05/18/23 05/18/23 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from new york, this is democracy now! >> one of his aides who is at the meeting said to me, really does not talk about pardons, you have to talk to me and he is going to ask you for $2 million. and i laughed. i said, i don't have $2 million. i said, are you out of your mind? amy: the justice department is facing calls to investigate donald trump's attorney and former new york city mayor rudy

giuliani for allegedly plotting to sell presidential pardons for $2 million. the allegation is part of an explosive lawsuit filed by a former associate who said she was sexually assaulted and harassed by giuliani. we will speak to cia whistleblower john kiriakou, who was imprisoned after exposing the u.s. torture program. he says an aide to giuliani told him a pardon would cost him $2 million. then a u.n. human rights panel is calling on the united states to finally release abu zubaydah, who was repeatedly tortured at cia black sites and guantanamo. >> he is locked up in guantánamo without charges, not because he did anything wrong, but because he did not do anything wrong. it is the cia who wrongly tortured him. when they found out they were wrong, there covering it up by detaining him and communicate a,

forever. amy: we will speak to one of abu zubaydah's lawyers and look at shocking illustrations drawn by abu zubaydah that show torture techniques used by the united states, including waterboarding, sleep deprivation, and threat of rape. and then, the ceo of the company behind chatgpt warns the senate about the dangers of artificial intelligence. >> if it goes wrong, it can be quite wrong. we want to be vocal in that. we want to work with the government to prevent that from happening. amy: all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. the united nations is warning the next five years are likely to be the warmest on record, with far-reaching repercussions for health, food security, water management, and the environment. the u.n.'s world meteorological

organization said wednesday that heat-trapping greenhouse gases and a naturally occurring el niño event will combine to make it 98% certain that at least one of the next five years will top 2016 as the hottest year on record. and the agency said there's a 2-in-3 chance that average global surface temperatures will reach 1.5 degrees celsius above pre-industrial levels for at least one of the next five years. that exceeds the maximum temperature rise sat by the paris climate agreement in 2015. this is petteri taalas, head of the world meteorological organization. >> there is no return back to the good old days because there is already such a high carpet -- concentration of carbon dioxide and -- the best we can do is to face out this negative trend. amy: in northern italy, at least

eight people were killed and thousands more forced to evacuate as torrential rains caused rivers to burst their banks, flooding farmlands, and leaving tens of thousands without electricity. some parts of italy's emilia-romagna region received half their average annual rainfall in 36 hours. burma's government-in-exile says the death toll from extreme weather has topped 400, with many more missing and unaccounted for. the cyclone made landfall sunday with the strength of a category 5 hurricane, one of the most powerful cyclones to hit the region. burma's national unity government accused the ruling wednesday military junta of blocking aid agencies from accessing the hard-hit rakhine state following reports that soldiers attacked rohingya muslims just before the storm's arrival. in london, climate activists rallied outside the africa energies summit wednesday demanding fossil fuel companies

including shell and total drop their support for oil and gas projects in africa. protesters say the 900-mile east african crude oil pipeline through uganda and tanzania would be the largest, longest pipeline of its kind in the world, emitting 53 million tons of carbon per year, displacing 100,000 people, and threatening protected wildlife and water resources. this is rhiannon osborne of the people's health movement. >> total energy and others at this conference are leaving thousands without homes. exacerbating the climate crisis and pushing the countries deeper into crippling debt. this must not be normalized. amy: the united nations says it needs $3 billion in aid as it warns of a spiraling humanitarian disaster in sudan after more than one month of fighting between the sudanese army and the paramilitary rapid support forces. >> the conflict that erupted on

april 15 last month in sudan has killed hundreds of people, injured more than 5000 people, and millions more have been confined to their homes, and able to access basic services and essential health care. and nearly one really people have been displaced, many across to neighboring countries. today 25 million people, more than half the population of sudan, need humanitarian aid and protection. amy: at least three pro-democracy activists were arrested by sudanese security forces tuesday as activists say humanitarian aid is being weaponized to gain and consolidate power amid a dire need for essentials among the population. west darfur and the capital khartoum remain the epicenters of fighting. there have been mounting reports of rape and sexual violence, with refugees and internally displaced women and girls particularly vulnerable. there have also been nearly 200 reports of disappearances since the conflict broke out. in turkey, opposition parties have filed complaints over alleged voting irregularities in

sunday's presidential and parliamentary elections when incumbent president recep tayyip erdogan outperformed expectations and claimed nearly the vote. half this follows reports that the turkish government arrested elected officials and civil society leaders from spain who traveled to a kurdish-majority city in eastern turkey to monitor the vote. the election is heading to a runoff on may 28. on wednesday, erdogan's opponent kemal kilicdaroglu stoked anti-immigrant sentiment in an appeal to turkish nationalists. >> i am addressing everybody out there. we did not find this homeland on the street. we will not abandon our homeland to this mentality that allows migrants to come live among us. amy: in the united states in texas, republican lawmakers have passed a bill banning gender-affirming care for transgender children. it will also require patients already on transition medications to wean off of those treatments.

it now heads to the desk of texas's right-wing and governor greg abbott. the texas state house on wednesday also advanced a bill banning trans college athletes from school sports competitions. meanwhile, republicans in florida stepped up their attacks on transgender rights wednesday, as governor ron desantis signed a slew of extreme measures into law. they include a ban on transgender people using public restrooms that align with their gender identity and a ban on gender-affirming care for children and most adults, with criminal penalties for providers who violate the ban. state courts now have the power to separate trans children from their families if they support transition care. other legislation bans minors attending events hosted by drag performers and bars transgender and non-binary students and school staff from sharing their preferred pronouns. in other florida news, publisher penguin random house and pen america are suing the escambia county school district for

banning books on race and lgbtq issues, citing a violation of the first amendment. the south carolina house of representatives passed a six-week abortion ban. the bill now goes to the senate. earlier this year, the south carolina supreme court struck down a previous six-week ban but republicans hope the new effort will be successful as the supreme court's lone woman justice has since retired and was replaced with a right-wing male judge. meanwhile, a federal appeals court appears likely to restrict access to the abortion pill mifepristone, the most commonly used abortion method in the u.s. the three conservative judges that were appointed by former presidents donald trump and george w. bush grilled the justice department and drug maker danco laboratories over the medication's approval by the fda over ago and more recent 20 efforts to expand patient access. this is justice department attorney sarah harrington being questioned by judge james ho. >> the districts courts order is

in unprecedented and unjustified attack on the fda scientific expertise. this court should vacate the order because the plaintiffs are unlikely to prevail on any of their claims. >> i hate to cut you off but you have said unprecedented. we had a challenge to the fda just yesterday. >> yes, but i don't think there has been any court that is vacated fda's determination a drug is safe to be on the market. amy: the intercept reports u.s. marshals spied on abortion protesters following the repeal of roe v. wade, using ai software from the social media monitoring company dataminr, which is an official partner of twitter. tennis republican governor has signed a legislation banning tiktok, making montana the first u.s. state to outlaw the popular social media app.

it forbids app stores like those operated by apple and google from making tiktok available for download in montana, with fines of $10,000 a day for violators. civil liberty groups have promised legal challenge. the aclu of montana said in a statement -- in march, the bad been threatened to ban tiktok elicits chinese owners agreed to sell their stake and the company. deutsche bank has agreed to pay $75 million to survivors of sexual abuse by deceased financier and convicted sex trafficker jeffrey epstein. the settlement comes as part of a class action lawsuit against the bank for helping finance epstein's crimes. in related news, the u.s. virgin

islands has subpoenaed billionaire elon musk as part of its lawsuit against jpmorgan chase over the banks enabling of epstein's human trafficking empire in the u.s. virgin islands, where epstein owned two islands. the suit does not state any wrongdoing by musk but seeks more information on any role epstein may have played in managing musk's finances. ecuador's conservative president guillermo lasso has dissolved the opposition-led national assembly, blocking efforts by lawmakers to impeach him amid accusations of corruption and embezzlement in a scheme involving a state-owned oil transportation company. the constitutional power, which had never been used in ecuador before, allows lasso to rule by decree until new elections can be held. lasso made the move a day after ecuador's national assembly held its first hearing, where lasso addressed lawmakers and denied involvement in the scheme, which opponents of lasso say cost ecuador millions in losses.

and in argentina, thousands of people marched through the streets of buenos aires wednesday protesting soaring inflation and demanding an end to austerity measures imposed by the international monetary fund as part of a $44 billion bailout. last month, argentina's government reported the peso's annual inflation rate soared to 109%, in a country where 40% of the population lives below the poverty line. this is lawmaker gabriel solano. >> inflation is high. this as up to the fact the government sends less money to the soup kitchens. we have an explosive combination. jobs are precarious. not even soup kitchens have the basics. amy: and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman, joined by my democracy now! co-host nermeen shaikh. hi, nermeen. nermeen: hi, amy. welcome to all of our listeners and viewers from around the country and around the world.

amy: former new york city mayor and donald trump lawyer rudy giuliani is coming under increasing scrutiny this week after a former associate filed a $10 million lawsuit against him alleging "unlawful abuses of power, wide-ranging sexual assault and harassment, wage theft, and other misconduct." the suit was filed by noelle dunphy, who says giuliani secretly hired her in 2019 off the books while promising her an annual salary of $1 million. dunphy says giuliani repeatedly sexually assaulted her. she also accuses giuliani of being constantly drunk and making racist, sexist, and anti-semitic comments, many of which were recorded. the lawsuit also alleges giuliani plotted to sell pardons for $2 million, to be split between him and donald trump,

who would issue the pardons. giuliani has faced this accusation before. two years ago, former cia officer john kiriakou said an associate of giuliani offered him a pardon for $2 million. kiriakou was seeking a pardon for his role in exposing the cia's torture program. he had been arrested in 2012 and spent nearly two years in prison. well, john kiriakou joins us now from washington, d.c. welcome back to democracy now! let's go back to what actually happened. what were you offered and by whom and where was the offer made? >> i reached out to associate of rudy giuliani in late 2020 after the election, thinking this would be a good time to try to get to president trump and ask for a pardon. i was able to get through one of

giuliani's associates or assistance. he suggested we meet at the trump hotel here in washington, d.c., the first week of january 2021. interestingly enough, he said we had to meet at noon because the mayor enjoyed a drink or two or five earlier in the day and by 2:00, we would not be able to have much of a conversation. so we met at 12:00 at trump hotel. there were several of us. giuliani, his assistant, second person, and my attorney and me. we sat there and made idle chitchat for 10 minutes. finally i said, so, mr. mayor, there is this issue of a pardon. giuliani immediately stood up and said he needed to use the men's room and walked away. i said to the aid, what just happened? he said, you never talked to

rudy about a pardon. you talk to me about a pardon and i will talk to rudy. i said, ok, that's fine. he said rudy is going to want $2 million. and i laughed. i said, i don't have $2 million. i will never have $2 million. even if i had $2 million, i would not send it to recover a $700,000 pension. we sat there for a moment and i said, look, this is not going to work out. thanks for your time. i got up and i walked away. that was the end of the conversation. nermeen: how are you ultimately granted a pardon, john? >> oh, i wasn't. it is funny. i had some support in the trump administration but only because i was convicted under the obama administration. i had approached giuliani. i had hired a republican lobbyist.

in the end, nothing came of it. amy: john, if you could explain if there was any mention -- again, while there are many things in this lawsuit, very explosive lawsuit, that were recorded because apparently, noelle dunphy says giuliani wanted things recorded because he was talking about writing a book about himself and wanted a lot of things recorded. this wasn't. so these allegations that he was going to split the money come also told people who wanted this kind of pardon not to go to the regular routes because that it would all be documented and he could not take the money. so were you told this would have to be sort of completely off the books that you don't go to the justice department? did you have any indication, because at this point we don't know of any direct connection between him and donald trump splitting this, if in fact trump gave a pardon to you?

>> frankly, this lawsuit is the first i had heard that money was supposed to be split with president trump. i will say giuliani's aid told me not to bother going to the website of the office of u.s. pardon attorney and applying online. he said, we're going to do this quietly, privately, behind the scenes. i said, that's fine. i know that is the way things work in washington. i never apply for the pardon officially, formally, with the office of the u.s. pardon attorney. it was all supposed to be hush-hush. nermeen: trump granted very few pardons. i don't know if that is just officially through as you say the office of the pardon attorney or even through these other means. >> you know, that is an interesting thing. there really is a very formal way of applying for a pardon. you go to this website and fill out the form and you hope for

the best. in the meantime, the website routes for application to the fbi, the fbi does a background investigation to make sure you have been rehabilitated, and then it goes to your prosecuting attorney and to the prosecuting judge for comments. this is supposed to be independent of the justice department. the office of u.s. pardon attorney's supposed to be attached to the executive office of the president. it is not. it physically sits at the justice department, which is not the way lawmakers on capitol hill had originally intended it. but as a result, almost nobody is recommended for a pardon. almost nobody. if you want a pardon and you have access to the president, that is really how you do it. that is not unique or was not unique for trump. every president does it that way. it is kind of one of those ugly little secrets of washington.

amy: john kiriakou spit 14 years at the cia as an analyst and a case officer and exposed the bush era torture program and was the only official jailed in connection with that torture program. he, for exposing it. john kiriakou was reportedly told he could secure a presidential pardon from trump for $2 million. john kiriakou is going to stay with us. coming up, a u.n. human rights panel is calling on the u.s. to release abu zubaydah who was repeatedly tortured at black sites and guantánamo. we will speak more with john kiriakou, who was involved with his capture in 2002, and we will speak with abu zubaydah's attorney. stay with us. ♪♪ [music break]

amy: neil young's "harvest moon" performed by neko peoples. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and

peace report. i'm amy goodman with nermeen shaikh. a warning to our audience, this segment contains graphic descriptions and visual descriptions of torture. the united nations working group on operatory detention is calling on the united states to immediately release abu zubaydah , who has been held in u.s. custody since 2002 -- more than 20 years. first as a cia black site, including in poland and lithuania. it was later transferred to guantánamo where he is been held without charge. the u.n. body says abu zubaydah 's detention may be a crime against humanity. the cia has been accused of using him as a human guinea pig by testing torture methods on him, including the practice known as waterboarding, which he endured 83 times and rate under the pretext of rectal feeding. seton hall university has just

published a shocking report that compiles a series of 40 graphic drawings by abu zubaydah that chronicle the horrific torture he endured. the drawings include graphic depictions of waterboarding, forced feedings, prisoners being held in boxes, and a practice known as walling. in a moment, we will be joined by two guests. first, let's turn to the trailer to alex gibney's document "the forever prisoner." >> abu zubaydah has never been charged with the crime. he was imprisoned in a secret cia unit called strawberry fields. as an, forever. >> prior to 9/11, the cia never

captured or detain anyone, they were not prepared. >> they look to see who was best to interrogate. >> psychologist james mitchell was the only candidate considered. >> the cia officers were certain was holding back because he was not telling them what they wanted to hear. >> something more progressive had to be done. >>he lawyer's philosophy is, tell me what you want you to do and i will make it legal. we ask him to draw what was done to him. >> abu zubaydah is put in isolation. >> of thing happening was mitchell's experience. >> samsung again and again and again. >> spent 11 days in a box. this is crazy. >> what was the reason why he thought it was important to have this destroyed? >> i needed to protect the

people who were there. >> it would make the cia look bad. >> it was an impossible story to tell. >> i had to sue the cia to get materials. >> constant manipulation by the cia. sleeting bush and misleading obama. >> if my boss tells me it is legal and the president printed, i'm not going to get into -- >> in america, we have a thing called innocent until proven guilty. >> after 9/11, that is out the window. >> the ends always justify the means. amy: that was the trailer for alex gibney's 2021 document or "the forever prisoner." we are joined now by two guests. still with us, john kiriakou. he was later jailed from his two years for revealing the cia had

water bordered abu zubaydah. we're also joined by one of abu zubaydah's lawyers mark denbeaux , professor at seton hall university school of law and the director of its center for policy and research. john kiriakou, i want to continue with you. talk about how abu zubaydah was caught and where you were, how you were involved with his capture. >> sure. abu zubaydah was captured in pakistan in late march 2002. i happened to be the chief of cia counterterrorism operations. we have been looking for abu zubaydah for about six weeks. we were able to narrow down his possible location to one of 13

sites. we hit all 13 sites simultaneously at 2:00 in the morning. he happened to be in one of those sites. i was at a safe house nearby. i was in radio contact with all of our officers who were at the site. when i say "our officers," i mean there were teams of cia, fbi, and pakistani intelligence officers. abu zubaydah was shot when he was trying to leave from the roof of one house to the roof of another to get away. after specifically being told not to fire any shots, pakistani policeman shot him anyway and nearly killed him. he was hit three times with an ak-47. we rushed him to a hospital. they were able to stanch the bleeding as best they could and then we put him on helicopter and sent him to a pakistani military base. he was there i think it was 56

hours in the end and then put on an unmarked cia plane and taken to the first of several black sites. nermeen: john, what were you told about why you had to find this man? you said the search went on for six weeks. what did the cia say they thought he was responsible for? >> i'm smiling because that is such an important question. what we were told in the very beginning was that abu zubaydah was one of the most dangerous and most violent men on the planet, that he was the number three in al qaeda, he was one of the masterminds of the 9/11 attacks. in the end, none of that was true. the information we were getting from cia headquarters, from nsa, from the fbi -- it was all erroneous. we thought this was this terrorist superman that we were after. we literally dropped everything else we were doing in pakistan,

and we dedicated our virtual army of men and women to tracking his location. but in the end, none of what we believed had any truth behind it. nermeen: where was he taken? you said he was taken in an unmarked plane out of pakistan after being in this military hospital. where did he go? trace his journey. you went to several black sites. what do you know about what happened at these black sites? >> i am sorry to say that 20 years after the fact, the cia has never publicly committed or declassified the locations of those black sites. i will defer to mark on the specific answer, but i will say the locations of these various sites have been reported on extensively in the media. i just can't confirm it. amy: before we go to mark denbeaux to talk about not only

where he was taken but he's unbelievably horrifying illustrations of abu zubaydah, talk about how you came to be aware of what was happening to him. you are responsible for his capture. and why you decided to go to the media with that, which ultimately led to you being imprisoned. >> well, i'm a firm believer in a couple of things. i'm a firm believer in respect for human rights. i am a firm believer in the rule of law. if the united states as a government, as a society and culture, is going to go around the world and impose our professed beliefs on human rights upon every other country in the world, if we are going to have anti-torture laws in our country, if we are going to be

not just signatories to but the drafters of the united nations convention against torture, then by god, we have to live by those words. right? we are to take that seriously. we're either going to be a shining beacon for the rest of the world on human rights and civil rights and civil liberties or we are not. we can't be both. we can't tell other countries to respect civil rights and then ignore -- for human rights, and then ignore human rights when it is inconvenient for us to respect that. abu zubaydah i think is the poster boy for that. here is a man who we were just simply wrong about. we savaged him in secret. we denied him his constitutional rights to confront his accusers in a court of law. we never charged him with a crime. we know from the senate torture report that the plan was for him

to just die in custody and then we would cremate him and throw his ashes into the sea. well, where is the legal justification -- frankly, the moral justification for any of that? abu zubaydah, if he was in to be charged with a crime, should have been released years ago, decades ago. and here we are 21 years later and he is still in prison. nermeen: mark denbeaux, you are one of the attorneys representing abu zubaydah. you have just released a report titled "american torturers: fbi and cia abuses at dark sites and guantánamo." explain what is in that report. >> that report was based exclusively on the drawings of abu zubaydah made examples of the torture he endured, as well as -- this is significant -- his description of each of those events.

the descriptions are something that really have never been seen or heard. descriptions of the torture victims describing that each portrait designates. as to the significance of the drawings, one reason it is so significant is it is fully recognized the ca is 92 videotapes of his torture. it is also recognized a federal judge ordered the cia to preserve those for purposes of litigation. it is also undisputed the cia knowingly destroy those tapes in order, as the trigger indicated, it would be to hide -- protect the people who engaged in that torture. there is no visual evidence of what they did to abu zubaydah. only the sanitized ascriptions of what kind of techniques were used, most of which -- these drawings are the only

source of the application of the torture techniques approved by american torture program, and they're done by abu zubaydah. he is the first person the u.s. chose to torture. the u.s. torture techniques were approved solely to torture him, even though they fully knew he did not and was not appropriately -- he did not warrant any detention. the cynical thing is before the cia -- why he should be torture, the cia's reason warned by the fbi and the fbi formally told the cia none of these facts are true and whatever you're saying is false. they proceeded anyway. amy: i want to turn to another clip from the "forever prisoner" of james mitchell. the retired air force psychologist who was the chief architect of the cia's torture

program. you remember mitchell and jessup, the two psychologist. it starts with fbi agent ali soufan. >> i cannot talk about him and i cannot even mention his real name. >>'s real name, james mitchell. he wrote a book about the interrogation of abu zubaydah. full cooperation of the cia. >> if my boss tells me it is legal, especially if the president has approved it, i'm not going to get into the nuances about what some guy in the basement or what some

journalist thinks about it because they are free to trade places with me anytime they think they can do a better job protecting americans. amy: that is james mitchell, the retired air force psychologist who helped design the torture program. mark denbeaux, if you can talk about his role and the role of the american psychological association -- a very sordid, dark chapter of the largest association of psychologists in the world -- and how this actually was implemented and used against abu zubaydah? and then describe in detail -- we also have a radio audience -- the illustrations that have rarely been shown that we are showing today. >> let me start with james mitchell's claims justifying why he did it was her first of all, james mitchell was hired by the cia four days after abu zubaydah

was captured. the cia has determined they did not want the fbi or the defense department interrogating abu zubaydah. they wanted to keep control. then they hard mitchell. people ask, why are you hiring somebody in order to do this interrogation? the cia director says for deputy director, we are in uncharted waters. we have never done this before. jill invented the techniques he wanted to use claiming that would work. after he had the techniques approved, then they needed somebody to torture. they created a person to justify torturing. that was abu zubaydah. that is because the only person the cia had captured in the only human being they had available and they created a fictitious person --

pass that onto the department of justice. the department of justice says, we are giving permission to torture him assuming these facts are true. the facts the cia knew were not true and as i said earlier, had been told by the fbi. mitchell in fact invented the psychological assessment of abu zubaydah. that leads us into mitchell's relationship and also the a psychological association. the only document ever presented to the department of justice to justify torturing abu zubaydah was called a psychological assessment. this was obviously designed by a psychologist. the one thing missing from the assessment is an assessment. you think they would be talking about the impacts of it, how harmful it would be, how it would work, the dangers, and so on. all it does is list 13 salacious facts that are dripping -- all untrue to get to the department

of justice. the department of justice was duped leaving they had at a mastermind of 9/11 -- believing they had a mastermind of 9/11, coordinating a terrorist program, and a series of other things. every single one of those was false. so mitchell fabricated all of the facts designed to justify torturing. bear in mind, he had been interrogated and tortured by mitchell for five months before they gave this a -- the department of justice this fake description of him. so he invented and fabricated all the facts that allow them to torture somebody who is not absolutely -- not any of the bad things that were said about him. about the drawings. first of all, the drawings are

quite gruesome. quite a few american news media have not been willing to publish the report or the drawings because there simply to disgusting. i agree there disgusting, but i think that is exactly why they should be published. ok, among the drawings. nowhere did the department of justice say you can keep people totally nude for weeks, months, maybe years at a time. that is the duration of some of these things. another thing is, when they were talking about anal rape, there is a discussion in their --anal rape with him bending over with a broomstick touching or near his anus. there are guards watching. as you go through some of the

waterboarding, that would put him in a coffin shaped box lying down with the water up to his nose, and they would sit there and watch him and keep track of him and then when he would go under, they would bring him up. that could go on for hours and days. one of the things about these drawings is they do not show the duration of the torture. for instance, the cia cables show for 17 straight days they cycled through each one of these tech makes. walling, waterboarding, confined spaces, detention and hands and knees locked together so they can't move. the nudity. all of this, including walling. walling turns out to be probably the most physically damaging of all the torture because they

have a man standing right here against a solid wall, about 18 inches away handcuffed, and they stand there interviewing him and asking him questions, supposedly. then they slammed him back so his body goes back in his head hits the wall. they will do that over and over and over. what they would end up doing is they would have him stand nude in a cold room and spray water on him for long periods of time. then they would put him in a very small box, where you could only have your knees together, your ankles -- like a catcher in baseball. you're in that box in the dark for an unknown amount of time. they have no clock. they have no idea how long they're in there. they would then bring them out and put them in a larger box.

sometimes they would be in a larger box and rocket back-and-forth -- rock it back and forth. not only the nudity but loud music and there also threatening to desecrate the koran. there's a drawing showing that. ultimately, the drawings were simply a picture -- if these were the approved torture techniques and they were all approved in a sense, then you have the people who are engaging in it like freelancers trying to invent other ways. nowhere does it say you should take an anal rape with a broom handle. mitchell gets credit with that. the same thing happened when they talk about giving him and water for hours and hours and hours -- keeping him in water for hours and hours and hours. he was in water with his body

waste with his hands and feet shackled with just his nose out of it for an indefinite period of time. people have to look at all of these pictures. this may be the only place where anybody lever get to see them. they won't get to see the ca video. amy: i want to thank you for being with us, mark denbeaux, and i want to end with one final quick question to john kiriakou. you went to jail for 23 months. would you do it again to expose what happened to abu zubaydah, going to the media and revealing this? >> in a heartbeat. i would do it again today. my only regret is that i did not go far enough all those years ago. i should have been more clear. i should have ignored nuances. i should have just come out with every thing. i would do it again in a heartbeat. amy: john kiriakou, work at the

cia for over a decade. mark denbeaux, lawyer for abu zubaydah, seek help professor. we will link to your new report "american torturers: fbi and cia abuses at dark sites and guantánamo." coming up, the ceo of the company behind chatgpt warns congress about the dangers of artificial intelligence. ♪♪ [music break]

amy: prominent sudanese singer shaden gardood was killed in crossfire between the sudanese army and the paramilitary rapid support forces in omdurman city despite an agreement between the friday two warring sides to protect civilians. hundreds of hundreds of civilians have died. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman with nermeen shaikh. as more of the public becomes aware of artificial intelligence, or ai, the senate held a hearing tuesday on how to regulate it. senate judiciary subcommittee chair richard blumenthal opened the hearing with an ai generated recording of his own voice, what some call a deep fake. >> and now for some introductory

remarks. too often, we've seen what happens technology outpaces regulation. the unbridled exploitation of personal data, the proliferation of disinformation, and the deepening of societal inequalities. we have seen how algorithmic biases can perpetuate discriminations and prejudice and how the lack of transparency can undermine public trust. this is not the future we want. if you are listing from home, might have thought that voice was mine and the words from me. but in fact, that voice was not mine, the words were not mine, and the audio was an ai voice

cloning software trained on my speeches. the remarks were written by chatgpt when it was asked how i would open this hearing. amy: google, microsoft, and openai -- the startup behind chatgpt -- are some of the companies creating increasingly powerful artificial intelligence technology. openai ceo sam altman testified at tuesday's hearing and issued -- warned about its dangers. >> i think if the technology goes wrong, it can be quite wrong. we want to be vocal about that. we want to work with the government to prevent that from happening, but we try to be very clear eyed about what the downside is in the work we have to do to mitigate that. it is one of my areas of greatest concern. the more general ability of these models to manipulate, to persuade, to provide sort of one-on-one interactive disinformation. we are quite concerned about the

impact this can have on elections. i think this is is in area where the government can work together quickly. amy: this all comes as the united states has lagged on regulating ai compared to the european union and china. for more, we are joined by marc rotenberg, executive director of the center for ai and digital policy. welcome to democracy now! it is very significant you have this ai ceo saying, please, regulate us. in fact, isn't he doing it because he wants corporations to be involved with the regulation? talk about that and also just what ai is, for people who just don't understand what this is all about. >> first of all, thank you for having me on the program. secondly, to take a step back, sam altman received a lot of attention this week when he testified in congress, but i think it is very important to make clear at the beginning of our discussion that civil society organizations, experts in ai, technology developers

have been saying for many years there is a problem here. i think it is vitally important at this point in the policy discussion that we recognize these views have been expressed by people like stuart russell and margaret mitchell and the president of my own organization who testified in early march before the house oversight committee that we simply don't have the safeguards in place, we don't have the legal rules, we don't have the expertise in government for the rapid technological change that is taking place. so while we welcome mr. altman's pport fowhat we pe wille a rong leglation, we do n thinyou shou be the cter attenon in th politic discsion. to yr point,hat iai about and whis thereo much focus?

pa of thiss aut a very rapid chge taking placin the technology a in theech dustry that many people simply did not see hapning as did we he known oblems wh a fomany, ma years. we hav automat decisio today wely depled aoss our countrthat makdecision about people's opportunities for education, for credit, for employment, for housing, for probation, even for entering the country. all of this is being done by automated systems that increasingly rely on statistical techniques. these statistical techniques make decisions about people that are oftentimes opaque and can't be proven. so you actually have a situation where big federal agencies and big companies make determinations, and if you look

back and said, well, like why was i denied that loan? war, why is my visa application taking so many years? they don't have good answers. that was reflected in part with altman's testimony this week. he is on the front lines of a new ai technique that is referred to as generative ai and produces synthetic information. if i can make a clarification to your opening about senator blumenthal's remarks, those were not a recording, which is very familiar term for us, it is what we think of when we hear someone's voice being played back, that was synthetically generated by senator blumenthal's prior statements. this does not exist in reality but for the fact that an ai

system created it. we have an enormous challenge in this moment to try to regulate this new type of ai, as well as the pre-existing systems, that are making decisions about people, oftentimes embedding bias, replicating a lot of the social discrimination of the physical world now being carried forward in these data sets to our digital world, and we need the legislation that will establish the necessary guardrails. nermeen: marc rotenberg, can you elaborate on the fact that some and artificial intelligence researchers themselves are worried about what artificial intelligence can lead to? a recent survey showed 50% of ai researchers give ai at least a 10% chance of causing human extinction. could you talk about that? >> absolutely.

i was one of the people who signed that letter that was circulated earlier this year. it was a controversial letter, by the way, because it tended to focus on long-term existential risks and it included such concerns as losing control over the systems that are now being developed. there is another group in the ai community that i think very rightly said about the existential concerns that we also need to focus on the immediate concerns. i spoke, for example, a moment ago about embedded bias and replicating discrimination. that is happening right now. that is a problem that needs to be addressed right now. my own view, which is not necessarily the view of everyone else, is that both of these groups are sending powerful warnings about where we are. i do believe that the groups that are saying we have a risk

of a loss of control, which includes many eminent computer scientists who have won an award like the novell prize for computer science, i think there is a real loss of control -- real risk of loss of control. but also those at the ai now institute and the research institute that we have to solve the problems with the systems that are already deployed. this is also the reason i was frankly very happy about the senate hearing this week. some very -- there were very good discussions. i felt the members of the committee came well-prepared. they asked good questions. there was a lot of discussion about concrete proposals, transparency obligations, privacy safeguards, limits on compute and ai capability. i very much supported what senator blumenthal said at the outset. he said we need to build in

rules for transparency, for accountability, and we need to establish some limits on use. i thought that was an excellent place to start a discussion in the united states about how to establish safeguards for the use of artificial intelligence. nermeen: marc rotenberg, what are the benefits that people talk about with respect to artificial intelligence? and given the rate, she said, at which it is spreading, these rapid technological exams is -- advances, is there any way to arrested at this point? >> there's no question that ai, broadly speaking, and of course it is a broad term and even the experts don't agree precisely on what we are referring to, but let's say ai broadly speaking is contributing to innovation in the medical field for example, big breakthroughs with protein

folding, is good to being to efficiency in administration of organizations, better ways to identify safety flaws in products and transportation. i think there is no dispute. it is a little bit talking about fire or electricity. it is one of these foundational resources in the digital age that is widely deployed. but as with fire or electricity, we understand to obtain the benefits, also need to put in some safeguards and some limits. we are actually in a moment right now where the ai techniques are being broadly deployed with hardly any safeguards or limits. that is why so many people in the ai community are worried. it is not that they don't see the benefits, it is that they see the risks if we continue down this path. amy: we want to talk about what

the safeguards need to be and dig further into how it is that artificial intelligence could lead to the extinction of humans on earth. we are talking to marc rotenberg , executive director of the center for ai and digital

[suspenseful piano music plays] [mechanical reverberations echo] [suspenseful piano music plays] [chiwetel] the earth from space. [classical music builds] the only known planet in the universe with surface water. [suspenseful piano music plays] water is what made life and civilization possible. but the ancient water patterns on earth are shifting. no one can be sure anymore where tomorrow's water is coming from. [classical music builds]