tv Democracy Now LINKTV June 13, 2013 8:00am-9:01am PDT
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>> from pacifica, this is democracy now! >> great harm has already been done by opening this up. the consequence, i believe, is our security is jeopardized. general chief alexander talks about the privacy of americans. as big two former military instructor christopher pyle who exposed, the cia was monitoring how millions were engaging in
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lawful activities. he says the nsa is known for attacking their critics instead of fixing those things that were exposed. and fixing border security in the immigration reform bill. we will look of the huge cost of the militarization of the border. dying, ther dad was only thing he said was, i do not want to die, i want to get back to my kids. hashe federal government asked a judge to consider appointing an independent monitor over the nypd's controversial stop and frisk program. >> do you want to go to jail? >> what am i being arrested for? >> all that and more coming up.
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national security agency whistleblower edward snowden remains in hong kong after publicly admitting to leaking information on massive u.s. garment surveillance days ago. he had briefly dropped out of public view after coming forward but on wednesday re-emerged with an interview in a hong kong newspaper. he says he plans to stay in hong kong until asked to leave and plans to fight any extradition requests. he says, i am not here to hide from justice, i am here to reveal criminality. an as a director keith alexander commented for the first time since the leaks for published last week. alexander says that their collection of phone records have helped to thwart dozens of attacks. isit is classified, but it
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dozens of terrorist events that these have helped to prevent. inh here and abroad, disrupting or contributing to the destruction. claims that nsa spying has thwarted attacks is the subject of debate. democratic senators mark udall and mark whiten, both members of the senate intelligence committee said, after years of review, but believe statements that this broad collection has been a critical tool in collecting the nation do not appear to hold up under close scrutiny. we will have more on the surveillance weeks after the headlines. the united nations has raised the death toll in syria from the civil war to nearly 93,000. in a statement today, the u.n. human rights office said an
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average of 5000 people have been killed monthly since last july. the u.s. warns an actual number of killings is potentially higher as a constant flow of killings continues at shockingly high levels. at a news conference with william hague and john kerry, they say the u.s. continues to weigh its options for aiding rebels. >> we continue to be concerned about the situation in syria, including the involvement of hezbollah and iran across state lines. we are focusing our efforts now on doing all that we can to support the opposition as they work to change the balance on the ground. >> the turkish prime minister has issued a 24-hour deadline for the end of protests against his government. he suggested a harsher response to the protests, saying we have not responded to punches with
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punches, but security will begin to respond fairly. riot police forcibly removed thousands from this gamble's taksim square with their most forceful crackdown to date. and one of his few concessions to demonstrators, erdogan said that he would consider a referendum over the issue that sparked a protest, the razing of a public park. staging a national strike in greece today in protest of the government's decision to close the country's state broadcaster. the channell says there were abruptly pulled off the air in the latest of a series of cost- cutting moves demanded by creditors. thousands have taken part in protests with the closure led by fired workers outside the that merck's headquarters.
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human girls, we have a total .ar with the press this is hard line political thinking. >> the greek government says it plans to open up ert with less staff in the next few weeks. africa, nelson mandela is reportedly making progress in his ongoing hospital stay for a recurring lung infection. south african president joseph zuma announced the news. am happy to report that mandela is responding better to treatment this morning. we are very happy with the
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progress that he is now making following a difficult few days. from this crucial historical , our thoughts are with president mandela and his family. >> the house and judiciary .ommittee has banned a measure the measure now goes to the house floor. it has no chance of passing the senate. federal appeals courts have struck down similar measures although other bands remain in place. the bill's sponsor, republican congressmember trent franks, claimed the rate of pregnancies resulting from rape is very low. friends onwhen my the left side of the i'll try to make rape and incest the subject -- the incidence of rape
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resulting in pregnancy are very low. >> his comments are widely being compared to those of former republican senator tod achan who lost his re-election bid last year when he said women could suppress pregnancy in cases of legitimate rape. the senate has passed a measure that would expand oversight of sexual assault in the armed forces. the head of the committee's proposal to remove the handling of sexual assault cases from the military's chain of command and instead place them in the hands of military prosecutors. but michigan democrat carl levin of place the measure with one preserving military leader'' final say. the issue has erupted following a recent report showed 26,000 sex crimes and military ranks last year and the rest of several officials involved in policing sexual harassment.
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michael moran has announced his resignation as director of the cia. a white house lawyer has been tapped as his replacement. she would become the first woman to hold one of the cia's top two posts. the obama administration is backing calls for a point appointed monitor to oversee the stop and frisk policing program. endorsedce department the appointment of a monster in the event stop and frisk is deemed to be lawful. a new york judge is set to judge on a lawsuit that has stopped and frisked is unconstitutional and unfairly stopped people of color. 92% of those stopped last year were black or latino. this in the more on broadcast. the ongoing fire in colorado has destroyed at least 90 homes
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while displacing thousands of residents. the black forest fire has burned through over a 500 acres, with another 3,000 acres in its path. a prisoner who became publicly known for publishing -- chronicling his life on death row was executed in florida. he was convicted for the killing of a prison guard during a botched attempt to free another prisoner. while in prison, ben poyck wrote three books and a series of block posts. his last-minute bid for a stay of execution was denied by the supreme court. the suspect in the kidnapping and capture of three cleveland woman has pleaded not guilty to all charges. dejesus, and gina
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last month.rescued meanwhile, the suspect, ariel castro, has pleaded not guilty to all counts that he faces. after the heari, defee some chargesitted are not in doubt. >> the agreement marks the first up in the legal process. although certain charges in the indictment cannot be disputed, a not guilty plea at this stage requires a prosecutor to continue to abound with their case and determine whether medical or forensic evidence can actually support an aggravated murder conviction for the death of a fetus, and whether the death penalty is warranted. >> a new study from the national energy agency says that fossil fuels rose to a record
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last year. global emissions rose 1.4%. the agency's chief economist called the scenario a disaster for all countries. heldmorative events were in mississippi to mark the 50th anniversary of the assassination medgar evers. 1963, medgar evers was assassinated outside of his home in jackson. he served as the first field secretary in mississippi for the naacp. among those attending wednesday's event was medgar evers' widow, myrlie evers. those are some of the headlines.
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this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. >> i'm juan gonzalez. have three front page new-york daily stories this morning -- this week. >> the mayor's office attempted to modernize the e911 system after major failings in 2011. -- 2001 attacks, i'm sorry. began a, two weeks ago new dispatch system to alert fire and ems. there has been a huge cast as a result, the system has been crashing, 91 calls are being lost, workers are frustrated, working double shifts to fix the system. little 4- there was a year-old girl who was hit and killed by an unlicensed teenage
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driver who was speeding away from police. the employees were so upset they are leaking information, that it was a four-minute delay in the ambulance being notified by 911. so the city claimed it was a human error, a dispatcher did not see the call on the screen, but all the evidence i am getting is that this computer shape, itin such bad is losing transmissions. this has a major impact on the city. blemish to a huge the bloomberg a ministration because they have spent more than $2 billion in the last seven years modernizing the e911 system. so this rollout of the new dispatch system was a key part of that overall program. the police department keeps saying, no, these are just disgruntled workers who do not
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like the new system, but the number of complaints on am getting at all levels of blemiso the bloomberg a ministration because they have spent more than fire, police, indicate this is a big problem at the city of new york has begun and there is a family so when now. >> they are suing for $40,000 because department has admitted a delay. they are denying that it was a system delay. either way, i think the city will be liable to some degree or the fact that the eminent did not get there in time, and police said that she had been alive, waiting for an ambulance go to scene >> we want to keith alexander, who testified before congress on wednesday before secret documents about the nsa's surveillance program stunned the nation and sparked heated debate. during his testimony, he denied claims that he has personal
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wiretapping police, indicate tha big programs at the agency and says that they have prevented dozens of terrorist attacks. he refused to answer questions about how they make the transition to collecting phone records on americans. he also said he hopes for greater transparency but argues some secrecy helps the agency's mission. he was also asked about the impacts of the nsa leaks. >> great harm has already been done by opening this up. the consequence, i believe, is our security is jeopardized. there is no doubt in my mind we will lose capabilities as a result of this and that not only the united states, but those allies we have helped, will no longer be as safe as they were two weeks ago. as welso concerned that, go forward, we know some of this has been released.
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theakes sense to explain to american people that they need confidence that the government is doing the right thing. i believe we are, and we have to show them that. >> the disclosure of the program was based on information leaked by edward snowden, a former nsa employee who worked for booz allen hamilton. snowden said that i am neither traitor, nor hero, i'm an american. he says he plans to stay in hong kong until asked to leave and to fight any extradition attempts. he also said, people who think i made a mistake more, we are joined by christopher pyle, who first exposed domestic spying here in
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1970's. he discovered the cia was spying .n millions after he left the army, he wrote about the best spying operations. he wrote -- the story prompted senate hearings, including rent to church's committee on intelligence. is ultimately led to a series of laws curbing government abuses. christopher pyle is the co- author of "military surveillance of civilian politics, getting away with torture, and the constitution under siege." he now teaches constitutional .aw at mount holyoke college he is with us from massachusetts. welcome to democracy now!. talk about what you feel the real issues are, but before you
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do, explain what happened to you, how you were able to reveal what was happening in the military. at theceived a briefing u.s. intelligence command showing me the extent of the surveillance system. there were about 1500 army agents in plain clothes watching every demonstration of about 20 people or more. of thatse the existence surveillance and then recruited 125 of the army's counterintelligence agents to tell what they knew about the spying to congress, the courts, and press. as a result of those disclosures and hearings, the entire u.s. army intelligence command was abolished. this clause before watergate. at that time, did you suffer any repercussions for your
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willingness to step forward and reveal to congress what was going on? >> the army created a 50-man unit in the pentagon whose job was to discredit my disclosures, that if it failed, the disclosures would be accurate. president put on nixon possible enemies list, which resulted in the tax. to the special senate investigation of government misconduct, which you played a key role in the 70's. a senator from idaho conducted a massive investigation of cia powers at home and abroad. to disrupt leftist organizations, and a lot more. this is frank church speaking during one of the committee
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hearings. >> the darker side of those activities where many americans who were not suspected of ,rimes were not only spied upon but they were harassed, iscredited, and at times, endangered. director william colby testifying. he was asked if he found the work of the committee unwelcome. >> no, as i said, i welcome the chance to try to describe to the american people what intelligence is really about today. it is an opportunity to show how we americans have modernized the concept of intelligence. >> if you would, christopher
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pyle, take this forward from what came out of the church committee hearings that start with your expos a from being a military whistleblower, to what you see today with edward snowden. what we have seen in the ensuing years has been a vast explosion in intelligence gathering capabilities. but the most significant part of that is the fact that civilian corporations are now doing the government's park. 70% of the intelligence budget in the u.s. today goes to private contractors like booz allen, which employed edward snowden. this is a major change in the power of surveillance. it now goes not only to the government by private corporations. article, yout raised when you see as the real
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issues in this week. you mentioned the inability of congress to actually do legitimate oversight intelligence. you say the secrecy system is out of control and you also say the system is profoundly corrupt o all this use of private contractors who make huge amounts of money that no one can actually hold them accountable for. could you talk about those issues? thees, the forerunner of prison system that snowden disclosed is called trailblazer. it wasted $1 billion on private contracts. it replaced a much expensive system which have more privacy protections and had been developed inside the government. the reason that private contractors get this business is
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because members of congress intercede with them with government agencies and we now have a situation where members of the intelligence committee and others in congress intercede with the bureaucracy to get sweetheart contracts for companies that waste taxpayer money and also violate constitution and the privacy of citizens. this is a very serious situation because it means it is much more difficult to get effective oversight from congress. >> i wanted to go back to the senate appropriations committee hearing with general keith alexander defending the practices exposed by edward snowden. partthought the great about this program was that we brought congress, the administration, and the courts, altogether. that is what our government stands for under the same
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constitution. we follow that constitution. we swear an oath to it. i am concerned and i think we have to balance that. i would rather take a public meeting and people think i am hiding something than to jeopardize the security of this country. >> your response? >> we all want to protect the security of the country, we all want to protect constitution, but when government agencies are totally unaccountable, we cannot do that. go tos of congress do not those briefings, even if they are offered, because once you go to the briefing, you cannot talk about what you have been told because it is classified. the briefing system is designed to silence congress, not to promote effective oversight. members of congress do not want to spend time on oversight. they are too busy raising money.
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new members of the house of representatives this winter were told by the democratic campaign committee that they should spend between four hours and six hours a day dialing for dollars. they have no time to do the public's business. they are too busy begging for money. president obama himself attended 220 fund-raisers last year. where does he get the time to be president when he is spending so much time asking wealthy people for money to support his campaign? wednesday's senate hearing, did durbin asked general keith alexander why someone like edward snowden was in a position in which she had access to the classified information he leaked? >> he was a high-school dropout, community college dropout, had a ged degree, injured in training for the
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u.s. army and had to leave as a result of that, and he took a job as a security guard for the nsa in maryland. shortly thereafter he took a job for the cia in what is .haracterized as i t security at age 23, he was stationed in an undercover manner overseas for the cia and was given clearance and access to a wide array of classified documents. at age 25 he went to work for a private contractor and most recently worked for booz allen, another private contractor. i am trying to look at this resume and background and says he ended up earning somewhere $200,000 a22,000 and year, looking at his background,
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who had access to this highly classified information that such a young age, with limited work and educational experience, and ask you, if you are troubled that he was given that kind of opportunity to be so close to important information that was the security of our nation? >> i do have concerns about that, over the process. i have great concerns that the access he had, a process that we did, and those are things that i have to look into and fix from my end. tohink those absolutely need be looked at. i would point out, in the i.t. arena, cyber arena, some of these folks have tremendous skills to operate networks. that was his job for the most a systems 2009, as
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administrator within those that works. he had great skills in those areas. but the rest of it, you have hit on the head. we do have to go back and look at these processes. where they went wrong, and how we fix those. >> that was general keith alexander speaking before the senate. con" 2, he spoke at "def the annual hacker convention, trying to get hackers work at the national security agency. he focuses on privacy and civil liberties being protected. >> the third thing we really want to do is innovate, freedom. how we look at where we want to take this next. this is a great opportunity for our nation and the world. one of the things i am proud to say is, when you look at vint
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serf and the others, we are the ones who developed, who built of the internet. we ought to be the first ones to secure it. i think you folks can help us do that. >> that was general alexander speaking in 2012 at "def con." hehould note, as he spoke, wore a black t-shirt and jeans. true, the nsa does not want to hire people like you and me, we cannot know enough about the internet. that being said, it is important to know that the vice chairman of booz allen happens to be mike mcconnell, former director of the nsa and national intelligence. there is a revolving door between high government positions and private
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corporations, and this revolving door allows these people to make a great deal more money upon leaving the government, and then being rented back to the government in a contractor capacity, and that is part of the corruption of the system. >> one thing you have also said is that top secret designation is more of a way for government officials and bureaucrats and contractors not to be held accountable and it is to actually protect secrets that the government needs to protect. could you expand on that? >> the fourth amendment of the constitution, which protects us from unreasonable searches and seizures, only by the government, it does of by corporations. that is a serious problem. the reason we have privatization
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of prisons in some ways is for the government to escape liability. they put a liability on the corporations that run the prisons, and a discharge and liabilities as an operating cost. >> the attack on that edward snowden, you have the pundits, legal pundits -- he is a narcissist who deserve to be imprisoned. thomas friedman writes, i do not believe he is some heroic whistleblower. david burke said, although bright, he could not work his way through high school and fail to navigate his way through community college. and then there is the nsa. can you talk about the attack on the whistleblower today and back when you were blowing whistles to? when i was blowing the whistle and they could not get
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any dirt on me -- i had led a very uninteresting life -- they made up dirt and tried to peddle it on capitol hill in order to discredit me and prevent me from testifying. every bureaucracy hates the centers. they must expend dissenters. the centers force them to reconsider what it is they are doing. no bureaucracy wants anybody to interrupt what they're doing. so this is the natural, organic response of any bureaucracy, or any establishment. andink it is inappropriate irrelevant to analyze edward snowden's motivations. it does not matter much, except in court to prove that he did or did not intend to 84 in power or hurt the united states.
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separate from that motivation, whether he is a narcissist, like many people on television are, no, i do not think that is relevant at all. he is neither a traitor nor hero. he is just an ordinary american try to start a debate in this nation over something that is critically important. he should be respected for that and we should move onto the big issues, including the corruption of our system that is done by massive secrecy and massive amounts of money and politics. >> christopher pyle, thank you for being with us, co-author of "military surveillance of civilian politics, getting away with torture, and the constitution under siege." 1970, he disclosed the military's spying on civilians and worked for three congressional committees to end it, including frank church's select committee on intelligence.
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>> "blue foia (freedom of information act") by the billy love express. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. wednesday the senate began debate on immigration bill that has at its core a pathway to citizenship for the 11 million now living in the shadows, but for the security will need to be enhanced in order for it to pass. only once and goals are fulfilled can undocumented immigrants apply for provisional status. >> today we look at the cost of militarizing the border. this is a documentary that ran
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last month on pbs. it is the third in a series called crossing the line at the border. it tells the story of a 39-year- old father of five u.s.-born children. after attempting to re-enter the u.s. through the arizona desert, he gets heat stroke. larson explains how two try to save him. >> after falling ill, he builds a signal fire to contact the border patrol to be saved, but no luck. >> i thought staying with him until sunrise but i thought, i have to look for help. >> he climbed the nearest ridge hoping to get a signal on the cell phone. >> i turned it on and implored, my god, help him. >> he miraculously gets a signal. soon after, two border patrol
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officers arrived in a truck. isaacs says he tells them they must quickly go together to rescue alphonse hill and tells him exactly where he is. instead, they arrest him and immediately take isaac to the attention, assuring him that other agents were searching for alfonzo and would rescue him. the former chief of staff of customs and border protection said it the story is true, the agents did not act properly. >> it would be unusual if they thought the person with them helping them to identify a location, then they would not take advantage of that information. that would not be normal. >> to end a half days later, isaac is deported to mexico. he immediately calls alfonso's family. >> it is saturday night. sunday, monday, tuesday. if he managed to find a tree, state under there, and if he had some water, he could have stayed
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alive. >> his daughter gladys, an american citizen, makes dozens of frantic phone calls to the border patrol asking if her father is detained are in the hospital. she says the border patrol gives her no answers. >> how long before somebody said this is who you need to call, maybe they can help? >> they did not say that. i kept on researching on the internet until i found borstar. and traumathe search unit. this is the part of the department that really makes headlines. >> its mission is to provide life-saving aid to distressed migrants along the border. >> it is pretty rare for a law enforcement agency to create a rescue unit to do with people who are engaged in illegal activity crossing the border in
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a humanitarian way. >> she calls and tells them her father is dying in the desert, but gladys says when she called, she was put on hold, transferred, or told to talk to someone else. finally, four and a half days after alfonso fell ill, the border patrol meet isaac at the border and takes him to rescue his friend. once they arrive in the area and start walking, it takes just 45 minutes to locate alfonso. >> it was the hardest thing because of how i left him and how i found him. alfonso was later identified by his dental records and personal items. ,is jacket, watch, key chains all wound up as exhibits in that more. his body was found exactly where isaac had left him, exactly where he told border patrol agents five days earlier to
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search for him. >> i have the toughest question for you. do you ever think about those last hours of what must have been going through his mind? >> every day. >> what to think he was thinking? he said when your dad was dying, the only thing he was saying was, i do not want to die, i want to go back to my kids. i need to make it with my kids. ofthat was the daughter alfonso martinez sanchez from the pbs documentary called "dying to get back," which just won an award for socially conscious journalism. it is the third part in a three- part series. me now is an investigative reporter.
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welcome to democracy now!. can you talk about the case of alfonso martinez sanchez, and how it relates to the current immigration reform bill? >> thank you and good morning, amy and juan. the story is just tragic. we have a system where we import labor surreptitiously across the border but we do not give these individuals a legal means to get here. we deport fathers and wives and sometimes children of families who are of mixed status, some u.s. citizens, and we do not provide any legal forms for these individuals to legalize their status. we are asking people, if we deport them, to stay separated from their family members. you are creating a system of furthering the legality. who would not come in their right mind, cross the border illegally to reunite with their
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family? this is the system we have in place. it alfonso had a legal recourse in the united states, he could a petition to speak to a judge to have his case heard in immigration court, but he was not given that. he was deported with hundreds of thousands of other deportees that the obama administration has spurred, and these individuals are left with no recourse. if we increase border security, it is well noted that this system of individuals crossing treacherous terrain is going to continue, and that is not a part of the immigration reform bill. look at the human toll. >> one of the things that this is to allocatedo up to $5 billion for additional border security and lots of are liningtractors
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up all ready to move into this area of border security and militarization of the border but morewill probably be even once the changes are made by the republicans in the senate and house. so what will be the impact of this increased militarization on the border? >> if you look at the impact of militarization prior to today, it is pretty clear, once the border more once the fences and the increase in border guards began a little over a decade ago, the incidence of death along the u.s.-mexico border skyrocketed. if you extrapolate out to today, you could say more of the same will give you more of the same. the u.s.-mexico border is fortified. over 700 miles of border fence, 27,000 guards along the u.s.- mexico border, black hawk helicopters, night sensors, a heat sensors, it looks like a
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militarized zone, and still, with the infrastructure, last year it was estimated over 350,000 undocumented immigrants crossed the border without being detected. so i am not quite sure if we do more of the same that it will be effective. the thing that urges people to cross the border is two fold, to reunite with family members and economic necessity. those issues are not being addressed in this immigration reform bill. 40% oftion to that, over the undocumented immigrants in the u.s. actually never crossed that border without documentation. over 40% of the undocumented immigrants came legally with a visa, and those expired and they continue to live within the confines of the united states. that issue is not being addressed. i cannot say that throwing more money at the u.s.-mexico border will alleviate undocumented
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immigration. >> i want to go to another clip from "dying to get back." describes an immigration policy which aims to reduce immigration through deterrence. funnel people to into more hostile terrain, less suited for crossing, and more suited for enforcement, where they might be easy to catch. as video show to the public --ows in 2009 are the u.s. border patrol's own words. we now have the tactical advantage and we only need to exploit that advantage. before you heard a quotation from a border control document, more suited for enforcement, less suited for crossing.
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talk about the border patrol's strategy of prevention through deterrence. documents, theo video and the document itself, that were not released to the public. i shot in aself, conference that they were having, i shot them with my camera. this is something the u.s. border patrol does not publicize. the seal of cities along the u.s. and mexico border like el the and san diego, and keep desert to open. they do not patrol these open areas of terrain on purpose, inviting migrants to cross there because they believe they will have the tactical advantage if migrants are out in the open or if they are weakened or slowed down. they are much easier to detect in wide-open carriers, especially in the desert near
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there is no brush or coverage. this is part of the border patrol policy to allow migrants to cross treacherous terrain, and in addition, this deterrent policy is to try to make this journey for migrants as difficult as possible because they believe if they try to attempt again, they will think about it. maybe they will go back to their home country and tell their friends and country, do not try this, this is too difficult. this policy does that seem to be working for those individuals who are desperate. >> i recently spoke to a volunteer with a southern border patrol organization. her husband was nearly killed by border patrol. he was threatened with deportation mile in the hospital. >> two years ago, he was .eported to mexico
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we have two young children. our son was two and a half, our daughter was four months old. our daughter was in the hospital. he was deported and was just trying to figure out how to get back to us. march 30, he attempted to cross back. i lost contact with him that day. by saturday i am going completely insane not knowing what happened, where he is that, if he is alive. it was not like him to not call me and let me know what was going on. i get a call from the consulate in arizona asking me, is this shena? i will never forget those words come of they said, i have to inform me but there has been an
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accident. hours later, i find that he is in phoenix and they tell me he is unconscious. i get to the hospital, and in my mind i am thinking, unconscious, he is laying in a bit with an ivy in his arm and that is all come at the most. when i turned the corner and i see the two agents -- because he was being protected 24 hours a day. he had staples, black and blue, all over his body. he had machines all over him. he was in a coma. john carlos, you know the story well. can you wrap up by telling us
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what happened to him? >> this man was brutally beaten. i saw him days after he was beaten. there was no doubt. his teeth were misaligned, bruises all over his body. to this day, this happened a year and a half ago, we still do not know the agents involved. we do not know why he was beaten. he is still in the united states. this issue has not been addressed. this meeting has basically been swept under the rug and that is the problem with trying to increase the force and border security infrastructure. there is no oversight. nobody is minding the store. if these border patrol agents actually beat mr. gutiérrez, as of books they did, where is the accountability? there does not seem to be any scrutiny. we do not have a congressional or government oversight committee looking at these incidents. as a matter of fact, most of
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these are investigated internally. the border patrol usually ends up investigating itself. if we are going to increase the size of the force and infrastructure, congress should add to the bill some sort of oversight, accountability, and some form of scrutiny. with us,you for being and john carlos frey. this is part of a three-part series called crossing the line at the border. at our website we willing to the full conversation that talks gutiérrez's husband. that is at democracynow.org.
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that the obama administration is overseen the controversial stop and frisk program. the move came in the form of a reprieve before the justice apartment before a midnight deadline in this averts -- the justice department did not say whether it agrees with plaintiffs that the program under retarded people of color -- >> nila 9% of people stopped in 2011 were black or latino. a judge is set to rule in the coming months on whether such practices systematically violated the rights of new yorkers as the plaintiffs allege. the doj wrote -- for more on this development we are joined by a staff attorney with the center for constitutional rights.
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welcome back. explain the significance of what happened just before midnight last night. >> the department of justice is tasked with insuring that police departments around the country are following the constitution. they have weighed in heavily and said that it is common practice and this court should follow the practice of appointing a point- monitored individual, oversee any order that she institutes. we need accountability within the police department. we need to ensure changes are made and that the community has a voice in those changes and is aware of what is happening. the mayor and police commissioner were apparently very upset. issues with civil- rights violations among departments. your sense of the importance of this in new york city? >> we are talking about the
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largest police department with a very significant problem. here, there is not an internal system of accountability, external system of accountability, and the justice department says the police cannot be trusted to police themselves. there is no systematic way of ensuring that change will happen, and the court needs to have an independent eyes and ears within the department. >> i want to read from the brief. they say -- your response? >> this is in response to their contention that city hall or other agencies actually have some on the turf course. it is preposterous to say that. at the same time to say, trust
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us, we can police ourselves. we can ensure that what the court wants done we can do. it has been 16 years and they have decided not to do that in that time. >> windy expect a decision from the judge? >> we have indication that there should be coming down in the coming months. >> the significance of what has been heard in this case? >> extremely significant. we have heard from all five boroughs, police have said there were problems, millions of people who say that they have been stopped and frisked illegally, and a mountain of evidence showing violations. there is racial profiling going on. >> the numbers of people being stopped and frisked. >> 4.3 million in the last 10 years. we know this number has only increased, a slight dip recently because the police department has decided to train its officers not to document every encounter.
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>> how long to consent decrees last for? >> typically, five to 10 years. result of thea attention and action are revelations as the court case proceedings? >> yes, they know they are under scrutiny and they want to show that what they say is, we are slowly moving a big ship. it has been 14 years in the making. the court has hopefully lost patience with what they are saying they can do on their own. >> in one year recently the number of stop and frisks was in the range of 600,000 to 700,000? >> yes, and that is an astronomical number. some people say that they have been stopped and frisked themselves upward of 20 times. it becomes a part of daily life. that is not the way new yorkers should live. >> we want to thank you for joining us, sunita patel.
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