05/13/20 05/13/20 [captioning made possible e by democracy now!] amy: frorom new york city,y, the epicenter of the pandemic, this is democracy now! ! pres. trump:p: thehe numbers are coming d down rapidly. > there is a rereal risk k tu will t trigger an outbreak thatt you may not be ablble to contro. it would setet you back. amy: as s top infectious disease expert dr. antnthony prachee testifies to the senate that needless deathth and suffering could result from reopenining to quickly, some lawmakers arere calling for more surveillance. just talk we won't

abouout s surveillance, we will actually execute it and we will focus the unbelievable amounts of money thahat we have provided for you that they will s show se benefifit to the american n peo. amy: we will spend the hour with auauthor and journalist naomi klein aboutut the panandemic shk doctrine starting to emerge. her new report for the intercept headlined "screen new deal: under cover of mass death, andrew cuomo calls in the billionaires to build a high-tech dystopia." she looks at how google ceo eric schmidt is teaming up with new york state to plan the post-covid reality. >> the p partnerships that are parsabable - -- possible with hw yorkers is extraorordinary. >> you're the person to help us do that. we are all ready. amy: all that and morere, coming up. welcome to democracy now!,!,

democracynow.org, the e quantine report. i'm amy goodman. the united states s continues to lead the worldld in covid-19 infectioions, with r researchert johns hopkins s recording 1894 deaths from ththe diseasase in t 24 hoursrs tuesday, a sharpp increase from sunday and -- e earlier this week. the offificial u.s. death totolw over 8 82,300. on capitol hill, the nation's top infectious disease experts told a senate committetee tuesdy that needless death anand suffering would result if states reopen their economies too soon. this is dr. . anthony fauci. >> there is a real risk that you will trigggger an outbrbreak tht you may nott be able to control, which, in n fact, paradoxicacaly will set you back, not only leading to some suffering and death that could be avoidided, t could even set you back on t the road to trying to get economic recovery.

amy: dr. fauci acknowledged thee true you have -- u.s. dedeath tl is a must surely higherr than te ofofficial count. he dismissed the idea thatt a vaccine would be available and timeme for children to return to classes inin the fall and whethr any vaccine wiwill prove effecte against the coronavirus. he joined the remotely as did the cdc director drdr. robert redfield, fda commissioner dr. stephen hahn, an assistant health secretary admiral brett giroir. several senators appeared including senator lamar alexander of tennessee who self quarantine after a member ofof s staff tested positive for c cov. republican rand paul of kentuckyky, the first senator to test p positive fofor the virir, appearared in person and did not wear a mask. on tuesday, nbc news published an unreleasesed white house rept showing a surge of coronavirus cases in heartland u.s. communities.

topping the list was central city, , kentucky.. other hotspots include nashville,e, tennessee, dess moines, , iowa, and amilillo, texas. the leaked may 7 coronavirus task force report contradicts this claim made by president trump on monday. trump co-author of the country, the nunumbers are coming down rapidly. on capitol hill, house democratic leaders havave unveid a a massive 1800-page coronanavs relief package worth $3 trillion. the so-called heroes act would fund expanded unememployment benefits through january 2021, send most u.s. adults another one-time $1200 stimulus check, and provide $1 trillion in assistance to hard-hit state, local, and tribal governments. it would also expand snap food benefits, fund hazard pay for frontline workers, increase funding for covid-19 testing, and provide $25 billion in funding to the u.s. postal service.

the bill would not expand medicare to cover millions of newly uninsured americans, nor does it provide for rent and mortgage relief or recurring cash payments to u.s. households. the bill would expand the paycheck protection program to bail out corporate lobbyistt firms. climate activists say the bill also fails to close loophoholes for big polluters. greenpeace usa tweeted -- "fossil fuel ceos will be rejoicing that congress has once again left the door wide open for handouts to struggling, mismanaged oil and gas corporations." in northern california, billionaire tesla ceo elon musk has restarted work at tesla's huge electric vehicle factory in fremont, daring government officials to arrest him for violating a coronavirus lockdown. on tuesday, president trump tweeted -- "california should let tesla & elon musk open the plant, now. it can be done fast & safely!"

elon musk tweeted back, "thank you!" musk has repeatetedly downplayed the e threat of the cororonavirs and called government-t-imposed quarantines "fascist." los angeles county's top public healthth official said tuesday stay-at-home orders will be extended for the next three months. at least 1300 deaths in l.a. have been linked to covid-19. california state university's president on tuesday announced plans to cancel most in-person classes during the fall semester, with instruction moved online. with its 23 campmpuses, cal stae is the largest four-year college system in the united states. in the southwest, doctors without borders has sent a team of medical workers to the navajo nation, where over 100 people have died of covid-19. it's the first time the humanitarian aid group has deployed inside u.s. territory. here in new york city, a study by the centers for disease

control and prevention fouou the death rate i in recent weeks spiked to more than 24,000 deaths above normal, suggestingg there were about 5000 more deaths due to covid-19 than the city has officially reported. meanwhile, the urgent care chain citymd says it mistakenly told 15,000 people in new york and new jersey who tested positive for coronavirus antibodies that they''re immune to covid-19. medical researchers say they still haven't established whether peop w with tibobodies e protected fromnonother infectn,n, wheer t thecouldd still fefect oer peopl or for how ng any iunity mit last therere e alsosooncerns about e rereliility y of newly-deloloped antibobodyests, many of whh h haveeen n lied to fal p posites a andalse netives.s. vermt indepeent senar beie s sanrsrs andinnesota decratic cgressmemr ilhan omar have ined morthan 3 3 lawmwmers arou the wor

calling for the cancellation of poor nations' debts as they struggle with the covid-19 crisis. this comes as the united nations warns as many as a half a billion people could fall into poverty due to the pandemic. in a letter to the leadership of the world bank and the international monetary fund tuesday, senator sanders writes -- "in the face of a horrific pandemic and a worldwide recession, we cannot allow poor countries to dedicate money that should be going towards protecting the health and safety of their people to pay off unsustainable debts. we cannot allow these countries to be deprived of the resources they need to purchase food, medicine, protective gear, and medical equipment." brazil saw its deadliest day of the papandemic yet tuesday, wiwh over 880 new covid-19 deaths confirmed within 24 hours. brazil is already the latin american nation hardest hit by the pandemic, and d the sixth mt affected country in the world,

ofofficially recording 178,000 cases and over 12,400 deaths. brazilian far-right president jair bolsonaro continues to downplay the pandemic. this week he issued a decree classifying gyms, beauty salons and other businesses as essential services exempt from local governors' lockdowns. in britain, , a railway ticket office worker has died off cocovid-19 after reportedlyy contraracting ththe virus aftera man claiming he had the illness spat at her in march. belly mujinga was working at the victoria station in london when she and a female colleague were assaulted by the man, who has yet to be identified. within days, both women fell ill. an investigation has reportedly launched to trace the man's whereabouts. meanwhile, dozens s of refugees from syria, somalia, and afghanistan, who for months had been living in squalid refugee camps in greece, have finally been reunited with family members in britain. the unprecedented rereunion coms after months of lobbying from

refugee rights groups as refugee family reunification in europe has mostly been halted by the pandemic. in russia, president vladimir putin's press secretary has been diagnosed with covid-19 and has been hospitalized. russia's prime minister mikhail mishustin is also recovering from covid-19. president putin announced monday a phased relaxing of restrictions, even as the country is experiencing a surge in coronavirus cases, and has the second highest number of confirmed cases behind the u.s. in spain, health workers at two hospitals in barcelona held protests tuesday demanding better working conditions. many of them held signs that read #rightsinapplause and "we aren't heroes." this is pediatric nurse paula cano. >> it is only now that we are heroes because it is covid-19. is it like that. we are heroes every day of the

year. we face every single virus that exists in the world. but from the outside, that cannot be seen. we continue to carry out the same job day by day, year byby year. amy:y: in bangladesh, garment factories have reopened despite nationwide remain-at-home orders, with workers reporting minimal protections and no enforcement of physical distancing measures. this comes as bangladeshi suppliers say some of the biggest retailers in the fashion industry -- including the gap, urban outfitters, and walmart -- are using the pandemic as an excuse to force manufacturers to sell their products at a deep discount, while withholding some payments for completed orders. in afghanistan, gunmen wearing police uniforms stormed a maternity hospital in the capital kabul tuesday, killing 16 people, including mothers and two newborn babies. the hospital was run by doctors without borders and served the minority hazara community, which has been targeted by isis in past attacks. in eastern afghanistan, a

suicide attacker struck the funeral of a pro-government militia commander, killing 24 people and wounding dozens of others. the taliban denied involvement in the attacks. afghan president ashraf ghani said in response he's ordering his troops to go on the offensive. >> in order to provide security for public places and of thwart attacks and threats from the taliban and other terrorist groups, i'm ordering afghan security forces to switch from an active defense mode to an offensive one and to start a air operations against the enemy. amy: sececretary of state mike pompeoeo has arrived in israel r talks with prime minister benjamin netanyahu and his coalition partner benny gantz. pompeo's trip comes as the trump administration has signaled its support for israel's plan to annex 30% of the occupied west bank in violation of international law. last week, israel announced plans s for abou707000 new homos fofor jewish settlers in the occupied west t bank.

back in ththe united states, the intercept reports a woman in prison -- a won imprisone tiffany died april 29. she reportedly have been quarantined for two weeks after presenting covid 19 symptoms and was later moved into solitary confinement even though her symptoms persisted. she is one of nearly 40 people to have died of covid in new 19 jerersey prisons. atat least 340 incarcerated peoe have died of the disease so far nationonwide. in california,a, "the l.l.a. ti" reports a 17-year-old guatemalan boboy has been held in an immigration and customs enforcement jail for over a year -- the longest-held of the roughly 1800 immigrant childrern in the custody of u.s.

immigratioion authoritieies. such prolonged imprisonment violates the flores agreement, which limits the time immigrant children should be held in such facilities. the trump administration is reportedly refusing to release children to sponsors, including some family members, claiming immigrant children are safer from covid-19 in federal custody. georgia prosecutors who firstst handled the e february shootingf 25-year-old black jogger ahmaud arbery have been placed under investigation by state authorities for the conduct in the case. georgia attorney general chris carr on tuesday announced he had asked the georgia bureau of investigation and federal authorities to look into how local prosecutors possibly held crucial evidence of arbery's killing and refused to make an arrest more than two months past before the attackers, father and son gregory and travis mcmichael, were arrested and charged with murder. the brunswick police reportedly had a copy of the shocking video

as he is chased and confronted by the two common sense february, yet the mcmichael's were not arrested until thursday, two days after video of the shooting was finally released, s sparking massive protest. the father's a former police officer. in kentucky, the family of breonna taylor, a 26-year-old aspiring nurse who was shot by police inside her own apartment have filed a wrongful death, lawsuit against the louisville metro police department. the lawsuit details how police shot taylor at least eight times after they burst into her apartment, unannounced, with a search warrant. the man police were looking for did not live in taylor's apartment and reportedly was already detained by police when officers arrived at the residence on the night of march 13. she had been working as an emergencyy mededical techniciann treating covidid-19 patients. the supreme court hearard oral arguments by telephone tuesday in a pair of cases that will determine whether president trump can continue to keep his

tax returns and private financial records a secret. president trump is resisting subpoenas from the house financial services committee, which is investigating possible money laundering in trump-related property deals, and from the house intelligence committee, which is looking into whether trump's business dealings put him at risk of blackmail by foreign governments. new york prosecutors are also seeking trump's financial records. justice sonia sotomayor noted congress has a long history of subpoenaing presidential records. at one point during tuesday's argument she interrupted chief justice john roberts. >> what we're seeking is presidential finances. you look -- going >> i'm sorry. not presidential finances, we're asking for his personal tax returns before he became president. those are very different things. amy: the justices seem to leave open the possibility they would return the case to lower courts, which wouldd pusush any turnovef

trump's s tax records p past the november election. transgender rights activist aimee stephens has died of kidney disease at the age of 59. stephens was fired from her job at a michigan funeral home in 2013 after she told her colleagues she would begin living as a woman. she was the lead plaintiff in a landmark transgender rights case pending at the u.s. supreme court. stephens traveled to washington from michigan last october for oral arguments. >> i am glad to have been able to bring this befofore the cours and what happened to me was hopefully we can fix that and correct it from this point on. thank you. amy: and former philadelphia mayor wilson goode is calling for r philadelphia to formally apologizize for the 1985 bombing of civilians from the radical, black liberation, anti-police-brutality group move.

today marks the 35th anniversary of the police operation that killed six adults and five children and destroyed over 60 homes. despite mumultiple investigatios finding top ofofficials were grgrossly nenegligent, no one hs been c cminally chcharged. mayor goode, who was in office at the time of the attack and himself has apologized, said an official apology would allow the community to "begin to build a bridge that spans from the tragic events of the past into our future. many in the city still feel the pain of that day. i know i will always feel the pain." and those are e some of the headlines. this is democracacy now!, democrcracynow.org, the quarante report. when we come back, we will spend the hour with naomi klein discscussing how two of the nations top s scientiststs tolde senate committee tuesday that needlessss death would result if states reopen too soon. and we will look at her new

piece in the intercept called "screen nenew deal: under coverf mass death, andrew cuomo calls in thehe billionaires s to buila high-tech dyststopia."." stay with us. ♪ [music break]

amy: "shoorah! shoorah!" by betty wright. the soul and r&b star passed away may 10. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace repoport. i'm amy goodman. i am in new york city, the epicenter of the pandemic, joined by juan gonzalez, broadcasting from his home in new brunswick, new jersey, number two in the country for covid-19 infections. hi, juan [captioning made possible by democracy now!] juan: welcome to all of our listeners and viewers from around the country and around the world. start ine going to washington, d.c., as the president claims u.s. is prepared to transition to greatness and the covid 19 death toll surpasses it would thousand. two of the nation's top scientists told the senate committee tuesday that needless

death would result if states rereen too soooon. the stark warning from the nation's top ininfectious diseae expert dr. anthony fauci and dr. robert r redfield, the directorf the centers fofor disease contrl and prevention, came just a day after nbc news published an unreleased white house report showing a surge of corononavirus cases in heartland u.s. communities, including nashville, tennessee and des moines, iowa. central city, kentucky, topped the list. the report, based on a may 7 internal memo, dirirectly contradicts trumump's claim mony that the number of covid-19 cases is r rapidly declining all around the c country. in a surreal scene, dr. fauci,i, dr. redfield, and food and drugs commissioner dr. stephen hahn alall joined the s senate health committee remotely while they quarantine after beingng exposed to the virus. a staffer at ththe white house

tested positive. republican senator lamar alexander from tennessee, who is also in quarantine after his staffer tested positive, presided over the hearing from his home. of the senators who joined the hearing in person, most democrats wore masks while most republicans did not. republican senator susan collins of maine began the hearing without a mask but put one on during. republican senator dr. rand paul of kentucky -- the first senator known to t test positive for the virus -- did not wear a mask. this is part of what t dr. fauci had to say. >> ourur concern is if statas or citieses or regioions in ththeir attempt t to get back to some em of normality disregard to a greateter degree the checkpoints that we put in our guidelines about when it isis safe to procd in pulling b back on mitigation,

because i fefeel if that o occu, therere is a real r risk that yu will trigger ann outbreak that you may nonot be able to contro. which, in fact, paradoxoxically will set y you back nonot only leleading toto some sufferingg d death thahat could be avoididedt can evev set y y back onon the road trying to get economicc recovevery. it would almost turn the clock back rather than going forward. that is my major concern. amy: dr. fauci s said it i is "e likely than n not" that a vavace will be available inin a year or two. well, for more, we go to new brunswick, new jersey, where we're also joined by nanaomi klein,n, senior correspondent at the intercrcept, author, and a professor at rutgersrs universi. her new piece for the intercept looks at howeal" they profit from ththe pandemic. we will talk about that in a moment. i want to o start with the senae hearing. there we just heard dr. fauci --

this was an absolutely surreal scene. the room, the senate hearing was sort of divided in half. the way you could tell who was democrat and who was r republic, one party is on one side of the room and o one parties on the others, socially distant, is that the democrats were wearing face coverings as opposed to medical masks. the photographers were wearing masks. the republican side of the room -less, putting dr. rand paul, the only senator known to have tested positive for covid 19. yet the man who is leading it, tennessee senator lamar alexander, was leading it from home because his staffer tested positive for covid 19. as he said in his opening remarks, we must open this country. we cannot just work from home, he said in front of his fireplace. comments,o get your not only on this, but also on

the interactions that were very interesting. this was between independent senator bernie sanders of lamont admdmiral questioning bretgigiroir about anyny future vaccine. >> you think we should make the vaccine e when hopefullyly it is created availilable to all regardless of income? or you t think poor r people and working people should be last in line? >> my office is one of thehe offices cocommitted to s servine underserved. we need to be absolutely's certain that if a vaccine orr ineffectiveve preventatative is avaiailable, that reaches all segments of society regagardless of their ability to pay or any other social determinants of health that there may be. >> so whwhat y you'rere tellinge american peoplple today, regardless of incocome, every amererican will be able to gain access to the vaccccine when it comes. >> they should gain access to

itit. i don't control --- >> y you represesented the admistraration thahat makes that decision. cerertainly advdvocate that e everyone a able to recee the vaccine regardless of income or any other circumstance. amy: that is admiral brett giroir being questioned by bernie sanders, who was at that senate hearing remotely. interestingly, admiral brett hisir was the most fuzzy in remote location, which was in his office with many flights behind him. naomi, could you c comment on te contntent of whatt both bernie sanders s asked and the contextf what we're seeing today, what it means about once again exposing the fissures in our society that occurred that were even -- that were there even before this pandemic? >> absolutely. it is great to be with you, amy and juan. sanders ist senatoror

doing isis h highligighting thel and pragmatic absbsurdities of for-profit medicine as he has always done so well. of course, the question around the vaccine is notional at this point because there is not a vaccine. the best c case scenario, we ara couple of years out from that moment where we would bebe talkg ababout univiversal r rollout. when that happens, i think we should all remember jonas salk's famous answer to the question about whether after hee invented the polio vaccine, whether he was -- he was asked whehether it would b be patetented. he said, would you patent thehe sun? i think that shohould be the apprproach we take. but within the system of for-profit medicine at evevery stagage, whether it is the production of essential medical equipment or whether it is the delivery of services, thahat is

responsible for a huge e numberf u.s. response.hthe we heard dr. fauauci you just nw talk about needless mass death if the economy opens up too soon. and it is already opening up too soon in many states. but the truth of the matter is, because of a r refusal to listen to earlier warnings from m expes like him, ththere has alalreadyn needless mass deaths, by some estimates, in excess death of 50,000 people as of today i in e united states because the u.s. government did not l listen toto warnings, was s not looking at what was happepening in the rest of the world come completely blew the head start it had in tackling this virus. juan: naomimi, i want to o ask ,

this whole issue you're raiaisig of a for-profit t health system. wewe are dling with h this cocoronavirus withth actually te major initiativeses that are occurring. one is on testing. we know -- one i is on treatmen. and the third is on vaccines. developediversity recently a saliva test which they are charging, the government approroved, $100 protesest. if you multiply that, the enormousus amounts off money tht is there to be madee by medical expert doors, and either one of these three areas, yet the u.s. government refusing to participate with the european union in some sort of governmental efforts to attack the needs, whether it is testing, vaccine, or cure. this whole issue of the money to be made off the virus, your response to that?? >> well, look.

the health-care industry, which inin many countries that has universal public healtlth care s kindnd of an oxymoron, is saying this as a potential bonanza. i think when you have an administration like the trump administration that is j just lolooking at raw economic indicators like whether stocks are going up and d looking to be able to claim that as someme kid of victotory i in an n election campaign, well, the f fact thata large sector of ththe economy,ye health care industry, sees the potential bonanza and the bonanza is not j just in the rollout of thehese tests but alo in the fact that people e are nt using their for-profit, private healthth insurancece right now because they are too afraid to gogo to the doctor and doctors e nonot even offering in servicesn lots of cases.s. that is a win for them. we are seeing big profits register here. i think they arere really low, frankly -- loaoad, frankly, to

interferere with one of the only profititle industrtries in the country right n now because they want to clclaim that is some k d of victory.. within the testing, i want to the tests tore are find out whether you have the virus but also the antibody test which are going to be a whole other for-profit bonanza. we saw something absolutely absurd happened within the trump administration where they decided that in order to exexpedite the rolollout of f ay test, they would not regulate it at all could just create a kind of free-for-all so you did not have to go -- he did not have to have fda approval, you werere jt sort of a couple of jocks with no real medical expxperience, could rorollout your antibody tests. ththe market was flooded with gagarbe antibodydyests. regulationld, actually matters.

now people don't know whether they can trust these tests at all and we are once again losing valuable time because for-profit medicine does not make any kind of step -- sense. ask about theould political repercussions of the pandemic. obviously, there is still a presidential election in the united states this year. it was a startling remark by jaredd kushner,, the president son-in-law and s senior advisoro "time magazine" this week. he was asked if he thought the election would be held in november. and he said "it is not my decision to m make so i'm nonote i can commit one way or the other, but right now that is the plan." saw the as if he possibility of the election being postponed. a very worrying sign that we are seeing

paragraphs, antidemomocratic por moves around the world, including by govovernment that e trumps se to the kushnene, like netanyahu who has used the pandemic to resololve e fact he had to -- had managed to win any of the elections he has run in. now yes the coalition government . now we are seeing the israeli state has all kinds of draconian measures to secure that hold on power. orban in huhungary is really by decree indefinitely. that worryining ananda fact voting by mamail is one of the only ways you can have election under the circumstances and his government is waging war on the postal service. lots of worrying signs. we have also seen attacks on

democratic rights in new york state by democratic gogovernor,y with the back and forth about whether to take bernie sanders off the ballot. i don't think this would be where youin a context can count on the public to have animal bandwidth to engage in protecting the democratic rights. this is what this is all about. -- a trurueoment of emergency when pplple are worried about whether or not they're going have a job, whether or not they're going to be able to feeeed their kids, there is limited excess capacity to protect your democratic rights. thatat is why we see these kinds of paragraphs in these moments of shock. amy: we are going to be talking more extensively aboutut mail, voting from home and mail in ballots and president trump's attacks on t that,hohough he dos it himself, later this weeeek. we wanted to turn right now to your major piece in the

intercept. you talked about the pandemic shock doctrine beginning to emerge. as we turn to your new report that looksks at how this crisiss more high-tech than previous disasters and how the future we are being rushed into could transform m our lives ininto a "living labororatory for a permanenent -- and higighly profitabable -- no-touch future" this f future waonon display a week ago, during new york governor andrew cuomo's s daily coronavirus briefing when he welclcomed a videoeo visit fromm former goooogle ceo ericic schm, and anannounced schmidwill be heading up a blue-ribbon commission to re-imagine new york state's post-covid reality. >> the p public-private partnerships t that are popossie wiwith the intelligegence of thw yoyorkers is extraordinary.. itit needs to be unleashed. >> well, great. you're the person to help us do that. we all ready. we are all in. we are new yorkers so we are

aggressive about it and ambitious about it and i think we get it. we went through this period and we realized that change is not only imminent, but it can actually be a friend if donene e right way. amy: this comes asas eric schmit has also been selling his services to the military industrial complex. "the new yorork times" reportedn his "pentagon offensive." naomi klein, i would ask if you can comment on knowledge this and particularly lay out your piece in the intercept called "screen new deal: under cover of mass death, andrew cuomo calls in the billionaires to build a high-tech dystopia." lay y out your thesis. >> sure. well, the billionaires i was referring to, he did not just announce that partnership with eric schmidt who will be chairing this blue-ribbobon " new yorkon to "reopen state with an emphasis onn

telehealth, reremote learning, working g from home, increased broadband. that is what they announced duriring that briefing stop also announunced that he w would be outsourcing g the tracing of the virus to michael bloomberg and other mega-millionanaire's -- another mega-millionaire. the day before at the briefing,, announced a partnership with the bill and melinda gates foundation to "reimagine" education. ththere is been sort of praise heaped on these billiononaires, called visionaries over r and or again. and the governor talks about how this is an unprecedented opportunity to put their pre-existing ideas into actioio. in this is what i have described as the shock doctrine previously. we have talked on the show during the pandemic about whahai

would describe as lower tech shock doctrine of f the kind w'e seen before, immmmediately going after social security and immediately bailining out fossil fuelel companies. i want to stresess that all of this is still hahappening. suspending of epa regulations. so t there is still this s lower tech shock doctrine underway with the bailout of these indusustries, the suspending off regulations they did not want anyway, but there is sosothing else going on that eric schmidt really epitomizes. ad this is what i'm calling screen new deal. our is an ideaa that t treats months in isolation, thosese ofs whwho are prprivilegednougugh te self-isosolating - -- and that n an enormousf is privilegegbecause wewe have seen this sharpley whiting economy

and this -- the people were making these calls are not the people who are going to be most at risk. they're calling for other people to be putting themselves at great risk and there is a feeling of being immune to the worst impacts of the virus. that is another issue. what i'm m calling g a screenenw deal r really does is treat this period of isolation, not as what we have e needed to do in ordero save lives -- this is what we thought we were doing, right? flatten the curve. but rather -- and eric schmidt has said this elsewhere. he said it in april in a video call with the economic club of new york. he described what t was happenig now w as a grand experiment inin remomote learning. so all of the parents out there who are listening or watching, you u have been strtruggling wih supporting your kids on google

classroom and zoooom calls and u thought you were just t trying o get to the day. wewell, accordining to googl y u have beenn engaged in grand experiment in remote learning wherere they are getting a great deal of data and figuring g out how to doo this permanently. because ththey actually bebeliee ththis is a better way of educating g kids. or at least, coming back to our earlier conversation, a more profitable way. eric schmidt talked in that clip you displayed there about a allf thee opportunities for private partnerships. what is really talalking about s public money going to tech firms like googlgle, like amazon, to perfrform public functions. once again comome a bonanza a fr the tech compapanies -- who, by the way, have been doing well during the pandemic already y -- where they see h huge opportunitiess in telehealth, in the educationanal markeket in pc schools, in supportiting us

working g from home and learning frfrom home, and t they're not looking for a t traditional reopening but r rather a new paradigm where t t privilegeged clclasses who are ablele to isoe ththemselves basically get everything that we need either delivivered through d digital by driverless vehicle, drone. we a are seeing m massive rebrag effort going on in silicon valley where all o of these technologies that were very, very controvoversial and there s a lot of pusushback way backck n february, whether it is driverless vehicles because there e have been all sorts of accidents oror dronenes, deliveg packages or telehealth because of concerns about secured for patitients' sensitive informatin or the benefits of having our kids in front of screens all day -- i could go on and on. there wawas a lot of -- juan: if i can, i would like to raise something here b both in

terms of remote learning and tetelehealth services. my students at rutgers did a survey -- fellow students on this issue of remote learning. they found -- they did a survey of several hundred students. 85% of them said their ability to concentrate on subject matter had been seriously reduced since the move to remote learning. 65% of them said their homes were not conducive to remote learning. so no one is taking into account t the impactt on te actual quality of the kind of education ththat students are receiving. the other aspect of this i think also is that whehether it is in telehealth services or rememote learning, all of the mataterials then saved by the providers so that whether it is a professor's lecture or whether it is the interview between a doctor and a patient, that is no longer a

private situation. saved to recorded and possible detriment about the professors right as a teacher or a patient's right in their private discussions with t their doctors. concecerns. huguge what is i think a truly toxic combination is the prere-existig for-profit models that siliconon valllleyas beeeen looking at and pushing whwhen it comes to telehealth and remote learning, and the econonomic c crisis thas being offloaded on to the e stas and on to municipalities by washington. so we have had a series of bailout and again anan again, te states a and cities have been shortchahanged. crisisional economic becomemes a local austeritity cs where you no longer have funds

to pay f publicc health and public educacation. and that is wherere the so-called solutions that do allow you to archive information and engage inin what they c call predictive medicine whichh requireses pure health care professionals, supposesedly, or remote learning, where you can archive the videos put online by teachers and they don't have to do it as you j just replay them -- there arere two forces. there is the e desire to cut bak the acacal human beings who are employoyed on an o ongoing basin favor of these one-off big-tickcket paymentnts for siln valley. and what you weree talking about before about these huge inequalities in who is able to workrk comfortably from m home i personally don't think -- i think most studentss are not

enjoyiying this experience. there are huge e inequities i io has access to broadband, who has access to laptop comomputers and tabletet, but also who i is ablo learn well on screen. therere are kids with develolopt disabilities w who have much moe trouble just sitting in frontntf a screen for long periods of time.. the tech companies are very thek to say we can solve technological gaps. we can buy tablets for every kid. that is another bonanza f for them. that is public dollarsrs that ae going to go to paying g for tec. schmidt in his capacity as chair of the defense innovation board and the national s security commission on ai, which is -- he talks ababout it in the " "new k times was go pease where he has been engaged in long -- welcome a couple of years,, p push to increase federal spending on all of these technologies and say, you know, we are losing the a

chihina. arms race to all of these tech companies benefit massssively if there a e big public investments in broadband. those aree thingngs they say thy can solve. what they cannot solvlve is whether kidsds are in a home environment that does nott havaa private space for them to work, that is veryry loud, that is abusive most of f these arare nt things that eric schmidt and google can solve. and they can't solve f for development all disabilitiess. kids need to move around. i thinink we're going to see vey inincomplete so-o-called solutis and solutions obviously that massively benefit private tech. we are not havaving a discussisn about, well, look, if it is t te we are going t to need to be spending more time in our homes and if it is true that accccesso technologygy is a lifeline, then shshould we be t treating the internet as a publicic utility

that we govern, that is governed by our regulations and by democracy? as soon asas you outsourcece the solution to eric schmidt, whoo still has 5.3 billion dollars in alphabet shares, which is a company that owns google, and has holdings in all kinds of tech companies, they're not going to put the public interest questions on the table stop amy: we're going to go to break and come back to this discussion with naomi klein. she has a new piece out at the intercept "screen new deal: under cover of mass death, andrew cuomo calls in the billionaires to build a high-tech dystopia." we will be back with her in a moment. ♪ [music break]

amy: "the damnedest thihing" by beauty pill. this is demomocracy now!, democracynow.org, the war r and peace report.. i'm amy goodman. i i am in new york, the epicentr of the pandemic. juan gonzalez is in new brunswick, new jersey, as is our guest today because they bototh

are profofessors at t rutgers university. naomi klein has now just written a piece for the intercept, "screen new deal: under cover of mass death, andrew cuomo calls in the billionaires to build a high-tech dystopia." i want to go back to tuesday surreal senate health committee hearing where the chair was the remotetely because his staffer d tested positive for covid. those who were testifying were all remote in various levels of quarantine. we're going to go to north carolina republican senator richard burr was criticizing the cdc, the centers for disease control, for being too slow to develop and implement surveillance tracking. this is burr talking to centers for disease control director, dr. robert redfield. we also hear some off-screen barking. >> we have seen the private sector go out and used datata progress to track the

and spread of coronavirus around the world. why is the cdc not contracted with private sector technology companies to try to use t their totools for bibio surveillalanc? >> this is under critical review now. we do have contracts with some of the pririvate secr grgroups w to t try to makake the type o of availalability of data that wewe have seen with f florida availie in a all of our jurisdictions across the country. anand in the process of mamaking ththat happen. >> am hopeful we w won't just tk about surveillance, we will actually execute it and that of a believable amount of money that we provided for you t that they will show some benefit to the american people. redfieldhere you have being questioned by burr. naomi klein is our gueuest for the arkham senior respondent at the intercept. if you can talk about what he's asking about surveillance, also

just as we came to the show piece one bbc did a israel turning surveillance tools on itself that they developed for palestinians and then turning it on themselves to track people d during the pandemic. your thoughts, naomi?? >> we talked about that a little bit earlierer. israel has been doing this from thee beginning and there h have been lawsuits about their use of tracacking apps. but because well beyond that. ii think o one of the things important to ununderstand abobot isisrael is the e technology tha they use inn their surveveillane for the most partrt it is palestinians who are ununder this constant state of surveillance, but as you say, the bbc story is talking about a kind of migration o of t those surveillance technologies into it being used against israelis.

these are all technologies thaht israel looks to exportrt. ththere's a a huge amount of cross-s-pollination between pole forces,military intelligence services going t to israel, communicatining with israeli intelligence where all of these technologies are often migrate e to thehe rest of the d are sold by israeleli companiess a solution we saw after september 11. i think a lot of what we're seeing follows a pattern that the harvard professor who wrote "the age of surveillance capitalilism" talks ababout how before the september 1 11 attac, there had been an aggressive move to protect consumer privacy against increased surveillance by tech companies.

and that immediatelely after the attacks, there was rather a very aggressive push h by governmento collaborate with tech companies to get at the access -- to get access t to the same data they were worried about the tech companies mining before the attacks. and so now w we are inin a momet where there was a huge e amountf concernn a about w what is calld surveillanance capapitalism andw many people who have been raraising those alararms are go, we letaybe it is ok if our governrnments cocollaborateh tech companies to store this very, very sensitive data about us. i wawant to o be clear. i i think there is absolutelelya rolele, an important rolole f fr tetenology in n figuring out how we're going to live under these extraordinary circumstances will stop at the questionon is whethr tech companies and government get the kind of cararte blanche that they got in 2001 to massively invadede our privacy. where is this data going t to be stored?

who will havave access to it? australilia has rolled out o onf these apps very quickly and it turns out that amazon is contntrolling ththe data.. knonow, that clip i think is a very worrying onone. the other thing i think we need to b be acutely aware of i ia lt of thehe narrative we heard eary thattut countries successfully control the virus -- at least much more successfully than the united states -- a lot of it was attributed to these kinds of apps, this kindnd of surveillll. ththat narrativeve is a very convenient one for these tech companieies. in many cases, it erases the role of a functioning public health care sysystem. the fact it t was not nearly an app placed voluluntarily on people's funds. but mu more impmportantly, welll ststaffed public h health systsm and allowowed human tracingng

tracking of the virus -- which means s a humaman being, not an alert on yououphone but a human being called you -- a human being in your cocommunity, s soe whom you might trustst who speas your language, and says, ok, may have come in contact with this virus. what would you need to be ablele to self-quarantine? can we get you a hotel room? can we help you t to make sure that your kids a are cared for. thisis is the kind of human work and job creation that it actually takes. what we are being sold now, whether with the idea that everything is going to be solved with more surveillancnce and an app for remote lending a telehealth, is really taking the humans out of the equation. it is humans who are setting up the systems. it is human -- whether it is the teachers in their homes or the paparents in theirir homes who e helping students learn right now, it is notot just google classroom doingg i it, but humas are being erased from this

storory. and we are not hearing the kinds of human solutions t tha with proper control over good technology, we could actually come up with some viaiable modes here. juan:: in your article in the intercept, youou talk about this new form of yellll peril that eric schmidt was peddling, that now it is china that is the threat when n it comes to artificial intelelligence. the united states is f falling behind. it dovetails with trump blaming for the trade gap of thehe ununited states. what about this issue of artificial intelligence and whether we are in a new space race with china over it? >> absolutely. somey article, i quote byuments that were foia'd privacyand electroronic

information center. they got a trope of f documentns out of the national security , c cai, one ofi the two commissions that eric schmidt chairs and it adviseses congreress on ways that itit can ,ncrease its uses of technhnoloy particularly ai but not exclusively. it is all framamed in this yellw periril language. china is on the verge of beatatg silicon valley in the technology race that began in silicocon valley. basically, t the narrative is american innovation is responsible for these technologies. of course, silicon valley tataks much of the credit but as wee know, a lot of it comes from public research and a lot of it comes from military research. but because china does not have -- same privacy concerns

indeed, have a government that isis erecting a a high-tecech surveillance state -- and because china hasas leapfroroggd over a l lot of what this report called legacy s structures, so they go directly to cashless, digital payments. they are going dirirectly to telehealth becauause there is aa big shortage of doctors. amy: we have 20 seconds. >> b basically, the ideaea is tt china is leaping ahead of t the u.s. in the ononly way to o figt back is that a china-style surveillance state here in the united states. that is the message that schmidt has been peddling for a long time now. amy: we want to thank you for being with us. there's so much in the peace that people can read. we will link to it. naomi klein isis senior correspondenent at thehe interc. the piece is called "screen neww deal under cover of mass s death, andrdrew cuomo calls in n the billionaires to bubuild a high-tech dystopia."

that does it for our show. democracy now! is working with as few people onsite as possible. the majority of our amazing team is working from home. 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 w york ays.

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