09/15/21 09/15/21 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from new york, this is democracy now! >> thank you all very much and thank you to 40 million americans, 40 million californians, thank you for rejecting this recall. amy: california governor gavin newsom has soundly defeated a right-wing attempt to remove him from office. we will go to sacramento for the latest on the failed recall. then to afghanistan where new evidence has emerged showing a

recent u.s. drone strike that killed 10 innocent civilia, including seven children. the pentagon claimed it was a righteous attack to prevent an isis-k bombing but "the new york times" reports was targeted the car of an aid worker carrying jugs of water. >> i lost my brother's, my brother's three sons, four of my nephews. we cannot even find the bodies in the strike. we want justice. american military must hear our voices and never do this again. amy: we to a clinical social worker who spent years helping undocumented 9/11 responders and cleanup workers. and we look at why apple has released an emergency software update from 1.6 billion apple products after researchers found the israeli-based mercenary spyware company nso group was using a flaw in apple's to

secretly gate access to devices. all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. california governor gavin newsom has handily defeated a recall effort with just over 64% of voters casting "no" ballots with two thirds of votes counted. the failed recall attempt, organized by right-wing opponents of newsom, cost close to 3 million -- cost taxpayers close to 300 lien newsom's main dollars. challenger was anti-immigrant, anti-science conservative talk show host larry elder, who spread false election fraud claims ahead of tuesday's results. we will have more on this drive from california after headlines. president biden will call on world leaders to commit to a goal of vaccinating 70% of the global population within a year.

the ambitious target, set to be formally announced during an upcoming summit, is currently very far from current vaccination rates in poorer countries with limited access to vaccines. the world health organization is warning that most of africa has been left behind in the pandemic recovery efforts, as wealthier countries and drug companies are blocking the fair distribution of vaccines. >> more than 5.7 billion doses have been administered globally but only 2% of those have been administered in africa. this leaves people at high risk of diseases and death exposed to a deadly virus against which many other people around the world enjoy protection. amy: a who official said this week a vaccine hub established in south africa may take up to a year to replicate moderna's vaccine as talks with the pharmaceutical company on sharing information have stalled. a recent public citizen report said the biden administration

has the authority to unilaterally share the recipe for moderna's vaccine with the world because the u.s. helped fund it. meanwhile, britain is the latest country to announce booster shots for people 50 and above and other more vulnerable groups. the u.n. has called for a halt on third doses amid the worsening vaccine apartheid between rich and poor countries. here in new york, two judges have temporarily put on hold vaccine mandates for ste healthorkers and new york ty teachers. health workers argue receiving the vaccine violates their religious beliefs. poverty rates in the u.s. fell in 2020 thanks to government assistance during the pandemic, including stimulus checks and unemployment aid. the census bureau said tuesday the u.s. supplemental poverty rate fell over 2.5 percentage points to 9.1% despite the highest unemployment numbers since the great depression. bernie sanders, chair of the

senate budget committee, tweeted -- "when government responds to the needs of the working class, millions of families are lifted out of poverty." sanders added -- "we must not stop here. we must pass the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill and invest in working families." president biden was in colorado tuesday to pitch his infrastructure plans in the wildfire-ravaged, drought-stricken state. pres. biden: communities that nearly one in three americans call home have been struck by the weather disasters in the past few months. hurricanes in the gulf coast are enough -- to the eastern seaboard, wildfires tearing it apart. droughts and heat waves across the country devastating farmers and ranchers and draining the colorado river. in addition to the lost lives, lives shattered, extreme weather cost american last year $99 billion. amy: biden's remarks came as a

high risk flood alert has been issued in louisiana as tropical depression nicholas trenches the state with heavy rain and winds as many communities are still reeling from the destruction of hurricane ida. in haiti, a political crisis is deepening after prime minister ariel henry fired the country's top public prosecutor, hours after the same prosecutor said he was seeking charges against prime minister henry over the july assassination of president jovenel moïse. prosecutor bed-ford claude said henri had communicated with a key suspect on the night moise was killed. meanwhile, many haitians are still struggling to recover from the devastation wrought by the 7.2 magnitude earthquake that struck one month ago. >> as you can observe, we have not received help from anyone. my house was destroyed. we have not received help. people who live here are helping us to rebuild this church. amy: tensions are ratcheting up on the korean peninsula as south

korea fired a submarine-launched ballistic missile earlier today, in response to a ballistic missile test by north korea just hours earlier -- its first since march and a breach of u.n. sanctions. two days earlier, pygyang tested aong-range uise miile. present biden eviously sd he was open to diplomacy with north korea but denuclearization talks between the two countries have not resumed since negotiations between trump and kim jong-un broke down in 2019. back in the united states, the justice department charged former intelligence and military three officials after they admitted to helping the united arab emirates build a hacking program. the hackers, who provided the services without an export license, are also accused of stealing personal identifying information and developing a hacking tool that is able to infect a mobile device without the user having to click on anything the justice department has filed an emergency motion urging a federal judge to temporarily block texas' near-total ban on abortions. the doj last week sued texas

over the law, which went into effect september 1. the legislation bars abortions around six weeks into a pregnancy, without an exception for rape or incest, and allows anyone in texas to sue patients, medical workers, or even a patient's family or friends who "aid and abet" an abortion. meanwhile, reproductive rights advocates led a protest outside the maryland homof supreme court justice brett kavanaugh, one of five conservative justices who refused to halt the texas law. a group of senate democrats introduced new voting rights legislation tuesday after reaching a compromise with conservative west virginia democrat joe manchin. the freedom to vote act includes a ban on partisan gerrymandering, universal no-excuse mail-in voting, automatic and election day registration, two weeks of early voting, and makes election day holiday. the bill, however, does away with some of the provisions of the sweeping for the people act, including the creaon of a voter id requirement, which voting advocates say disproportionately targets low

income and communities of color. but the id requirement would be far less stringent than those many states are trying to impose. it's unclear whether democrats can convince republicans to vote 10 for the bill, prompting renewed calls to abolish the filibuster. and in new york, more than a dozen elected officials visited rikers island this week following repeated reports of the worsening condions inside the jail complex, including skyrocketing violence, shortage of staff, and chronic medical neglect. at least 10 people have died at rikers so far this year. following monday's visit, new york assemblymember emily gallagher tweeted -- "what i witnessed was a humanitarian crisis. a horror house of abuse and neglect." and this is new york assemblymember jessica gonzález-rojas speaking monday after touring rikers. >> people have been stuck inside for days, for weeks, for months without a court hearing, without

being able to be transported to court, without medical care. i just witnessed an attempted suicide. nobody deserves it. these are human beings. amy: the new york governor also visited rikers this week. and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman in new york, joined by my co-host juan gonzález in new brunswick, new jersey. hi, juan. juan: hi, amy. welcome to all of our listeners and viewers from around the country and around the world. amy: californians overwhelmingly rejected a republican-led recall effort against democratic governor gavin newsom on tuesday. the failed recall attempt cost close to $300 million in taxpayer dollars and was seen as a battle against the far right. speaking from the california democratic headquarters in

sacramento, newsom thanked voters and criticized former president trump's claim the election was rigged. >> i want to focus on what we said yes to as a state. we said yes to science, yes to vaccines, yes to ending this pandemic. we said yes to people's right to vote without fear of fake, fraud, or voter suppression. we said yes to women's fundamental constitutional right to decide for herself what she does with her body, her fate, and future. we said yes to diversity. we said yes to inclusion. we said yes to pluralism. we may have defeated trump, but trumpism is not dead in this country. the big lie january 6 insurrection come all the voting suppression efforts happening across this country, what is happening with the assault on

fundamental rights, constitutionally protected rights of women and girls, is a remarkable moment in our nation's history. amy: the attempt to recall newsom was seen as a referendum on several key issues, and democrats at the national level closely watched the race ahead of the 2022 midterms. early exit polls show latinos made up 25% of the electorate, responding in part to the anti-immigrant views of newsom's leading republican challenger, right-wing radio host larry elder. elder conceded tuesday night but vowed to run again, saying -- "we may have lost the battle. but we're going to win the war." governor newsom faces re-election next year. for more, we go to sacramento, the capital of california. we are joined by sasha abramsky, the ft coast correspdent for the nation who has been closely following this recall attempt. welcome back to democracy now! so the final vote is not in, but it looks like a two to one trouncing, not something the

democrats thought along the way. can you talk about what decided this and elevating this to a national level and taking on elder as a surrogate for trump, essentially? >> good morning. you are right. i think most people did not predict this. i certainly did not. i was following th polls for the last three months and writing about what could happen. over the last three months, there were these two different minds going on. one line was all voters in california -- from the get-go, newsom was ahead because this is a very blue state and broadly speaking his views joel with the majority of californians ideas about what kind of society they want to live on. the second line was likely voters. in july and august, you saw this sort of massive contractio of newsom's lead. a lot of polls, newsom was trailing.

he was not crossing the 50% threshold to survive the recall. i think what happened in the last month is californians began paying attention. california makes it easy to vote. you do not have to jump through hoops like many of these states. in california, you get mailed a ballot. the state makes it easy you to vote. as the balance came into people's mailbox, people started realizing what s at stake. that did not means many people were going to vote as in the presidential election but insteaof it being a low voter turnout catastrophically, more people said, i am aikely voter. this is easy. just mail in the valid -- ballot. elder's policies to the right of greg abbott's policies in texas. this guy is so far right wing. there is a real risk california could almost accidentally

stumble into a far right governorship. i think newsom played it very well. he used elder let as his foil and matched focus and coalesced his attention on that issue. juan: first of all, looking back at it, this could have been the best thing that could have happen politically to newsom, especially in light of the fact there is a governors race in california next year. that means not only has he established a closer to that election a popular support he has, but also saw he has got $24 million additional leftover from his fundraising for this campaign for that mayor's race. i want to ask about that. a lot of the pundits were wrong, claiming latino voters in california were not that interested yet we find a significant increase in the

percentage of the vote that was from the latino community in this recall election. >> yeah. i think both of those are important points. newsom is a formidable -- fundraising has never been one of his problems. it goes into 2024 or 2022 with a huge -- the other thing, when newsom was riding high at the start of the pandemic i can the spring of 2020 when he shut the state down early and stop the initial surge, people talked about him as a viable presidential candidate most of the pandemic dragged on and is responses seem to be less succeful and the opposition to the lockdowns grew more vocal. he sort of conventional wisdom was newsom's moment in the spotlight had gone. he had messed up enough you would no longer be a top-tier

candidate. i think what yesterday showed is someone with that kind of fundraising potential in somebody who is that able to almost swat away trumpism in the trump claims about a rigged election and someone, you have to consider him as a potential presidential candidate maybe in 2024, but far more likely in 2028. that is number one. the other issue about the latino vote. you are absolutely right. the last many weeks there was a series of articles saying latinos were disengaged. "the new york times" had a huge piece, either were not voting in large numbers or were more right leaning than expected. that did not happen. if you look at the coalition that supported newsom yesterday, that coalition is fairly much the same coalition that put him in power with a 24 point win in 2018. newsom is going to win either by 2425 or 26%.

it is a loweroter turnout but not a catastrophically lower voter turnout. that is important to note all of the moving parts of the complex democratic coation in california came out to vote yesterday. amy: if you can talk about democrats and the latinx population and overall progressives in california have been critical of newsom for and how he made -- may change in this course. for example, run relationships with ice as well as the house, particularly made difficult during this time of massive fires through california. close newsom in many ways has run to the left of governor. he has talked the talk on the environment though he is n always wt the law stop he certainly is doing big and bold things on housing. $12 billion in stifling housing

unhoused. over. 160,000 plus homeless people in california, is a criminal, about half a million people, on any given night there are 5000 people sleeping on the streets. this is extraordinary. newsom has put in a vast amount of money in the last year trying to solve those issues. what are the issues he can run on -- environment, wildfires posted california has had a series of catastrophic wildfires for six years in a row. housing is up there. also things like access to health care. this is a very expensive state in many ways but one way that newsom is making it less expensive is his putting in place you're signing a series of la that make health care more affordable, not just for the uninsured, but people using the california health exchange. so you're getting put in place

on health care, housing, on various other social programs the beginning something that looks like a social demoacy in california, that your sing is series of policies being created and pushed that more resemble maybe scandinavian social democracy than texas or mississippi or georgia. that is obviously a low bar because nobody was to look like texas or mississippi or georgia. what i mean is california is charting its own course. it is doing so in a way that can have age or ramification nationally. lifornia is putting in place a template that is going to produce a more comprehensive social safety net. if it works, it is going to produce an extraordinary momentum nationally to enact some of these measures. amy: we want to thank you, sasha

abramsky, for joining us, the so-called left coast correspondent for the nation. next upcoming afghanistan, recent u.s. drone strike killed 10 innocent civilians, including seven children. the pentagon has claimed it was a "righteous attack." stay with us. ♪♪ [music break]

amy: this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman with juan gonzalez. we turn now to afghanistan. it's been one month since the taliban seized control of kabul after afghan president ashraf ghani fled the country. on tuesday, u.s. secretary of state tony blinken defended the u.s. withdrawal from afghanistan during a second day of questioning on capitol hill. blinken was grilleabout a u. drone strike in kabul on august 29. it is the last drone strike before the withdrawal. the pentagon claimed the strike

targeted a facilitator with the militant group isis-k who was preparing to attack the kabul airport, but local residents said the strike killed 10 afghan civilians, including seven children and zemari ahmadi, an afghan engineer who had worked since 2006 for the california-based charity group nutrition and education international. the pentagon claims surveillance video show zemari loading what they thought were explosives into a car at an unknown compound earlier in the day. but video evidence obtained by "the n york times" found zemari was actually loading canisters of water at the charity's office. the pentagon has described the drone attack as a righteous strike. but on tuesday, secretary of state blinken acknowledged t u.s. is not certain who was targeted. >> the guy the biden administration drone was he an

aid worker or isis-k operative? >> the administration is reviewing that strike. i am sure full assessment -- close you don't know? >> i can't speak to that in this setting. close so you don't know where you won't tell us. >> i don't know because we are reviewing it. >> you think you would know before you of someone with a predator drone whether he is an aid worker or an isis-k -- the thing is, this isn't just you. it has been going on for administration after administrati. amy: we go now to kabul, afghanistan, where we are joined by matthieu aikins of "the new york times." headlined "times investigation: his most recent piece isheadlined "times investigation: in u.s. drone strike, evidence suggests no isis bomb." talk about going to the family's home where the car was and describe what you learned happened that day august 29.

>> august 29, it was the strike in the evening. we went the next morning. myself and photoapher for "the times." we arrived at the scene. it was the courtyard of the house were a car had been hit. ere was a small crater, flesh and blood splattered around the interior of the courtyard. we spoke to the family that lived there and they were extremely distraught because they had just lost 10 members of a family, cluding seven children. it was immediately apparent the work civilian casualties -- there were civilian casualties. we followed up with the investigation the past two weeks, we put together evidence that showed this was interpreted as a series of suspicious moves from the sky was according to the coworkers and colleagues, just an ordinary day for the aid worker. juan: the continued stonewalling

effectively of the government in terms of what they have found out sense, it is really remarkable. basic stuff like, people died and there's a big difference between 10 and the official account the u.s. is still saying of three civilians. they have not quite explained why they claimed mr. ramadi was driving into -- mr. ahmadi was driving into an unknown complex which was actually the aid agency's headquarters in kabul. and also they're not even making clear whether they checked if he was an employee of this u.s.-based aid group. what do you make of his continued must refusal to explain the results of what they

have investigated so far? >> certainly, they have a lot to answer for in explain but they are conducting an investigation and typically when the military does this sort of instigation you wait for the results. they will be classified but probably will brief them to lawmakers and eventually release a redacted version of the investigation. at this point, i don't think we'll hear anything officially until that is completed. amy: on september 1, the chair of the joint chiefs of staff general mark kelly described the drone attack as a righteous strike. we know there were secondary explosions. because there were, there is reasonable conclusion to be made that there was explosives in the vehicle. at least one of those people that were killed was an isis facilitator. where there other skill? yes. who they are, we don't know.

we will try to sort through that. we believe the procedures at this point we think the procedures were correctly followed and it was a righteous strike. amy: that is general mark milley. evidence suggests there was not a second explosion. >> we gathered photos and videos taken by journalists and visited the courtyard multiple times. we share the evidence with three weapons experts who said the image was that with the hellfire missile. they pointed to a small crater and the damage from the metal fragments from the warhead. this plastic melted as result of a car fire triggered by the missile strike. all three experts also pointed out what was missing, any evence of the large secondary explosions described by the pentagon. no collapsed or blown out walls, putting next to the trunk with the alleged explosives.

no sign a second car was overturned by a large blast. no destroy vegetation. all of this matches what was told to us, a single explosion that triggered a fire. amy: that was based on matthieu aikins's investigation of the u.s. drone strike. if you could elaborate on that and also talked about why the children, why there were seven children in zemari's car? >> the investigation was a team effort. we had experts look at the photos and videos we were able to collect from the scene. that was really the military's justification from what we learned for taking a strike. this was an imminent threat to the airport. they took the shot inside a crowded residential neighborhood where there was a very high likelihood of civilian casualties.

that is kind of an assumption would have been fair in that circumstance. the way they would have justified it this was a car bomb or threat. i think it is pretty conclusive there was not a larger explosive in this car. now, what happened was zemari's family -- she lived with his three brothers and there were a lot of kids. when he came home every day from work, i was told by his broer he would pull up and the kids would run out excited to see him and get in the car and one would sit behind the wheel and that would bak the car in the courtyard. that is what happened, those kids were in the car when it was struck by hellfire missile. that is why seven were killed. juan: what is -- from yo reporting and afghanistan, what does this tell us about the limitations of these drone strikes, the inherent problems that exist when you rely

essentially on aerial surveillance to determine who you strike or not versus on the ground real human intelligence? >> so this is not an isolated incident. weave had civilian casualties from drone strikes many times over the years. the fact is, this happened in kabul i was able to go to the scene and we were able to do the story in two exposed up normally, this happens in remote, dangerous areas, difficult to access. often all we have is the military's official version of the story. but this was an isis facilitator come explosives and the car. the danger with the strikes -- again, last drone strike of the 20-year american war but the war on terror continues and there will be more drone strikes as promised by the administration over the horizon role in places

like afghanistan. the danger is we will have more of these incidents, re children killed, that we will not really know about it because, again, we won't have access to what is happening on the ground. amy: these drone strikes lessen the chance of u.s. soldiers being killed as they fly over from another country as you said, over the horizon capability they're talking about. i want to go to one last video you obtained. security, footage from the office of the u.s.-based a group nutrition and education international where zemari ahmadi worked earlier in the day. >> 2:35 p.m., ahmadi pulls out a hose and he and a coworker fell into containers with water. earlier that morning we saw ahmadi bring the same empty plastic containers to the office. there was a water shortage in this neighborhood,'s family said, so he regularly brought

water home from the office. amy: we are looking at this closed-circuit footage of him gathering this water to bring home most the u.s. apparently was monitorin him for hours that day. close yet, they said ey were surveilling him with a reaper drone. again, what they see from the sky was happening on the ground were not necessarily the same thing. in this case, this is a man who had loaded water in the car to bring home to his family. amy: thank you for being with us, matthieu aikins, kabul-based printer meeting writer to "the new york times" and "the new york times magazine." his investigation into the drone strike headlined "in u.s. drone strike, evidence suggests no isis bomb." coming up, we go to a clinical

social worker helping undocumented 9/11 responders and cleanup workers 20 years later even to this day. stay with us. ♪♪ [music break]

amy: all women marriott you banned from the bronx. -- marriott you banned from the bronx. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman with juan gonzalez. this past weekend marked the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks that killed 3000 people, including hundreds of immigrants that worked low-wage jobs cleaning and restaurant jobs in the world trade center towers. as many as 6000 undocumented immigrants later take part in the recovery and cleanup efforts. today we are continuing our coverage of the impact of 9/11 as we look at those who went uncounted in death as they did in life because they were undocumented. others feared deportation and didn't seek medical help. this is maria penafiel, an

immigrant from colombia, who helped in the cleanup efforts after e 9/11 attacks. she is speaking in the new documentary "9/11's unsettled dust." >> i was working most thedon't gi has mea to wearor cleang. st otheeople caning th buildingre undocment. en you speak abohe traum for me it w terribl amy: youan see o full sh on "11'unsettledust" la -- odecracy nohat ao

feures thenvestigave wk of o very o juan gonzalez o shouldin a go surprise fowh happene to so many a a resu of the carcinogec and adly substans in the aftermatof the aack. wellnow somef the iigrant 9/11 resnders ancleanup workers e callinfor lawmakerto estabsh a patay for legal residency that could cover as many as 2000 immigrants. has said she is actively -- congresswoman alexandria ocasio-cortez has said she is actively exploring the possibility of re-introducing a bill to do this. a bill that the man she beat for congress, joe crowley, had introduced. for more, we are joined by rosa bramble caballero, a licensed clinical social worker who has helped immigrant 9/11 workers for 15 years and hosts meetings at the basement of her office in queens. thank you for being with us. what should we understand -- this whole idea that those who go uncounted in life go

uncounted in death? maybe we don't even know the exact number of people who died at the world trade center. >> good morning, amy, thank you for having me. actually, with the undocumented workers who worked at ground zero in the recovery efforts, many have died or have returned to their country and there is really no record because no one is really keeping record of these workers who really sacrificed their lives. as many of us were in our homes and in our safety, they were out there cleaning up, exposing themselves to so many toxins. they had a spit of recovery. they wanted to be part of the effort. and now 20 years later, they're pretty much left in the dark. like one of the workers said,

"we have been forgotten." and because after 20 years many of them could not work and leads to status of citizenship -- at least the status of citizenship would not only acknowledge the work, but would also help them have other options, other types of work. some of them have returned to their countries and have come back to the borders in order to be able to get medical monitoring. but they are undocumented. they were present in such a devastating day. we have not really honor them as we should. juan: rosa maria, there were two categories of undocumented workers. there were those who were in the towers when the attack happened. there were many who worked, for

instance, in the restaurants window on the world at the top of world trade center and many who worked in maintenance of the buildings as well who work direct effect of that day. but as you mentioned, there were people who were brought in because every single building in lower manhattan had to be decontaminated or cleaned up after the attacks from the contaminants. and the city of new york basically left it up to each individual landlord to do it some cleanup, not any kind of checking or safety precautions were instituted. so what has happened to both of these categories in terms of the compensation funds that happened that up? are they eligible? what has happened as far as you know for the people you talked to? close i have network directly with the survivors, if you will, workers who were actually workers of the world trade

center. the windows of the world is so far or -- so forth or maintenance. my work has been mostly with those with the recovery and you have -- cleanup effort. some have received compensatio under the law but prior to that, as you were saying, these were different buildings and they were trying to get compensation initially a lot of that money since they had to go to a private attorney who took 33% of what little they were getting, so they were pretty much left with really minimal income. the group that was working as cleanup workers under the james zadroga act, some of them have received funds. some are still waiting.

if you think about compensation, there is one worker i am thinking aut in whi isfter woing the for soanyonths -- and by thway, t undocunted worrs werhe la group o pple wh word in the zone inround zero the recove effor ended i june002 and lot ofhem remained trentil je. so 're talking aut over x mont of work thisne parcular worr, he received $,000. he basicallyannot work anyme. first, he isndocumend, but the asthma, threspiraty challenges that he has developed as aesul, the compensati wa $5200. ich heo longeras. hes a fami toupport it is t rlly -it doe't

rely, how ould i s it, compente for tffor that a loof them de. some othem have t received the fds. i spoke to aorker a couple of daysgo he s affect by rricane i in eens. lot of our workers work in ckson ights and areo see peg is n the cgress -- alexandria ocasio-cortez is now the congressepresentive. a lot ofhem haveeen afcted. e was teing mefter allf the ars, she stillas not receivednythingrom the compsation fd. amy: ros-- >> we are not getti aeffo anymor weon't hear athing. what do is itill havpeople ming in ter all eseears whoave been fearful cause of

their immigrion status to come rward and received dical monitoring, come forward d apply for compensation that they rightly deserve and ought to receive. amy: rosa, if you could talk about also the push for these cleanup workers to get a path to citizenship. and also if you can talk about the children. the children of the dead undocumented immigrant cleanup workers. >> yh. the bill, the 9/11 immigration worker freedom act was introduced in 2017 and it was bad on one of the workers who was detained by ice. we had a few congress representatives who came forth and the governor to pardon him.

the bill was introduced. the bill really is a pathway to begin citizenship. that those who worked in the area, who were driving vehicles, have the right to readjust their status. that is what we are talking about. because without that, these workers do not really have a life and neither do their children. we have workers who have died. i'm thinking of rafael hernandez who was a volunteer firefighter. he rescued people on that day. he died in 2010. right before -- he was tell me how ill he was feeling and he died because of 9/11-related illnesses. his son, who is now in mexico,

is in college. he can't even go to college in fact. there is no funding. there's nothing available for the children of undocumented workers who died because they sacrificed their lives in this recovery effort. i reached out to different organizations that i'm not going to name and because the parent was undocumented, these children are not getting the support and help they need. i have one family who had to move out of the state because the parent was so ill -- he is alive, but he can't really work anymore. his children are struggling. he calls me says, where can i get help? we tried at least through the standing organizations that ought to be helpi the children of the 9/11 recovery workers, and no one is. i believe -- we believe with this bill, it would allow f these workers to not only help

themselves, but certainly help their families. because as immigrants, they are here sacrificing their lives for their children. for the children to get an education and move ahead. juan: rosa, quickly, could you tell us how you got involved? you are a clinical social worker. you have been doing a lot of this out of your home. what prompted you to get involved in these efforts? >> is not out of my home, it is out of my office. in 2006, a couple of colleagues and i were contracted actually a subcontract of the city to do after reach, to latinx immigrants who worked at ground zero because many people were not coming forth. all of the funds ended in 2010, precisely the 10th anniversary of 9/11.

early in that year, a couple of previous client called me and said, there is notng available now. there is no place for us to meet now. there are no organizations helping us. you need help us? at that point, some of the conversation was starting to gone forth and navigating and just coming together to support each other, many of them do not have families here. so really creating community. as an immigrant myself -- i am from venezuela -- i think my mother probably would have worked at ground zero. it is really the commitment to my community that i felt this is something i needed do. so i have been doing this as a voluntr for really all of these years. amy: rosa, thank you so much for being with us. rosa bramble caballero, a bilingual licensed clinical social worker who has helped 9/11 cleanup immigrant workers

for 15 years. those cleanup workers in so much need. to see more of her story and what she has done, you can see this amazing film that has aired on pbs called "9/11's unsettled dust." our extended discussion on this last week at democracynow.org. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman with juan gonzalez. apple has released an emergency software update to fix a security flaw in its iphones and other products researchers found was being exploited by the israeli-based nso group to infect the devices with its pegasus spyware. over 1.65 billion apple products in use around the globe were vulnerable to the spyware since at least march. apple said vulnerable devices could be hacked by receiving a malicious pdf file that users

don't even have to click, known as a "zero-click" exploit. the flaw was discovered by the university of toronto's citizen lab, which found the hack in the iphone records of a saudi political activist. earlier this year, a massive data leak revealed pegasus software had targeted the phones of thousands of journalists, activists, and political figures around the world for foreign governments and nso group clients. we end today's show with ronald deibert. he is the director of the citizen lab and at the university of toronto. he is also author of the recent book "reset: reclaiming the internet for civil society." thank you so much for joining us at this early hour as you speak to us from vancouver. can you talk about the significance of this flaw, how it was discovered, and what it is doing to so many billions -- to 1.6 billion apple products?

>> thank you for having me. we examine t phones of a saudi activist who is part of the research study that we are running in march 2021 and determined there iphone had been hacked with nso groups pegasus spyware. nso group is a mercenary surveillance company based in israel that has been the subject of numerous prior citizen lab reports. we have shown their technology, which is marketed to governments to assist in law enforcement and national security investigations is in fact widelabused. it is used to target broad sections of civil society, including journalists, human rights defenders, lawyers, and others. this was yet another case of an abuse of this type of spyware. this particularxploit that we discovered on the saudi activist phone was extremely

sophisticated. it is what is known as a zero click zero day, and i mean the surveillance technology could be implanted on a target's device without any visible interaction on the part of the user, no evidence this is happening. it exploits a flaw in apple's im essage application that even at the time apple did not know about. this means any government client using nso group's spyware could silently take over any apple devi in the wor. as you say, there are 1.60 5 billion apple users around the world. this affected all apple ios, not goest, watch os devices. we notified apple of the discovery and they moved very quickly within six days to push out this emergency software update, which takes care of the

problem we estimate this has been active since february 2021. what this case illustrates is a gain -- is this widespread abuse we have associated with nso group and other companies like it, their technology. juan: ronald deibert, could you talk a little bit more about nso group's track record and other issues of cyber espionage? >> sure. so we and others are partners at amnesty international, other research grouphave been tracking broadly speaking commercial spyware market for many years now. nso group first came on our radar, you will recall, back in 2016 when we discovered it was being used by the united arab emirates to target a human rights defender.

we have since documented extensive abuses othis company's technology. not surprisingly when you have no regulation over a marketplace like this, and a company really is dng no due diligence -- they are simply an it for the prit -- you will have extensive abuse because they are selling to government clients that lack oversight over their security agencs, that lack transparency, public accountability. most of them are dictators, countries like saudi arabia which we know has a terrible human rights track record. they will take this technology and go after their adversaries, whoever they may be. that could include you or amy. we have seen extensive targeting of journalists using nso's technology. it is not surprising we are able to do this, although, we have an

extremely talented technical team at the citizen lab that does this investigation. when this type of technology is sold to government clients and is abused in this way, obviously, watchdog organizations like this are likely going to spot it. so this underlines the urgency of this unregulated marketplace. i think now it has become more than obvious that there are exteive damages associated with this industry that need to be cleaned up very quickly. and the only way to do that, frankly, is by some kind of international regulation. amy:ou mention uae. we had a headline today about the justice department charging three former u.s. intelligence and military officials after they admitted to helping united arab emirates build a hacking program. talk about the dissidents that are targeted and how this fits into this other story. >> well, the individuals you

mentioned who were former nsa engineers working for the start of in the uae actually targeted us at the citizen lab, we discovered, as part of the whistleblower leak associated with that. basically, what is happening here is all of us carry with us 24 hours a day these devices in our pockets that are engineered very well for the most part but they contain various software flaws. inevitably. that is the nature of the ecosystem we live in. and governments have a very large appetite to hack into thosdevices because they are so rich with details about anyone's lives. this means gernments that don't follow the rule of law or respect human rights, if they have these in their arsenal, they're going to go after anyone they consider to be a regime critic. and that is what is happening right now. that means journalists, lawyers,

activists, people who have fled their countries out of fear of the regime managed to move safely to a country like canada, they are not immune from this new type of transnational repression. so what companies like nso group are offering is a kind of despotism as a service. juan: we have less than a minute, but what does it say abt the worldou're living in today that we need groups like yours, citizen lab, in the independent actions of some companies like apple who actually try to rein in what is occurring rather than the actual governments and agencies that are supposed to protect the public? >> that is an excellent question posted unfortunately, a bit of a dark answer. as you know, the world is sliding into despotism and authoritarianism, even within

liberal democratic countries. we need to look no further than within the united states and the troubling events of recent times. all governments are interested in his technology. some may have legitimate needs for this type of thing because they are doing their investigations, but there is so much corruption around the world. so many governments that lack public accountability and transparency. so many intelligence agencies that are doing horrible things, largely out of control. this simply fuels that fire. this is, in my opinion, the most important crisis around global civil society right now. we cannot solve all of the other problems people being spied on willy-nilly like this. amy: thank you so much, ronald deibert, director of the citizen lab at toronto uversity and author of "reset: reclaiming the internet for civil society."

we will do part two and post it on democracynow.org. happy birthday to sam alcoff! 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. ■@ñ@ñ@ñ