Democracy Now (English)

More than 50 students, faculty and staff at The Cooper Union in New York have begun a sit-in inside the office of the school’s president, Jamshed Bharucha. Democracy Now!'s Martyna Starosta filmed students reading an open letter to Bharucha condemning his decision to end the school's longstanding tradition of free tuition for all undergraduates. Shortly after this video was filmed, school officials removed Starosta from the office.

VICTORIA SOBEL: The action began as a sit-in in Jamshed Bharucha’s office this morning at 11:00 a.m. The plan was to intercept the president and read this statement to him. Right now we have more than half of the signatures of the School of Art for students, so that is a majority of the students voicing no confidence in Jamshed Bharucha. So, for us, it began as a sit-in. And his absence has marked it as an occupation. He is no longer welcome in this office space. It is one that’s been reclaimed by the students, for the students, for this school. It’s not about tuition. It’s about repealing tuition. It’s about reclaiming administrative spaces and re-examining the roles of administration within a school context.

DEVONN FRANCIS: This is a nonviolent direct action. You are not being held in this room. You are free to exit when you please. Jamshed Bharucha, we are here today to deliver you a statement of no confidence from the School of Art. We no longer recognize your presidency at Cooper as legitimate. And in so doing, we commit to reclaim this office in the interim until a suitable administrative alternative is secured.

SEBASTIAN QUIJADA LINK: We, the students of The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, can no longer uphold or endorse the direction our college has taken under the leadership of Jamshed Bharucha, with the support of the current board of trustees. As a student—as the students, we are indebted and steadfastly committed to fulfilling the historic mission of Cooper Union as an institution committed to providing students with an exceptional educational experience without the burden of tuition, regardless of need. Central to this mission is the imperative to continue challenging the institutional and societal norms regarding education, accessibility, class mobility, pedagogy and organizational structures. The Union of Art, Architecture and Engineering has empowered a historically diverse student body that for over 150 years has served to shape engaged and creative citizens in and beyond New York City.

As stewards of The Cooper Union, we are viscerally interconnected to Cooper’s mission of championing free education to all. We know more intimately than any consulting firm that the integrity of academic and creative excellence achieved by The Cooper Union is intrinsic to the college providing its students full-tuition, merit-based scholarships. Jamshed Bharucha has continually relied on a campaign of marginalizing students, faculty and alumni voices, and has neglected to genuinely engage alternative models and financial solutions brought forth by the community. We see now that Jamshed Bharucha and the board of trustees have committed themselves to maximizing Cooper’s expansion, both locally and globally, at the expense of its core values. We know this to be a grave misstep. The college has illegitimately been made to adopt the policy of tuition as a result of a top-down administrative structure that, from inception, relied on disregarding the voices and contributions of students, faculties and the community at large in vital decision-making processes. A persistent lack of transparency in decision making and a failure to adequately articulate a viable future for Cooper Union without tuition has compounded the fundamental issue of the college’s governance. The result is administrative insistence that tuition is a foregone conclusion.

In reality, if relieved from this oppressive administration, we stand to reclaim all that Peter Cooper intended for this college and more. As citizens of New York City, we must stand united in the face of mounting adversity as it plagues all of our institutions of learning, private and public. We recognize that this instance of crisis at Cooper Union is also a precious opportunity to radically redefine the thresholds of success and failure in our own terms, necessarily separate from corporate business models of growth and profitability. We see the need for a more explicitly robust system of shared governance, invoking greater faculty, student and community involvement in decision-making processes, a reaffirmed commitment to student diversity by abolishing the imposed tuition, and more respectful college engagement both locally and globally.

As President Jamshed Bharucha has squandered two years of precious time in which the community needed, more than anything, a decisive leader with devout commitment to the mission and vision of Cooper Union, with this vote we express our abhorrence and disapproval of the policies and actions of Jamshed Bharucha’s administration. We strongly affirm that we have no confidence in Jamshed Bharucha.

We call upon the faculties of art, architecture, engineering and humanities at The Cooper Union to take the time to uphold the sanctity of this institution by putting forward respective votes of no confidence. We invite and implore our fellow student bodies from architecture and engineering schools to reflect on the mutually exclusive and divergent efforts of the community and those of the administration. By voting no confidence today, we set a future precedent and expectation of deliverable excellence from individuals bestowed with administrative titles. It is time to raise the bar. We extend our invitation to voice no confidence in Jamshed Bharucha to alumni and to the general public. It is time to enact new, more cooperative methods of organizing our colleges and universities. Let this demonstration of no confidence mark your commitment to any number of new viable beginnings for Cooper, and also mark the crucial intolerance of stagnant growth, expansion and capitalist models, which threaten to plague our college. Join us in taking a stand against Jamshed Bharucha’s maladministration of Cooper Union. Let us continue to be an institution that leads by example. Join us in keeping Cooper Union free to all.

Cooper Union is one of the last private schools to offer free tuition. The school says students will now be charged on a sliding scale, with tuition as high as $20,000 for those deemed able to afford it. School officials claim those unable to afford tuition still will not have to pay.

Related Links:
VIDEO: Voices from the Cooper Union Occupation in New York City (Democracy Now!)

Board of Trustees Statement on the Future Plans of Cooper Union

Cooper Union Student Action to Save Our School

New York Times:'College Ends Free Tuition, and an Era'

Part one of this interview aired on the May 8th, 2013 program

Watch part two of our conversation with the celebrated Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano, author of the new book, Children of the Days: A Calendar of Human History. Galeano’s classic book, Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent, made headlines when Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez gave President Obama a copy at the Summit of the Americas in 2009. Since its publication in 1971, Open Veins has sold over a million copies worldwide despite being banned by the military governments in Chile, Argentina and his native country of Uruguay. While in exile after the Uruguayan military junta seized power in a 1973 coup, Galeano began work on his classic trilogy, Memory of Fire, which rewrites five centuries of North and South American history.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh, and our guest is Eduardo Galeano, the great Latin American writer. His latest book is Children of the Days: A Calendar of Human History. Eduardo, you were just telling us a story about being—

EDUARDO GALEANO: Chávez

AMY GOODMAN: —an election observer in Venezuela—

EDUARDO GALEANO: I was talking about Chávez, yes, yes.

AMY GOODMAN: —in the referendum for Hugo Chávez.

EDUARDO GALEANO: And I was a delegate of 200 independent observers and working with the former president of the United States, Jimmy Carter, and Gaviria in representation of the Organization of American States, OEA—we three, working together during some days and nights. And in that transit across people in—who was going to vote for or against Chávez retaining power, in this road I heard something which I will never forget, explanation of everything else. It was a man in a very poor neighborhood in Caracas, and I asked him, "I know this, the vote is secret. But tell me, just personally, will you vote yes or no to Chávez?" "I’ll vote—I shall vote yes, of course. I shall vote yes." "And how? Why? Why?" "Oh, obviously, it’s clear enough: Now I am no more invisible."

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And that’s his legacy?

EDUARDO GALEANO: Mm-hmm.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: For people in Venezuela. Do you think people in the region, as well?

EDUARDO GALEANO: People in region?

NERMEEN SHAIKH: In Latin America, as well, not just in Venezuela?

EDUARDO GALEANO: Ah, no, not just in Venezuela. Now they are becoming—this is the good part, the best part of the present situation in diverse Latin American countries, in which the invisibles are becoming visibles.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s President Chávez’s legacy. What about President Obama?

EDUARDO GALEANO: Oh, for me, it was great news when I knew that he won the elections the first time, because in this country, I remember that 1942, when the United States entered in the Second World War, the Pentagon forbade, prohibir, forbade the transfusion of black blood. In order to avoid that, by injection, will be done, but it was prohibited in the beds. And so, the president of the Red Cross in the States was a very important scientist. He was black. And he said, "I won’t obey this order of the Pentagon, because it’s a stupid order, for the simple fact that black blood does not exist. All bloods are red."

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Eduardo Galeano, you initially wanted to be a soccer player—

EDUARDO GALEANO: Yes.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: —and not a writer.

EDUARDO GALEANO: No.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Can you talk about the significance of soccer in Latin America and the connection between soccer and politics, or sport and politics?

EDUARDO GALEANO: Yes. Yes, I wanted to be a soccer player, and I became the best of the best, the number one, better than Maradona, better than Pelé, and even better than Messi—but only at night, nighttime, during my dreams. When I wake up, I realized that I have wooden legs and that I’m doomed to be a writer. It’s my only possibility in life, to earn my life honestly, is writing, but not playing football, soccer.

I remember a sports journalists in the States. I met him in Montevideo some years ago, 20 years ago. And I asked him about what is called soccer here. And he said, "Oh, no, no. Yeah, soccer, football in the United States, is the sport of the future, and it will always be." But he was wrong, because this very good journalist ignored that half of the U.S. population was you, women. And now the United States have the best teams, one of the two or three best team of female football in the world. And this is part of the reality also—or not. You are two to one; you are the majority in this table.

AMY GOODMAN: Can I ask you about your health and about how it has evolved and changed your worldview? I mean, you have struggled with cancer. You had—

EDUARDO GALEANO: Yes, twice, yes.

AMY GOODMAN: —a cancer operation the last time you were here.

EDUARDO GALEANO: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: A lung cancer. And you’re dealing now.

EDUARDO GALEANO: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: How is it—how are you coping?

EDUARDO GALEANO: Well, I’m crossing this difficult period, and I realize that I have discovered new remedies that have awful side effects but are curing me. I mean, my tumor is reducing more and more, thanks to these new remedies, which are also sometimes—I feel some of the side effects are brutal. I asked my doctor, "Well, these remedies, [inaudible] by the Pentagon?" "No, no, not at all. But you just accept these side effects because you are going to go on living, and otherwise, you may be dead." "Oh, no," I told the doctor. "No, dead, no. Death is so boring. No, please, I’ll try with the remedy."

NERMEEN SHAIKH: You’ve often quoted Pablo Picasso saying that "art is a lie that tells the truth."

EDUARDO GALEANO: It’s true.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So what do you see as the significance of art and of your writing, in particular, its relationship to the truth and to politics?

EDUARDO GALEANO: And to politics and to everything else. For instance, what is a good writer, from my point of view? That was able to make the past become present telling a history of two centuries ago or three centuries or four or I don’t know how much, and the reader may feel it’s happening right here and now. The past turn to be present in the magic words of a good writer. That’s a lie, in the sense that what he or she is telling didn’t—is not happening now, but thanks to these art prodigies, their magic powers, it does occur in today.

I remember that—you know, I didn’t receive a formal education. I was educated in the Montevideo cafe, in the cafes of Montevideo. There, I received my first lessons in the art of telling stories, storytelling. I was very, very young and sat at one table, neighbor of other table of people, old people, or more or less old, and they were telling stories, and I was hearing, because they were very good storytellers, anonymous. And one of them was telling a story about a battlefield at the beginning of the 20th century in Uruguay in a war period in the countryside. He was walking among the killed soldiers of both sides. They were distinguished by a ribbon on the front: the white and the red. And suddenly he found an angel. That was what he said: "I found an angel, with the arms open, laid in the grass." And a bullet had entered into his head, crossing the white ribbon. But he could read in the—in the white ribbon was a stain, mancha, stain of blood all along it. But something was written there: "For my country, for my countryside." No, patria? How is it, patria, in English? Country?

AMY GOODMAN: Country, for my country.

EDUARDO GALEANO: "For my country, and for her." And the bullet had entered in the word "her." And so, I felt I was looking at that man who had died 50 years ago or 60 years ago. So this was a lie, but a lie telling the truth. This was art, an art done by an anonymous person and with no pretensions of being, you know, selected, elected by the finger of God.

AMY GOODMAN: Eduardo—

EDUARDO GALEANO: There are some writers who feel they are elected by God. I am not. I am elected by the devil, this is clear.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you about the power of silence, as you talk about words. You were born in Uruguay. You left at the time of the coup. You were imprisoned briefly?

EDUARDO GALEANO: Sí, briefly.

AMY GOODMAN: Why did they imprison you briefly?

EDUARDO GALEANO: I never know, never knew. Everybody was imprisoned, even if you feel or you were, you know, practically free. But it—and it was an entire country in prison. And Uruguay was at that time world champion of torture. Everybody was tortured. I wasn’t. I was lucky enough to avoid it. And torture was quite efficient, not in the sense that it’s told by some friends of torture. No, not in this sense. It’s not—never—it’s almost never useful to get information. And the purpose of torture is not getting information. It’s spreading fear. And in this sense, torture was really efficient in Uruguay. It was an entire country sick, enfermo —

AMY GOODMAN: Sick.

EDUARDO GALEANO: —of fear. I remember I received in exile in Barcelona some letters, anonymous letters with no indications of address, of names or nothing, no, of course. And one of the letters said, "It’s terrible, learn to lie. But, you know, we had no choice. We’re obliged to lie, day and night lying. And it’s horrible. But worse than learning to lie is teaching to lie. And I have three children."

AMY GOODMAN: Three children?

EDUARDO GALEANO: That was what the letter said. "Worse than learning to lie was teaching to lie. And I have three children."

AMY GOODMAN: On the issue of silence, you went from Uruguay to Argentina. And there, the torture, the repression was intense.

EDUARDO GALEANO: Yes, yes.

AMY GOODMAN: You were editor of a magazine, and you answered the censorship with silence. Explain.

EDUARDO GALEANO: Yes. Yes, finally, I fled away from Argentina also, because—I couldn’t stay in Uruguay, because I don’t like to be in jail, and I didn’t stay in Argentina. I could not, because I didn’t want to lay in a cemetery, because, as I told you before, death is very boring.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: You’ve said that a lot of your work—I mean, it’s obvious from even what you’ve read—a lot of your work is about reclaiming different histories, not only in Latin America, but also in Latin America, to overcome what you’ve called the problem of amnesia. Could you elaborate on what you mean by that?

EDUARDO GALEANO: Amnesia?

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Yes.

EDUARDO GALEANO: Well, we have a memory cut in pieces. And I write trying to recover our real memory, the memory of humankind, what I call the human rainbow, which is much more colorful and beautiful than the other one, the other rainbow. But the human rainbow had been mutilated by machismo, racism, militarism and a lot of other isms, who have been terribly killing our greatness, our possible greatness, our possible beauty.

• Headlines for May 08, 2013
• Pentagon Study Finds 26,000 Military Sexual Assaults Last Year, Over 70 Sex Crimes Per Day
• Eduardo Galeano, Chronicler of Latin America's "Open Veins," on His New Book "Children of the Days"

Download this show

• Headlines for May 07, 2013
• Robert Fisk on Syria's Civil War, Chemical Weapons "Theater" & Obama's Backing of Israeli Strikes
• Mississippi to Execute Willie Manning Tonight After Rejecting DNA Tests & FBI's Admission of Error
• "Over the Line": U.S. Agents Shooting Dead Innocent Mexicans Across the Border With Impunity

Download this show

• Headlines for May 06, 2013
• Michael Pollan on How Reclaiming Cooking Can Save Our Food System, Make Us Healthy & Grow Democracy

Download this show

• Headlines for May 03, 2013
• Assata Shakur in Her Own Words: Rare Recording of Activist Named to FBI Most Wanted Terrorists List
• Angela Davis and Assata Shakur's Lawyer Denounce FBI's Adding of Exiled Activist to Terrorists List
• As Migrant Toll Mounts, Mexicans Urge Obama to Put Human Rights at Center of Immigration Reform

Download this show

• Headlines for May 02, 2013
• As U.S. Moves to Arm Syrian Rebels, Questions Raised About Reports of Chemical Weapons Attack
• Punishing Vieques: Puerto Rico Struggles With Contamination 10 Years After Activists Expel U.S. Navy
• Rep. José Serrano: Critical Latino Vote Has Changed the Equation in Washington's Immigration Debate

Download this show

• Headlines for May 01, 2013
• Obama Vows to Seek Guantánamo Closure, But Immediate Action Could Prevent Hunger Strikers' Deaths
• As Bangladesh Toll Hits 400, Calls Grow to Grant Workers the Same Protections as Labels They Make
• Tennis Star Martina Navratilova, Among First "Out" Pro Athletes, Congratulates NBA's Jason Collins

Download this show

• Headlines for April 30, 2013
• Isabel Allende on "Maya's Notebook," Drug Addiction, 1973 Chilean Coup & Death of Poet Pablo Neruda
• Kimberly Rivera, Pregnant Mom of 4, Sentenced to Military Prison for Refusing to Serve in Iraq

Download this show

• Headlines for April 29, 2013
• A Desperate Situation at Guantánamo: Over 130 Prisoners on Hunger Strike, Dozens Being Force-Fed
• Forgotten Women of the War on Terror: Author Victoria Brittain on the Wives and Families Left Behind
• Country Musician Willie Nelson Turns 80: "One Person Carrying a Message Can Change the World"

Download this show

• Headlines for April 26, 2013
• Did FBI Focus on Controversial Stings Distract from Pursuit of Tsarnaev Before Boston Attacks?
• "Love Has No Color": Georgia High School Students Set to Hold First Integrated Prom
• "The Trials of Muhammad Ali": Boxing Champ's Refusal to Serve in Vietnam Was the Fight of His Life

Download this show

• Headlines for April 25, 2013
• Over 200 Killed in Bangladesh Factory Collapse After Workers Forced to Ignore Building's Dangers
• Survivor of Bangladesh's Tazreen Factory Fire Urges U.S. Retailers to Stop Blocking Worker Safety
• Yemeni Activist Farea al-Muslimi Urges U.S. to Stop the Drone War on His Country

Download this show

• Headlines for April 24, 2013
• As Obama Shuns Hearing, Yemeni Says U.S. Drone War Terrifying Civilians, Empowering Militants
• The World Is a Battlefield: Jeremy Scahill on "Dirty Wars" and Obama's Expanding Drone Attacks

Download this show

To mark the passing of legendary protest singer Richie Havens, we are sharing his performance of "Freedom" at the massive Feb. 15, 2003, demonstration against the Iraq War, which took place in New York City as millions filled the streets around the world. You may recall the song from Havens’ performance at Woodstock, where he was the first act to take the stage, and did so quite dramatically. After a nearly 50-year career, Havens died Monday at age 72 in his New Jersey home after a sudden heart attack.

• Headlines for April 23, 2013
• Jeremy Scahill: The Secret Story Behind Obama's Assassination of Two Americans in Yemen

Download this show

• Headlines for April 22, 2013
• Glenn Greenwald on Boston Marathon Arrest: Will We Deny Constitutional Rights in the Name of Fear?
• Apartheid Regime Bomb Victim Father Michael Lapsley on Using Forgiveness to Heal From Tragedy
• Earth Day Exclusive: Tim DeChristopher Speaks Out After 21 Months in Prison for Disrupting Oil Bid

Download this show

• Headlines for April 19, 2013
• Genocide Trial of Former Dictator Ríos Montt Suspended After Intervention by Guatemalan President
• Exclusive: Allan Nairn Exposes Role of U.S. and New Guatemalan President in Indigenous Massacres

Download this show

We continue our discussion with filmmaker Robert Greenwald about his new documentary, War on Whistleblowers: Free Press and the National Security State_. Click here to watch Part 1 of this interview.on

The film looks at four whistleblowers who had their lives practically destroyed after they went to the press with evidence of government wrongdoing. They are Michael DeKort, Thomas Drake, Franz Gayl and Thomas Tamm.

Whistleblowers have come under unprecedented attack by the Obama administration. Evoking the Espionage Act of 1917, the administration has pressed criminal charges against no fewer than six government employees, more than all previous presidential administrations combined. In the film, Greenwald also interviews government oversight experts and investigative journalists who warn about the chilling effect prosecutions may have on potential whistleblowers and the journalists who help them.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González, looking at a new film directed by Robert Greenwald on whistleblowers. It looks at four whistleblowers who had their lives practically destroyed for saving lives—that is, after they went to the press with evidence of government wrongdoing. They’re Michael DeKort, Thomas Drake, Franz Gayl and Thomas Tamm. In the film, Greenwald also interviews government oversight experts, investigative journalists, who warn about the chilling effect prosecutions may have on potential whistleblowers and the journalists who help them.

The film, War on Whistleblowers, profiles Michael DeKort, a Lockheed Martin project manager who posted a whistleblowing video on YouTube. In it, he objected to subpar emergency systems on board U.S. Coast Guard boats. Before speaking publicly through his YouTube video, DeKort brought these issues to the attention of immediate management and then to higher-up executives, including the CEO of Lockheed Martin and the board of directors. After his pressing concerns were continually ignored for two years, he was discharged from Lockheed Martin. And as a result, DeKort went public. His video gained a wide amount of exposure. It eventually led to a congressional hearing on the entire Deepwater project. As a result, the boats were taken out of service, engineer changes were made, and a settlement was reached regarding the electronic issues.

In this clip, DeKort talks about how he discovered that radios were not waterproof on Coast Guard boats.

MICHAEL DEKORT: One day, somebody came to me, and they said, "I’m going to tell you something just so my conscience is clear." The radios that they were putting on the smaller boats, that were exposed, were not waterproof. Some of the systems mounted on the outside of the boat wouldn’t survive harsh elements or harsh weather. The radios would have failed if they even got a little bit wet. And you need a radio to communicate, right? The backup for that radio not being on that small boat is a flare. If you could screw something up in that area, you’re pretty much open game for anything else.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Michael DeKort, the Lockheed Martin project manager who posted this whistleblowing video on YouTube objecting to the subpar emergency systems on board U.S. Coast Guard. Talk about what happened, Robert Greenwald, then.

ROBERT GREENWALD: Well, it’s almost—you know, it’s almost laughable, if it weren’t tragic—making radios that are not waterproof that go on Coast Guard boats. I mean, think about it for a moment. It’s out of Kafka or something. So, it was another example of why whistleblowers are important. And what we found in the film, every single whistleblower came up against the wall. And what did they do? They went to the media. And investigative reporters came through in each and every case—not accepting what they said—digging into it, researching it, getting the word out there, and then often that leading to real change—not enough change, but leading to some change.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And the government going after the journalists, as well.

ROBERT GREENWALD: Yes. I mean, we’re seeing that more and more. We’re seeing that tragically with the Obama administration. And as journalists have been saying—we’ve been doing panels and discussions—it’s changed the environment. They can’t get people on the phone that they used to be able to get on the phone, because journalists are threatened themselves, and the sources don’t want to talk as much. I mean, it’s never been easy. You know, every single one of the whistleblowers in the film paid a deep personal price—family, economic, reputation, career. All those things were affected. Now, on top of all that, you have this terrific and horrible powerful legal force coming after them, huge legal bills for everybody.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Let’s turn to another clip from the film, War on Whistleblowers: Free Press and the National Security State. Here, several prominent journalists explain that the more powerful the national security state becomes, the more we need whistleblowers. The clip begins with investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, then Washington Post reporter Dana Priest, and ends with Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg.

SEYMOUR HERSH: There’s a huge architecture we don’t see in the secret world. And believe me, these guys can operate, and they are operating. And they operate with total impunity. There’s so much we don’t know and so much we can’t know, so much locked up in legal classification.

DANA PRIEST: The more powerful the national security state becomes, the more we need whistleblowers. It is all in the classified realm. What we discovered as a result of our research is that there are over 1,200 government organizations working at the top-secret level on counterterrorism. There are another close to 2,000 companies that work for the government on top-secret matters. And they’re all located in about 10,000 locations throughout the country. There are close to a million people who have top-secret clearance.

DANIEL ELLSBERG: We talk about a national security state that pretends that it’s interested in our national security, but in fact it’s interested in the security of corporate interests, of agency interests, of politicians keeping their jobs.

DANA PRIEST: It is, as one source said, a self-licking ice cream cone. It’s there to support itself.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: The Obama administration has not only cracked down on whistleblowers, but also the journalists who assist them. Let’s go to this clip. This one begins with Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, then goes to Ben Freeman of the—national security investigator at the Project on Government Accountability, then Jane Mayer, a staff writer at The New Yorker, and ends with David Carr, a New York Times journalist.

DANIELLE BRIAN: One of the most disappointing things we’ve seen has been the president’s commitment to going after the journalists that they’ve worked with, when all they’re doing is exposing wrongdoing.

BEN FREEMAN: It’s put a lot of journalists on the defensive to make them even more reluctant to work with whistleblowers.

JANE MAYER: It really criminalizes the news-gathering process.

JAKE TAPPER: There just seems to be disconnect here: You want aggressive journalism abroad; you just don’t want it in the United States.

JAY CARNEY: Well, I—I—I would hesitate to speak to any particular case.

DAVID CARR: The Obama administration had taken what was an understandable sense of governmental discipline and kind of gone over the top with it and began prosecuting every which way.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: That was David Carr, New York Times journalist, and before that, Jane Mayer, Ben Freeman and Danielle Brian. Robert Greenwald, what about this and the pressures then on the journalists in terms of being able to persist in digging up these stories?

ROBERT GREENWALD: Look, investigative journalists, as you all know, has never been an easy task. And we really should be celebrating the journalists and celebrating the whistleblowers. Instead, we have an administration affected far too significantly by the national security state, affected far too significantly, as Dana and Jane say in the film, from listening to the CIA, and working to keep secrets rather than the promise that we all had of transparency.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go back to Jake Tapper. That was the last clip that we just saw, Jake Tapper at the White House. Last year, the White House correspondent for ABC News questioned the Obama administration for applauding truth seekers abroad while simultaneously prosecuting them at home. Tapper raised his concern shortly after White House Press Secretary Jay Carney lamented the deaths of journalists Anthony Shadid and Marie Colvin, saying they had given their lives in order to bring truth while reporting in Syria. This is Jake Tapper.

JAKE TAPPER: How does that square with the fact that this administration has been so aggressively trying to stop aggressive journalism in the United States by using the Espionage Act to take whistleblowers to court? You’re currently—I think that you’ve invoked it the sixth time, and before the Obama administration, it had only been used three times in history. You’re—this is the sixth time you’re suing a CIA officer for allegedly providing information in 2009 about CIA torture. Certainly that’s something that’s in the public interest of the United States. This administration is taking this person to court. There just seems to be disconnect here: You want aggressive journalism abroad; you just don’t want it in the United States.

JAY CARNEY: Well, I—I—I would hesitate to speak to any particular case, for obvious reasons, and I would refer you to the Department of Justice for more on that.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Jay Carney, the White House press spokesperson, answering Jake Tapper’s question, ABC reporter. Let’s talk about the sacrifices that the film shows, considerable sacrifices whistleblowers made to tell the truth. They suffered job loss, endless litigation, heavy emotional and psychological toll. The film ends with where they are today. The film—some of the people we hadn’t talked about: Thomas Drake, who was a National Security Agency whistleblower, and Thomas Tamm, worked in the Justice Department and blew the whistle—the film—this clip begins with Franz Gayl, who blew the whistle on the Pentagon, then Thomas Drake, Michael DeKort and Thomas Tamm.

FRANZ GAYL: I’m now working back at the Pentagon in the office from which I was removed. Today, I feel great. You know, it could be so much worse. And I feel very lucky, because I’ve received a lot of support from a lot of outsiders that I don’t think every person in my situation gets.

THOMAS DRAKE: Where am I now? You know, I work full-time at an Apple Store in the greater D.C. area. I’ve gone back to school. I’m about a year away from finishing up my Ph.D. in public policy and administration, specializing in leadership and management.

MICHAEL DEKORT: Well, I mean, it went from me living in an amazing place. I was in northern Colorado Springs, and I had a great career. And it was, again, 13 years, and my family liked being there. And then that all came to an end. So, we had to leave. And the first time we left, I actually had no job to go to, so we had to stay—we stayed with family. But I had to go to a completely different industry. So, employment has been—it’s been spotty, you know, here and there. I’m employed now, and I have a good job, and I’m back in Pittsburgh, where my wife’s family is from, so that’s fine.

THOMAS TAMM: After the raid, I just kind of figured that I was too controversial maybe to hire for a lot of different reasons and a lot of different positions, so I just opened an office on my own to do criminal defense litigation. But, you know, the business didn’t come—didn’t come screaming through the door. So, you know, from this point forward, I’d like to try and become actually more active on—and talk out maybe on college campuses or use this movie, really, to tell people what I did and why I did it.

AMY GOODMAN: That last voice, Thomas Tamm, who blew the whistle on government surveillance of Americans. Robert Greenwald, where everyone ends up? I mean, Drake ends up at an Apple Store in the Washington, D.C., area, one of the smartest guys at the NSA, as one of the people in your film said.

ROBERT GREENWALD: Yes. They’ve all paid, you know, a terrible personal price, and they’ve really done it for the purest of reasons. It’s about democracy. It’s about facing something in their work, in their lives, and saying, "I can’t accept this." And how many of us would stand up? How many of us would give up so much in order for—to fight for principles that they believe in?

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I’d like to go to this clip from the film where whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg talks about the risks taken by Army Private Bradley Manning. Manning was responsible for the largest leak of state secrets in U.S. history.

DANIEL ELLSBERG: Only the person who reveals the criminal activity who is prosecuted for it. And I would say I identify very strongly with Bradley Manning, because, first of all, he was doing this because he felt crimes were being committed, horrible things. He said, "I am prepared to go to prison for life, or even be executed." So, once again, it’s the messenger.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And the Bradley Manning case, Robert Greenwald?

ROBERT GREENWALD: Yes. Well, that, of course, requires a whole film or films on its own. But Mr. Ellsberg was able to connect it up for us, to explain that this is ongoing, that it hasn’t been resolved yet, as you and of course the listeners all know. But I think it explains the tradition, you know, from Ellsberg to Manning and all these other people in between. And it’s a very, very important tradition. James Risen, who’s been—had terrible legal problems, had said, "Can we have a democracy—

AMY GOODMAN: James Risen at The New York Times.

ROBERT GREENWALD: Yeah, sorry, James Risen of The New York Times, who’s been subjected to tremendous legal problems, has said at the Press Club, "Can we have a democracy without a robust investigative reporting?" And there’s a big real question there.

AMY GOODMAN: And he says, no, he thinks not.

ROBERT GREENWALD: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: Let’s go to James Risen.

LUCY DALGLISH: There are some risks involved with publishing stories. You can be hauled into court for a very lengthy, expensive court battle, if they are trying to get you to divulge your sources. Jim Risen of The New York Times is very familiar with this particular problem. Jim was subpoenaed in connection with a book he wrote. That case is still pending.

JAMES RISEN: Basic issue is whether or not you can have a democracy without aggressive investigative reporting. And I don’t believe you can.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s James Risen of The New York Times. The government is continuing to go after him for his exposé of government surveillance. Robert Greenwald, we want to thank you very much for being with us, founder and president of Brave New Films. He’s producer, director and activist. His new film is called War on Whistleblowers: Free Press and the National Security State. Among his other films, Rethink Afghanistan, Sick for Profit and so many more. Thanks so much for joining us.

ROBERT GREENWALD: Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

• Headlines for April 18, 2013
• "Devastation Beyond Description": Dozens Feared Dead in Texas Fertilizer Plant Blast, 100+ Wounded
• No OSHA Inspections at Texas Plant in 5 Years: Are We Doing Enough to Protect Workplace Safety?
• A Rush to Misjudgment: CNN Faulted for Racially Charged, Erroneous Reports on Boston Marathon Case
• Filmmaker Robert Greenwald on "War on Whistleblowers: Free Press and the National Security State"

Download this show

• Headlines for April 17, 2013
• Venezuela Accuses U.S. of Plotting Coup After Deadly Post-Election Protests
• After Obama Shuns Probe, Bipartisan Panel Finds "Indisputable" Evidence U.S. Tortured Under Bush
• Boston Turns to Recovery as Victims Identified, Bombing Details Emerge

Download this show