, the corporate trade

panels, they were imposed on his country as they were many countries by the world bank as conditions of lending. so is a straight jacket that the u.s. supports because it is pursuing interest of u.s. corporations. this has nothing to do with protecting public interest. it is a violation of public interest and a blockade against democracy. month bolivian president evo morales ordered the expulsion of the u.s. agency for international development from his country. you're very familiar with the situation in bolivia. in a speech, morales cited the recent comments of secretary state john kerry referring to latin america as in his backyard. he also accused usaid of using international assistance for political destabilization. kerry comment of john saying that. >> some institutions from the

u.s. embassy continue to conspire against this process, against the people, and especially against the national government. and that is why using this gathering and the first of may, we decided to expel u.s. aid from bolivia. u.s. aid is leaving bolivia. ask our brother foreign minister to immediately speak with the u.s. embassy, no more usaid which manipulates, uses our brothers with charity. >> and for our regular listeners, that was not john kerry because these spanish is not that good. that was evo morales, the president of bolivia. your comments? >> it is a double-edged sword. there are projects in public health, these areas where usaid has provided funding and is not polanco -- political and those findings will be lost.

but the fact is, the u.s. government has historically used u.s. aid to have a political agenda to strengthen the opponents of the government. bolivians do not feel any more happy about that the people in the u.s. would if we found out the chinese government was funding democracy now. really what is behind it. bolivia and the u.s. really don't have any strategic interest with one another any more. that is really the heart of it. bolivia is not really matter to the united states. it is not a strategic player. the u.s. really does not matter much to bolivia. they have not had ambassador since 2011. i think what you are seeing is just a bad relationship that is not getting any better. there is always a lot of support in bolivia when the president says something against the united states, and this is a

good time politically for him to do that. u.s. aid's money has been cut radically over the last few years and there is not much of the relationship altogether. >> thank you for being with us, jim shultz, usually in bolivia, hear going to the u.n. today and, celeste drake, of the afl- cio and she will be testify more for the senate foreign relations committee today on labor issues in bangladesh. when we come back, we will be speaking with the mayor elect of jackson, mississippi. stay with us. ♪ [music break]

>> a tribute to fannie lou hamer. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman with juan gonzalez. in the last segment today, we

end in mississippi. let's but the merchants down on capitol street build economic paths. let me say this to you. i had one merchant to call me and he said, i want you to know that i talk to my national office today and they want me to tell you that we don't need nigger business. these are stores that helped to support the white citizens council, the council that is dedicated to keeping you and i second-class citizens. finally, letting sentiment, we will be demonstrating here until freedom comes to negro's here in jackson, mississippi. >> those are the words of the civil rights peter medgar evers in may 1963. just a few weeks later on june 13, 1963, he was shot dead by a klansman in his driveway in jackson, mississippi. medgar evers was the state's first naacp's field secretary

and killed just hours after president john f. kennedy delivered a nationally televised speech in which he proposed the civil rights act of 1964. at the time of his death, he was caring naacp t-shirts that read "jim crow must go." commemorations are being held this month to mark the 50th anniversary of the assassination of medgar evers. jackson, mississippi is back in the news after veteran black nationalist and civil rights attorney chokwe lumumba was elected mayor of this city. he describes himself as a fannie lou hamer democrat and described -- a price many by winning the democratic primary last month, despite being outspent five to one. chokwe lumumba easily won the general election on tuesday. over the past four decades, his been deeply involved in numerous political and legal campaigns. as an attorney, his clients have included former black panther assata shakur at and tupac shakur. helped win thee

release of the scott sisters, two young women from mississippi who received double life sentences for robbery that netted $11. they were released after 16 years in prison. as a political organizer, chokwe lumumba served for years as vice president of the new --republic of new afrika. he also helped found the national black human rights coalition and the malcolm x grassroots movement and marked the jackson human rights coalition to help pressure the state of mississippi to retry the person who murdered medgar evers. in 2009, he was elected to the jackson city council. chokwe lumumba, mayor elect of jackson mississippi, joins us now from jackson. welcome to democracy now! congratulations on your victory. what do you attribute it to after all these years and why did you decide from being involved with grass-roots organizing for some in the decades to get involved with electoral politics? .> thank you for having me

a shout out and teach your listening audience. i attribute the victory that we to thes last week people, the people of jackson who are more than ready to have leadership that was ford looking and ready to raise jackson to a different level of development, ready to embrace the ideas that all governments should do the most to protect human rights of the people in that jurisdiction. and we were very pleased with the outcome of people to vote, with their participation, and with their continued support. i am now running for the mayor or have in fact won the mayor of the city of jackson because i think it is necessary. we are a population now on the need of a lot of development.

development is one of the roads to human-rights into the recognition of human rights, especially our economic human rights. some of that development is going to take the kind of leadership and the kind of consistency that we had in the struggle for voting rights and other kinds of rights which has been unique to our history. >> chokwe lumumba, i'm not sure many people around the country understand the symbolic or the symbolism of jackson, mississippi as a center of racism and racial oppression really over centuries. the very name of the city -- the city was an actor andrew jackson by the white settlers when jackson in 1820 was able as an ending commissioner -- indian commissioner basically to pressure the choctaw indians to

give up 13 million acres of land and moved to oklahoma and the treaty. that is why the white settlers and the city after jackson because of his success of ethnic cleansing. and its history throughout the slavery and jim crow. how did this change occur? how were you able to put together this coalition to be elected given your history as a radical and activist in the black liberation struggle? >> i think it is a tribute to our consistency. it is a tribute to our refusal to say that we would out to the oppression that was around us. it is a tremendous story of our people. you talked about medgar evers. but the continuation since medgar evers of fighting against oppression and economic repression, fighting against the kinds of things that have surfaced in our decades which are similar to the kinds of things you cite in the distant

history of jackson, we have been persistent. with that persistence it, our people are ready to move to a different level of the element. i should say that people should take note of jackson because we have suffered some of the worst kinds of abuses in the history -- in history, but we are about to make some advances and strides in the development of human rights and the protection of human rights that i think have not been seen in other parts of the country. and i want to caution folks that we have to be careful when we talk about any one particular place in the united states. intense we have seen repression. i am initially from detroit. we've seen lots of repression there. new york has seen its share. washington, d.c. has seen its share. we don't want to be like people on different plantations are

getting about which plantation is worse. what we have to do is correct the whole problem and we are about correcting the problem in jackson and we will be inviting people to come here in order to participate in the struggle forward. we're not putting a false face -- we tell you we have had real problems and we still have real problems, but we are solving these problems and are going to try to solve a lot of them through economic development which is going to involve the masses of the people, not just a few folks. >> can you tell us about your plan?rm and the jackson >> the platform is to advance the ideas of development and the ideas of empowerment of the populations which exist in the city of jackson, specifically. we have a population, a demographic of 80% is black, about 20% is white.

we have eased in origin as well as some asian and hispanic folks, in. oneslogan w, "one city, aim, one destiny." the idea is to blend these populations in the struggle for. there have been those that have tried to separate the populations and have certain populations repress others but we're not going to tolerate that. we will let everyone participate in this movement forward and invite everyone in this movement forward. we have formed like a people's assembly that is key to what we have done here where we have every three months, the population can come out and participate in an open forum to say what is on their mind. they can come out and learn some of the problems the city is

facing and some of the solutions that some of the problem solvers are offering rid this will bring about more public education and political education to the population of the city, make our population are prepared to be motivated and organized in order to participate in the changes which must occur in the city of jackson in order to in orderforward. we say that people must decide educate, motivate, organize is the slogan. >> in terms of the city council as well in jackson, were there other folks who ran on a platform with you? do you expect much difficulty in getting measures passed through your local city council? >> well, no. i think we're going to do quite well. let me say there's only one other person who actually ran from the same basis of

organization that i come from, which is the malcolm x grassroots movement. she was not successful in winning an election, but we have really a pretty good city council, a very good city council that has come into place. we have three young man on the city council in their 30's bright, for thinking, very progressive. , an oldan older brother school teacher, and he is a person and i think is going to make a contribution to what we're doing. have a person from ward 7 who is a quite democrats and she is always been consistent in supporting afford movement. and we have one republican on the city council from ward 1. he is a person who i think

understands the political climate and is going to move forward, too. >> i want to ask you quickly about the news this past month that assata shakur has been the first woman to be placed by the fbi and the terrorist list. you represented her decades ago. your thoughts? there also increased the bounty for her. she took refuge in cuba. they increased the bounty to $2 million for the >> i've always felt assata shakur was wrongfully convicted, so she should not be on the wanted list at all. she never should of been imprisoned. she was actually shot herself and when did and paralyzed at the time the person whom she is convicted of killing was shot. so she obviously could not have shot him. she also -- she also was arrested which calls the incident for about a different charges which she later was found not guilty of or were dismissed. so i think it is unfortunate assata shakur -- i think she

will be proven to be a hero. >> we have to leave it there, chokwe lumumba. [captioning made possible by democracy now!] >> this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. wente asking you to call tv as we begin to wrap up fund- raising, we are asking you to be as generous as you possibly can to ensure democracy now! stays right here on a violent tv. we broadcast several times on and san francisco, and we are asking you to go to the phones to let us know that you appreciate this daily grassroots international investigative broadcast with all the original authentic voices of what the pundits, who knows so little about so much, explain

so much and getting it so wrong, but people who have been deeply involved in issues. to have those deeply involved meet analysts' is remarkably different. we ask you to make the call for authenticity, for independent media. the number to call is 866-359- 4334. today we focused on harvest of empire, the untold story of latinos in america. that is the name of a new film out, based on my colleague juan gonzales, who you have seen here on democracy now! as a founding co-host. he wrote a book a decade ago called "harvest of empire," published it for revised editions, and it is required reading around the country.