04/10/18 04/10/18 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from pacifica, this is democracy now! pres. trump: we are making a decision as to what we do wiwith respect to the horrible attack , andwas m made your damascus it will bebe m met and it will e memet forcefully. amy:y: president trump h has vod to takaction ainstst syria days after an allegedhehemica atck kilild dozensn the rebel held city of douma, syria. but that was not the only attack

president trump condemned on monday. pres. t trump: and it is a disgrace. country.attack on our it is an attack on what will stand for. amy: those were the words of the president after news broke that the fbi had raided the offices and home of his personal attorney michael colin. we will be the latest on syria in the fbi raid, plus as mark zuckerberg on capitol hill, we will look at the controversy over the social media giant's role in society from the 2016 election to europe and personal privacy. denver were the staff of the "denver post" is an open rebellion against its owner , a hedge fund which has decimated newspapers across the country. all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman.

fbi agents have raided the home office and park avenue hotel room of president trump's longtime personal lawyer michael cohen. during the monday morning raid, of his apartment, offices, and his hotel, the fbi seized business records, emails and documents, including documents related to a $130,000 payment to adult film star stephanie clifford, also known as stormy daniels. cohen has admitted to personally paying clifford to keep her quiet about an alleged 2007 affair she had with donald trump. the payment, only days before the 2016 election, may violate federal election law. it was carried out by the interim u.s. attorney for the southern district of your, who was appointed by president trump . it came after referral by special counsel robert mueller, and president trump reacted angrily to news of the raid on monday. pres. trump: i just heard that they broke into the office of one e of my personal attorneys,a good man.

it is a disgraceful l situation. it is a totatal witch hunt. amy: we will have more after headlines. facebook ceo mark zuckerberg is set to testify today on capitol hill amid the burgeoning scandal about how the voter-profiling company cambridge analytica harvested the data of more than -- up to facebook users, without 87 million their permission, in efforts to sway voters too support president donald trump. on monday, zuckerberg met with leaders of the senate commerce committee and senate judiciary committee to express his regrets about facebook's mishandling of user data. the company has also unveiled new privacy tools ahead of zuckerberg's testimony today. we'll have morere on facebook later in the broadcast. presidenent trump has threatenea forceful response to the alleged chchemical gas attack in syria that killed at least 40 people and injured as many as 1000 and douma oututside the c capital damascus. pres. trump: we're making decision as to what we do and

result of the hohorrible a attak .hat wasas made e your damascus and it will be met and it will be met forcefulllly. when, ii wilill not say, becauai do not like talking about timing, but we are developing the greatest force that we've ever had. " washington has blame the assad government for the attack but russia claims there's no evidence an attack even took place. meanwhile, t the lawyers for the family of journalist marie colvin, who was killed in syria in 2012, have sued the syrian government in washington, d.c., courtroom, accusing the assad regime of having assassinated the war correspondent for the "sunday times of london." the wrongful death lawsuit is the first war crimes-related case against the syrian government to reach court. her family's lawyers have submitted thousands of pages of documents that they say reveal how colvin was surveilled in lebanon, tracked as she crossed into syria, and then killed in an artillery strike on the baba

amr media center in homs as part of the assad government's delibeberate policy to eliminate journalists. after the killing, accorng t to a syrian m military defefector,e intelligence officer responsible for ordering the artillery strike said -- "marie colvin was a dog and now she's dead." we'll have more on syria after headlines. in gaza, palestinians arare continuing to pay tribute to the life of yasser murtaja, the palestinian journalist who was shot and killed by an israeli sniper while covering the palestinian's nonviolent protest on friday at the israeli-gaza border. israeli snipers shot and killed murtaja while he was wearing a jacket clearly marked press. on monday, palestinians carved his name into the sand of gaza's shore, surrounded by angel's wings. also on monday, the family of the murdered teenager hussein madi gathered to mark what would have been his 14th birthday. he was the youngest palestinian killed on friday, when israeli soldiers opened fire on the

nonviolent protest dubbed "the great march of return," killing at least nine people. the israeli army has killed at least 31 palestinians in total over the last two weeks. british labor leader jeremy corbyn is calling for britain to review its weapon sales to israel in the wake of the israeli army's killings of protesters and the journalist. in the united states, jewish activists with the group if not now staged protests in multiple cities monday, including in new york where seven activists were arrested at new york democratic senator chuck schumer's office, demanding he speak out about the israeli army's killing of palestinian protesters. eight activists were also arrested in boston protesting at ththe israeli coconsulate. in germany, hundreds of flights have been canceled after workers tonched a one-day strike demand a 6% pay raise for all public sector workers across germany. this is frank bsirske, head of the labor union coordinating the strike. >> i made it very clear that we

need wage increases well above what we have achieved in previous years. the economic environment shows it. there is talk of holiday mood in the german economy, gold and times for the german economy, for the shareholders, record figures of 46.5 billion euros were distributed. the municipalities made a surplus of 10.7 billion euros last year. when, if not now, can there be a significant increase for all workers, incluluding those in te civil service? amy: in oklahoma, thousands of teachers have entered their second week of a strike demanding better pay and increased funding for their schools. on monday, thousands of teachers packed the state capitol to demand lawmakers approve a new revenue package to fund the schools. public schools in oklahoma city and tulsa remain closed today, as the strike e continues. in florida, students at the miami northwestern senior high school held a walk-out on monday to protest gun violence and to mourn the deaths of a current and former student killed over the weekend in a shooting in liberty city. 17-year-old kimson green and

18-year-old rickey dixon were both killed. two others were wounded. liberty city is about 40 miles south of parkland, florida, the site of f the valentine's day massacre at the marjory stoneman douglas high school, which killed 17 people, 14 students and three faculty. "the denver post" has launched a revolt against its owner new , york-based hedge-fund alden global capital. on sunday, the "denver post's" editorial board published a lead editorial headlined "as vultures circle, the denver post must be saved." in the piece, editorial page editor chuck plunkett writes -- "if alden isn't willing to do good journalism here, it should sell the post to owners who will." the move came after the "denver post" announceced in marchch tht would cut another 30 jobs from an already depepleted newsroroo. we'll have momore on ththis stoy later in the broadcast. a new analysis by the congressional budget office projects the federal government's annual budget deficit t is expected to top $1 trillion by 2020 and that the national debt is expected to balloon to $33 trillion by 2028.

the analysis says president trump's tax overhaul, which showered corporations and the richest americans with tax breaks, will contribute significantly to the grower -- growing deficits. the energy department has admitted that dozens of workers have inhaled or ingested radioactive particles over the last y year as they'y've beenn workining to dememolish the e hd nuclear reservation, a p plutonm processing plant in oregon. the federal government has halted the plant's demolition following the admission that at least 42 workers have been contaminated with the radioactive particles. to see our ongoing coverage of the hanford nuclear site, 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. fbi agents have raided the home office and park avenue hotel

room a president from's longtime personal lawyer michael cohen. during the monday morning raid, the fbi seized a slew of business records to mean males, and documents. "the washington post" reports cohen is under investigation from bank fraud, wire fraud, and campaign finance violations. agents also reportedly seized documents related to the $130,000 payment cohen major adult film star stephanie clifford come also known as stormy daniels. cohen has admitted to personally paying clifford to keep quite about an alleged 2007 affair she had with donald trump. the payment, only days before the 2016 election, may have violated federal election laws. amy: the raid was carried out by ,he u.s. attorney of new york that is jeffrey berman, who was handpicked by presidenent trump after trtrump fired the previous attorney. his a former law partner of rudolph giuliani. monday's raid came after referral by special counsel robert mueller, president trump

reacteted angrily to news of the raid on monday. pres. trump: so i just heard that they broke into the office attorneys,y personal good man. it is a disgraceful sisituation. it is a total witch h he. i wanted to keep it down. i b believe we have given over e million pages of documents to the special counsel. they continue to just gogo forwd and here we are talking about syria. we're talking a lot about serious things. i have this witchhunt constantly goingg on for over 12 months no. axa, much more than that. you could say was right after i won the nomination it started. it is a disgracece. frankly, it isis a real disgrac. it is an attttack onon our coun. it is an attack on what we all standd for.

amy: t that was president trump. he went on minuteses as he sat next to his in national security adviser john bolton, talking about possibly attacking syria and maybe whiteningng the scope talking about taking on a rent anand russia. we're going to tatalk about thoe issusues in a momoment. but right now we go to michigan where we're joined by marcy wheeler, investigative journalist who runs the website emptywheel.net. this is an incredible development, marcy. of theing -- the raiding office, , the home, and a hotel room because his home is being renovated, of president trump's personal attorney. is he personal attorney or his fixer? and that goes to what kind of information they can take. what is happening here, marcy? or come he'six alalso involved in the republicn fund-raising operation, so he has got many hats. he is also kind of a business maker.

getting approval for this kind of raid is pretty burdensome. you do have high-level approval, would of had approval from debbie attorney general rosenstein becauause he is the e who said go dump it into the manhattan u.s. attorney's lap. leadt does require some time. it requires a great ill probable cause evidence that there is a crime that you will get evidence of a crime being committed. and then to raid a person's attorney, you generally have to have evidence that there is what is called the crime product -- meaning the person in question, and here we're probably talking donald trump, meaning that the person in question is using their attorney to commit a crime. the attorney is not providing the legal advice so much as helping them to commit a crime. of thearcy, in terms relationship, if any, of this particular raid to the ongoing

robert mueller investigation -- clearly, muller decided this is outside of his scope. but your sense of what possible connection there might end up being between the two? >> mueller's team did interview an unnamed business associate of cohen, possibly lastly, possibly even a grand jury appearance friday. this is a recent report from mcclatchy. that person have been involved dealsrump organization with michael cohen. so that is something that may be trump-related and may have been in the works long enough to get approval for this raid. in addition, as was mentioned in the headlines, on friday, trump basically disavowed any involvement in the health to stormy daniels. and that i suspect put his relationship with cohen on the stormy daniels payment a different footing because by saying he did not know anything about it, he basicalally was saying that cohen h had not been

advising h him personally for te payoff. and that either meant that they were lying, which is probably the case in any case, but also any it sort of disavowed attorney relationship on behalf of cohen for that payoff. so while t that came too late to be thehe primary cause of the rd in which the way this was conducted, probably did not help trump at all because it probably put cohen in a different legal footing for that particular part of the raid. post" and "the new york times" both say it is clearly stormy daniels plus some other things. amy: what happened here is quite unbelievable. it must be jarring for many whenever there put -- whatever their political persuasion. going after the home, the office, hotel apartment of this lawyer. so what they set up for these -- these teamsain what

are? it is not just three teams moving into three places, it is at least six teams because each has to have a parallel team. >> it is possible that one reason they moved this to the manhattan u.s. attorney is to use that person as a taint team. is a group of fbi agents and involved with the case in chief. they will go a and look at thatnce and make sure nobody actually prosecuting the target -- in this case cohen and eventually trump -- looks at stuff that is not included in the warrant. in other words, if cohen was legitimatetely advising trump, this is a you investigation, this is when you fire mueller, this is your you should hire to do with the information, that would be covered by attorney-client prprivilege. and the e fbi agents in sesearcg throughhehe turtles that theyey were looking at, say at the

hotel room, within put that aside and know from mueller steam would be able to look at it. so in other words, it might be, as you said, there are six teams. it might be thth there is s one reason debbie attorney general rosenstein r referrered this tos southern district, the manhattan u.s. attorney, is so that none of the agents likely doing the search were involved in a mueller investigation. there's one other thing, amy. mueller summit a filing last week in the paul manafort case. it explained basically how his authority works. while most of the filing was targeted at manafort's challengnge, there was languagen there that mueller specifically called out saying, we are allowed to go prosecute somebody, to investigate somebody for a crime with the intent of getting them to flip. in other words, yes, stormy daniels is s interesting, but it may be that mueller is

investigating it as a crime that they can use to get cohen to turn evidence, to flip on donald rusussia testify to the investigation stuff. that is something that -- it is widely believed the filining inn the mamanafort casase will bee broadldly approveded by the jude there, so manafort's chalngnge to m mueer's authority willnn mueer'be approng abity to go ter othecrimes to get tarts to flip juan one othe clms that cohenas made priouslys the ney he pdo stormyaniels me froa credit le on his home. is there any potential for those records, in terms of what was the financing of the $130,000 a part of this raid? >> absolutely. the banks involved in the payoff

have summit t of what are called suspicious activity reports. so those banks have already said, we don't know what was going on with this payoff. there's no legitimate use for it. so those records are almost -- surely already in government hands. there must be more. i don't think mueller and the fbi and doj would carry out this raid in this manner just for the stormy daniels payment. .here surely is more and maybe other kinds of bank fraud. again, cohen, on top of everything else, is closely involved and was closely involved with some business deals with an entity called the silk road to build up -- set of buildings in the former soviet union. those might be of interest as well. it is unclear what happen with the negotiations of that deal. that kind of thing may be -- the

longer-term interest for mueller --h the stormy daniels thing the sexier story, if you will, the more pertinent story given what we have seen in the press rececently. amy: his rant that went on as he was talkining about possibly attacking syria -- and we will talk about that in a minute -- he talked about the democrats going after him and the republicans who had worked for obama. he talks about the special counsel's office. but here it was led by jeffrey berman. you w write jeffrey berman is a symbol of trump's abuse. explain. >> sure. among the people that trump fired -- he fired all of the u.s. attorneys in spring of last year. that is fairly normal. but the way in which he did it, particularly with regards to et, led people to believe he was firing him because preet

was investigating him. he then, rather than nominating some of the else to take his place, he first of all interviewed both jeffrey berman ,nd a candidate for brooklyn the brooklyn u.s. attorney's investigating jared kushner, which does not happen. for the president to persuade interview a u.s. attorney candidate suggests far too much personal involvement in a position. but jeffrey berman has that you have been nominated. he is basically serving as an interim position. he does not have senate confirmation. the district court can remove him in a couple of weeks, actually, if they find his appoint it was inappropriate and name somebody else. they could name preet again. his position, particularly in what is the biggest or one of the biggest u.s. attorneys offices in the country, it is just not done. who is not any

ordinary u.s. attorney. chavez that made any comments about firing him. that is one of the reasons i think it is pretty shrewd of rosenstein to have referred this raid to him because he is ultimately the want to blame. ultimately signoff on the rate. he is the one whose prosecutors got it approved by judges in new york. he is a symptom of the corruption, but by having him do the raid, he is in some ways protection for mueller and rosenstein because it is the closest u.s. attorney in the entire system to trump who bought off on this raid, approved this raid. amy: mueller has just made clear trump is not a criminal target, places ofwyers, three existence, his home, hotel room, and has office at 30 rock, amazingly enough, have just been rated. -- raided.

a sittingot clear president could ever be a target. you may be saying because trump is still president, i cannot indict him. it is also easy to move from being a subject to a target. tohink that statement trump's attorneys, defense attorneys -- it was a month ago, basically. that statement has been overblown. you can become a target very quickly, particularly if the republicans encompassed decide to get rid of him. amy: marcy wheeler, thank you for being with us investigative , journalist who runs the website emptywheel.net. as president trump granted next tuesday national security adviser yesterday, for many minutes, that what has taken place, he also talked about deciding in the next 24 to 48 hours whether he will take out, whether he will take on syria and perhaps also make russia and iran paid a price, he said. we will see what that means in a

minute with phyllis bennis. ♪ [music break]

amy: this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman with juan gonzalez. president trump has threatened to force the response this weakens alleged chemical gas attack in syria that killed at least 40 people and injured as many as 1000 and the rebel held town of douma. during a meeting with military officials monday, trump vowed to take action. trunk or would like to begin by condemning the heinous attack on innocent syrians with band chemical weapons. it was an atrorocious attack. it was horrible. we are studying that situation extremely closely. we're meeting with our military and everybody else. we will be making some major decisions over the next 24 to 48 hours. syriais russia, is it is

comeme if it is iraran, if it il of them together, we will figure it out. we will know the answers quite soon. so we're looking aththat vy, ve strtrony and d ry seriously. juan: washingtoanand itchieief allili at the united nations hahave bme t thessad government for the chemicalttttack,ut ruia c clas there's no evidence and it thatooook ple. iran has acknowledged seve irannsns die in an raeli airstre onyrian ba early ononday. y: to lk abouthe eslating tenon in syria a the dete at e united nation we' joined byhyllis bennisellow athe institu , fopolicytudies. s's itten sevel book incling mostecently "understding isis and thnew obal war on terror." her latest piece for in these times is "it's john bolton's first day in the white house. we must stop him from escalating war in syria." let's start there. there was how president trump sitting next to john bolton, who has talked about a primitive strike against north korea and

iran, and he is clearly extremely unsettleled, president trump, by the raid he has just learned about in all of the premises of his personal lawyer. and it is at this point that he said he is deciding within 24 to 48 hours what to do about attacking syria and possibly broadening it to iran and russia. talk about this. >> this is a very dangerous moment, amy. on the one hand, we are going into the situation with his new adviser on his first day yesterday, john bolton, as you mention, who, of course, does not need senate confirmation for this position. he is just appointed and he comes to work. he is now, as the national security adviser, the person who has the first and last words into the president's ear all day long. officially, he is supposed to be the one who pulls together all of the different reports and positions of the 16 separate u.s. intelligence agencies and provides them to the president

in a way that is coherent and sensible and whatever. in practice, we know from john bolton's history that is not his intention at all. his intention is to push forward any forces within the intelligence community -- whichever agencies or agency it may be -- who are pushing for war, rather than diplomacy. this is someone who scorned diplomacy, who disdains the united nations or international law, who is never met in international issue or challenge or crisis that did not require a u.s. military solution. so that is one part of the danger. on top of that, you have this in norman's need for distraction -- enormous need for distraction. with the headlines today all focused on the raid on terms private lawyer, he is one to want to turn attention away from that. what better way to do that historically but to go to war somewhere. it is a very dangerous moment. it could mean a small scale,

essentially symbolic response against this alleged chemical weapons attack. we should be clear despite the fact in the second that you just played in the e run-up of trump saying "we are still finding out about it, we're talking about a," within moments of him being informed there were claims that there had been a chemical weapons attack, trump himself immediately went on twitter and said "this was carried out by the animal assad backed by russia and iran." you medially targeted who he wants -- he immediately targeted who he wants to hold responsible for this, threatened immediate military action -- which again, could be small-scale symbolic of a few missile strikes on an air base it could be far greater than that. if an attack, as did the one yesterday, shortly after the allegations of the chemical attack emerged, there was an attack on a syrian military base where there were, among other

things, some iranian troops. 14 people were killed, four iranians. karen indicated they believed israel was responsible for it. israel has not and responsibility. no one has. the u.s. specifically denied it, as did the french. the question of what will go forward is a very dangerous one because we know despite the fact that any military strike at this point would be absolutely illegal and the vantage point of the u.s. domestic law, and d our constitution that says ray clearly that congress another president is the force that is supposed to declare war. we know in the united nations, nikki haley has been out there using language virtually identical -- you will remember in the run-up to the war in iraq in 2002, 2003, we consistently in the uniteds nations, sometimes from john bolton and others saying

"regardless of whether the united nations approves or not, we are going ahead." ominousa very reference. very ominous. it is designed to be. when nikki haley says the secret counsel must decide to use force and if they don't we will -- which is essentially what she is saying -- she is saying we will violate international law. we will violate the u.n. charter. and we will violate our own laws at home in order to carry out an illegal military assault on syria, claiming that it somehow revenge for an alleged chemical attack -- which may or may not have been committed by the regime at all. juan: you mentioned before the this kind of situation, the second gulf war. going back, or a lot of people don't remember the first gulf war. about theic stories invasion force of saddam hussein

in kuwait, marching into a ,ospital and killing babies newborn babies in their incubators. a complete hoax, but it horrified the amamerco people ad made it easier to justify going to war in the full -- first gulf war as well. it is not just the weapons of mass destruction testimony of secretary powell at the united nations for the second gulf war. it is not unusual that we have these -- the media, of course, fix up on them and continues to spread the information without real fact checking as to whether this is accurate or not. >> that is right. at the time we stick all of the cnn factor. now we would probably call it the twitter factor. it is the same phenomenon. in many cases, you are real, horrific event. i am certainly not saying this event did not occur. but i think there have been so many horrific attacks on syrian civilians by all sides in this

war, by the syrian regime, by the russians and iranians, by thunited stes, by s.s. qatar.-- saudi arabia, there are no good guys. therbeenen aocitieiecarried in against syrian civilians the set ofroroxy ws gogoinon ross syria, and that example of wtt we haveeen before, the call about the bababies bein pulled out of their thanyou baiters -- which turned t to be theesestimo of f thdaughter of t kuwaitimbassadoput gether ba wasngton-bad pr company. it was pury y made up. but itidid the job was dubbed john bolton has been part of those kinds of camigns in e pa. in 2002, it was jo bolton who realized that the campaign he wawas undertaken could convince peop in this country thairiraq had d weonss omamass dtracacti, ddam hussein had chemical weapon m maybeucleleareaponsns he was talking abo t the yellllowke urani from niger that turned outo be complete hoax. athe time, the heaofof the

ororgazationonor the prevention of chemicaleapons, e e u.n. agency resnsnsibleor d deang th chemical weapons, was in a spsperateffoforto negotiate wi s sadda husse's government tory to get them to jn that ency, toecome a mber of the organizaonon forhe prentitionf chememal weapons. if they had, they would hadoo allow in incrediy intrusive inspectors. and bolton knew t they re lily t to find tre were in fact npieces oevidence the was no chical weans prram in ira in oer to event tha he arranged t firing the cef ofhat oanizatn. itas arazilian dipmat. heent to t man'office a saidyou have hours t resigneven threaned his childr. he said, have en reelect to a secd term the 1 memberof this oanizatn, i'm not gog anywhe. that int, boln wentut and thin day he orestrated

ough bbes and thats an punishnts ofhose governmts thathey maged toet bustani red and placed himith t u.s.y w would toe line it would not mo to get diplomic solion. th is soone who was war and nodiplomacy. is a very ngerous ment. amy: phyis benne what do think s to hpen inyria rit now tndhis hohorric suering of thcivilian popution? >> areas to be aar more susinedreative nd of diomacy. it is t going be quick t stopt is not gng to be ey. its not onto be legenic. it is t going toe goodn "fox & frids congre is gointo havto prevent rther eslation of the u. warhere. if the.s. goesn -- u.s. forcesn u.s. a strik in ria have aicle between600

d 5600 syrn civilia, along th thousan ofthers lled all sid. rian civians areaying e pricfor these wars. the uned statemilitarys a bipart of e probm. we havto sta in thisountry by gettingongrestorohibi the ilgal use o u.s. mitary rce in syr. e authorizion for e use milita forceoes not ver . it iin goal unr u.s.aw -- ilgal undeu.s. law and the nstituon. its a viation ofof internatnal law. john boln shouldot be alloweto tell thpresiden th he is ery righto go -- amy: saking of violationf inrnationa lawi would returno gaza ththeyillingf dozens of palestinns, peacul paleinians othe gaza-rael rder. theatest la friday, journali. theyave carv his ne in the center rember hias he wore a

press id, t to mtion the civilis that he been kille befo him. whwhat needso happenhere rig now? we hary see mentn of ts in thu.s. med. 31 cilians we killed, seveof them re joualists only eanot th shot they weralso wearing jackets saying press. this was a massacre. these were not clashes. the press is doing a huge disservice talking about clashes, confrontations to people. confrontations did not kill people, snipers kill people. it is a complete violation of international law, human rights law, and international humaninitarian law. again, this is something the united nations states to take up. the united states, again, has used its veto and threatened to use its veto over and over again to prevent any action by the

security council, prevent, for example, what needs to happen is for the security council to recommend the international criminal court take upup a full investigation of political leaders, the prime minister who said all 30,000 protesters are targets that are legitimate targets. those were his words, legitimate targets. that is chilling. it is also illegal. it is a complete violation to target civilians in that way. this was a nonviolent protest. it is going to go on for more weeks. it will be up to international civil society to keep up the pressure that will enable the united nations to do anything to stop it. amy: thank you for being with us, phyllis bennis fellow at the , institute for policy studies. when we come back, thehe ceo of facebook, zuckerberg, before congress today. we will talk about facebook and then we will go to denver to talk about the open rebellion at the "denver post" against its

later owner, a new york hedge fund. 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: facebook ceo mark zuckerberg is set to testify today on capitol hill amid the burgeoning scandal about how the voter-profiling company cambridge analytica harvested the data of more than 50 million -- 87 million facebook users, without their permission, in efforts to sway voters to support president donald trump. in his prepared testimony for today, zuckerberg says -- "we didn't take a broad enough view of our responsibility, and that was a big mistake. it was my mistake, and i'm sorry. i started facebook, i run it, and i'm responsible for whwhat happens here." this is zuckerberg speaking on cnn n last month. >> this was a major breach of trust. i am really sorry that this happened. we have a basic responsibility to protect people's data. if we can't do that, then we don't deserve to have the opportunity to serve people. so our responsibility now is to make sure this does not happen

again. amy: the company has also unveiled new privacy tools at of zuckerberg's testimony today. for more, we go to los angeles, telephone it, where we're joined by david dayen, a contributor to the intercept. his recent piece is titled, "the u.s. government is finally scrambling to regulate facebook." dayen is also the author of the award winning book, "chain of title: how three ordinary americans uncovered wall street's great foreclosure fraud." talk about the significance of, well, you have read he has who released a statement, mark zuckckerberg, what has happenedf facebook and what needs to be done. >> it is very significant that mark zuckerberg is a can before congress today. this is the first time he has done so. congress has really not kept up with the revolution happening andne as far social media these companies are concerned. they have sort of given over the playing field of regulation to

facebook, companies like facebook, which have become really almost private governments that are making these monumental decisions based on their business model that have wide-ranging effects for elections, the viability of for the vast problems that we see in places like irma in the philippines -- in the philippines. it is consequential. what was he today is congress trying to sort of catch up to where they should be and should of been for a long time, seeing these companies are incredibly powerful, incredibly large, and require a democratic impulse to step in and make some changes. juan: david, you heard zuckerberg talk about how this is a mistake, terrible mistake.

thethe reality is, this is model. this is the way that facebook makes money, being able to monetize the activity of the people on our network. failurele issue of the of congressional leaders to adequately regulate the development of the internet the way they did television, the way that they did other forms of , , and basically, theeleone privatization of the most important means of communication that we have in the world today. what was the responsibility of congress that should have been earlier on tackling this problem? >> conga absolutely should have stepped in much sooner than now when we have are ready seen this problem. honestly, as you mentioned, facebook and google and other social media sites make money off of exploiting the data of

their users. their users are not really the customers, they are the product -- as is often said. for has implications privacy laws. it has implications for antidiscrimination laws. it obviously has implications for our elections. these are always in which the government needs to get involved and come up with some real standards to protect people. in their absence, facebook has sort of done this on their own whim -- really come on the whim of mark zuckerberg. amy: on thursday, savannah guthrie interviewed facebook coo sheryl sandberg. let's go to a clip. >> could you come up with a jeweled said, i do i facebook do some personal profile data to target me for advertising? could you have an opt out butt on? >> we have different forms of opt out. we do not at the highest level. thatat would be a paid product.

, respond toayen this and talk about what happened with cambridge analytica harvesting -- now they are telling us 87 million facebook users, could have been prevented. >> absolutely. amy: and talk about her saying this would be a paid product. >> sheryl sandberg says you normally have to be able to pay if you're opting out completely of advertising. this is seemingly ridiculous. facebook has 2 billion members of an audience. if a television station or ready a station had that kind of massive audience, i think it would figure out a way to make money with advertising without harvesting the data of a reasonable person. inwent through many decades this country without targeted advertising. i think we can go back to that. the idea of an off doubt button is a similar to what the regime that is being constructed in

europe called the gdp article the general data protection regulation, and it would require affirmative consent from people to have their data collected and sold to advertisers were used in the targeting of advertising. there are more and more people in washington are saying that as a viable method to protect citizens. however, it is very consent-based. we could do something stronger and just opt out and certainly get rid of this idea that if one of your friends on facebook takes a quiz, that company that put the quiz together gets access to all of your profile exactly what is happened in the cambridge analytica situation. only about 270,000 facebook users took that quiz, but because they got the derivative data of all of the friends of those people, 87 million, at

least, that is the number they're using now, 87 million users have their david a -- data harvested equities and political targeting. we need to get a handle on this. i don't think facebook has a handle on it necessarily. and millions of advertisers. they don't know what anyone advertiser is doing from one moment to the next. this is a problem of the company that is really too big to manage. government needs to step in with -- clear roles around what is allowable. juan: specifically on the issue of all of the profiles that were harvested as a result of -- cles voluntary quiz by only a few hundred thousand people, are there legal questions there as byor potential lawsuits those people whose data was harvested without their participating at all in any kind of a survey? >> lawsuits have already been

filed. i think they're a consumer lawsuits, class-action lawsuits. we will see hohow they work ther way through the courts. there are certainly violations involved in a lot of this kind see.rgeting that we there is a lawsuit right now being put forward by housing advocates showing advertisers used facebook tools to create housing and employment advertisements that necessarily avoided african-americans and hispanics from seeing the ads. and that seemingly violates fair housing, fair employment laws. there are all sorts of applications that you can use when you can get down to that granular level and no practically -- and no practically everything about the individuals to whom you're serving that ad, it has all sorts of legal implications. that is why, i mean, what we're going to see today in congress

is a lot of grandstanding but i think behind the scenes, there are people really seriously thinking through this and trying to come up with a way of dealing with these companies that have gotten so large that such large troves of data that, you know, most inherently insecure that offer so many tools to advertisers -- what are the implications of that? it is a place government needs to be involved. otherwise, we're regulation by facebook, a private government, that is only really concerned with their own financial interests. amy: should facebook be nationalized? >> that is something that has been brought up by commentators. i think it is an interesting way to go about it. to think about it, to regulate it as a public utility. there are ideas of things like interoperability were you would be able to take your sort of social media graph to any competing site. this is what was done with aol instant messenger way back in

the turn of the century. messaging toxt sort of migrating away from this one site. right now we have the situation where facebook owns instagram, what'sapp. anytime there's a competitor to facebook, they buy it or ape the technology used within it like they did with snapchat. this is an antitrust problem that i think require solutions around that. i also think the news to be very broad privacy regulations that understand that individuals that come to a site do not consent or they do not have the expectation that everything that they have ever written, everything they've ever put on that site is going to be used in targeting them. this is the kind of things -- amy: david dayen, they can for

being with us contributor to the , intercept. ofwill bring you excerpts zuckerberg's testimony tomorrow and commerce and commentary. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the wawar and peace report. i'm amy goodman with juan gonzalez. juan: the denver post has owner.d against his on sunday, the post editorial board posted "as vultures circle, the denver post must be saved," editorial page editor chuck plunkett writes -- "we call for action. if alden isn't willing to do good journalism here, it should sell the post to owners who will." since 2010, digital first media has slashed budgets and staff at newspapers across the country, including the open tribune, san jose mercury, and the st. paul pioneer press. amy: is backed by

founder and chief of investments randall smith, and president heath freeman. both are known on wall street as vulture capitalists who make their money investing in distressed businesses and selling them off. for more, we go to denver where we're joined by ricardo baca, the former cannabis editor at the denver post who wrote one of the op-eds, titled, "when a hedge fund tries to kill the newspapers it owns, journalists must fight back." ricardo baca worked at the post for 16 years, and is now the ceo and founder of grasslands: a journalism-minded agency. the denver post in its own pages published this open revolt against its new owners, against this new york-based hedge fund. ricardo baca, what is happening in the newsroom and what is being dedemanded? >> alden global capital is actually owned opposed and all other media newsgroups for eight years now. they bouought into this group in

the year 2010.. even though we have seen cut after cut, buyout after layoffs over the years, in my tenure there, i left a year and half ago, these are still hitting will step we found out last month that alden global capital sentnt the were down the pike tt the denver post had to lay off 30 full-time staffers from the newsroom alone. and that was the largest cut by percentage in history of the peace river, which is 100 plus years and it was just devastating. i think eveven though we''re seg so many cuts over ththe years ad so mucuch devastation, w we're r seen anything to this level. i think this editorial page from last sunday is a result of that. juan: i remember when i was president of the national association of hispanic journalists in 2002 and 2004, i spent a lot of time in denver when there were still two papers. there were hundreds of reporters between the two.

what i is the sisituation ririg? was closed down. what is s a situation in terms f the actual numbers of reporters doing reporting in denver r rigt now on paperer? >> of cocourse ,juan. i am a former rocky mount to news writer. jointo papers went to a operating system in 2009 when the rocky went out of business. when i started at the post 16 years ago, legitimately there almost 300 journalists in n the newsroomom. that is copy editors and artists , reporters and editors. but now we'rere talkingng betwe0 and 70 journalists. ththe staff has been cut by 4/5. amy: andnd they will cutut 30 fm that? > know, that includes the 30. there were about 90 to 100 and now there are about 60 to 70.

amy: i want to go to the lead editorial in the "denver post's" package blasting thehe paper'ss hedge-fund owner alden global capital, the editorial board displayed a strikingng interacae photo showing the e toll staff cuts have e taken on t the news. if you slide the bar to the right, you see a photo taken in may 2013, in which 142 staffers hahad gathed t to celebrate winning a a staff pulitzer priz. when you slide the bar to the left, however you see the same , picture dated april 2018, showing the staffers who are now gone -- more than half -- rendered in black. ricardo o baca, what are you calling for? you wrote about how you thought it was odd you as reporters would go outside the paper and actually protest and hold up banners, the kind of thing you were covering years ago with other people in other groups. true.is so

i remember that day in 2013 er when wewe wentz downwno the lobbbby to shoot tht picture.e. that picture has been hanging in the newsroom as a veryry stark d real remindeder of what hahas bn happenining since ththen. 2016, p plus, reportrters, man editotors and other journalistic staff, didi take to o the stres.s. we protested on the steps of the newsroom - -- which was historic in and of itself. jojournalists, this is not whate are taught to do in j school. that we felt like we did not have a choice. i think t the 2018 now, the most recent cututs in the perspective section dedicated to the subject matter, speaks to the desperate times, desperate measures the staff and us former staffers are willing to take. this is heartbreaking for denver. this is awful news for colorado. the only good news -- this is good news only to crooked ceos

and bad news politicians who don't want that oversight happening, frankly, at the state legislature -- aboutjust speaking crooked ceos, one of the interesting things about this particular tragedy is that the paper, according to the hedge fund that owns you, was making money. but basically, we're talking the second-largest is never chain in america right now. kerley, they're using these newspapers as cash cows to invest in other businesses. could you talk about that yet go clubs that is exexactly what is happenining. there been multiple published reports saying the denver post alone is making a very healthy profit. we also know this because when i was still at the newspaper in 2016, we got a note from our president at the time, the president of digital first media saying we are profitable, w we'e doing better than our

competitors. and we knew that was not g going to stop the hemorrhaging because ththat is ononly continued -- hs only continued since then. we knew it was bad news for us from the start. i think this is just where we are. it is a dire place to be. as a journalist, b because we ae not taught to organize, because we are taught t to stay in the background and keep a nonpublic presence, this was the only thing we knew w how to do. we did not know how to organini, but we k know how to write a put together a s section. i coululd nobebe prouder of f th doingorial page editor for what he did. amy: we want to ask you to stay for part two and post it as a web exclusive at democracynow.org to talk about alden's owners and talk about how important local media is in journalism across the country. ricardo baca is the ceo and founder of grasslands. he was t the cannabis ededitor r the denver post when he resigned in 2016 after 16 years. we will eat your piece -- we

will link to your piece "when a hedge fund tries to kill the newspapers it owns, journalists must fight back." 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