Transcripts For LINKTV Democracy Now 20240713

We speak with the directors of the oscar shortlisted documentary, the great hack, as well as a propaganda researcher and Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Brittany Kaiser, author of targeted the Cambridge Analytica whistleblowers inside story of trump, anda, facebook broke democracy and how it can happen again. Should be concerned and everyone should be very concerned about the weaponization of our data i people that are actually experts in selling weapons. Amy all that and more, coming up. Welcome to democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. The house of representatives voted thursday to approve a nonbinding war powers resolution aimed at limiting president trumps ability to take further military action against iran without congressional approval. President trump ratcheted up tensions with iran by commandering iranian Qassem Soleimani last week. Thursdays 224 to 194 house vote included three republicans voting yes and eight democrats voting no. The resolution now heads to the senate. The vote came as irans ambassador to the United Nations blasted the u. S. At the u. N. Security council, speaking on behalf of Iranian Foreign minister javad zarif, who was unable to address the Security Council thursday after the u. S. Denied him a visa in violation of a 1947 u. S. U. N. Agreement. This is ambassador majid takht ravanchi. Im here today to deliver a statement on behalf of mr. Zarif, whose visa was denied. Y the United States here is the statement. Were meeting today to discuss a moment is imperative we are all confronted with. The world is at a crossroads. Isn unhinged regime radically clamoring to turn back time. Amy thousands of protesters in chicago, new york, seattle and dozens of other cities took to the streets to protest war with iran thursday night. The new york k times has obtainined video that t appearso show an Iranian Missile e hittig the boeing 73737 jet that t crad shortly after tatakeoff in tehen wednesday,y, killing all 1 176 people on n board. The e crash came houours after n fired baballistic miiles at two Iraqi Military baseswhwhich house iraqi and d u. S. Troops,sn retaliation for general soleimanis assassination. This is Canadian Foreign minister francoisphilippe champagne. We have intelligence from multiple sources, including our allies and our own his knowledge ands intelligence that indicates the plane was shot down by an iranian surfacetoair missile. This may well have been unintentional. Amy iranian officials have denied allegationsns they mistakenlyly shot down the passenger jet that was headed to ukraine. The inquiry into the plane crash in tehran comes as the jets manufacturer, boeing, is facing even more scrutiny over its troubled 737 max jet as released internal emails show boeing employees talking about deceiving federal regulators and joking about potential safety flaws in the planes design ahead of the two fatal plane crashes that killed all 346 people on board. In one email, an employee wrote this airplane is designed by clowns, who are in turn supervised by monkeys. In another, an employee asked a colleague would you put your family on a max simulator trained aircraft . I wouldnt. In a third, an e employee wroten apparent reference to interactions with the faa i still havent been forgiven by god for the covering up i did last year. The boeing 737 max has been grounded worldwide. President trump is proposing changing the nations oldest environmental law to exempt large infrastructure projects, such as pipelines and power plants, from environmental review. If enacted, the changes would exempt agencies from considering the cumulative environmental impacts of projects, which could include studying climate change. Studying the climate crisis. In immigration news, a mexican Asylum Seeker died by suicide wednesday when he slit his own throat after being denied entry into the United States at the pharrreynosa international bridge at the texasmexico border. Meanwhile in louisiana, two Asylum Seekers from india are reportedly on the brink of death as their Hunger Strike against their prolonged detention stretches into its 69th day. Medical staff at the lasalle ice immigration jail are forcehydrating the two men. And in arizona, the chief of the Tohono Oodham nation says the construction of the border wall on the nations land may have unearthed ancient human remains inside the Organ Pipe Cactus National monument inin the sonon desert. In electioion news, six president ial candidates elizabeth warren, bernie sanders, pete buttigieg, amy klobuchar, joe biden, and tom steyer will take to the state for another democratic debate in before the iowa caucus. It wilill be in des moines next all the candidates on stage will tuesdaday. Be white after new jersey senator cory booker and Entrepreneur Andrew Yang did not qualify for the debate. Billionaire tom steyer qualified after pouring more than 115 million of his own money into his campaign. Billionaire former new york city mayor Michael Bloomberg did nont qualify for the debatete, despie spending nearly 170 million of his own money on ads. In france, at least half a Million People flooded the streets across the country thursday to show their support for the unionized rail workers whose strike against french president emmanuel macrons attempted pension overhaul has now become the longest transportation strike in french history. This is youlie yamamoto. It appears this thing women are the great winners of the reform. That is not true. Women are the biggest losers of the reform. Why . Because he knows they have different jobs, had to take more care of children, work parttime. For sure, they have careers with gaps, shorter careers. If you take the whole career into account, women will be hit the hardest. Amy health and Human Services secretarary alex azar hahas decd a publblic health ememergency fr puertoto rico after r a 6. 4 magnitude earthquake rocked the island early tuesday, killing at leasast one personon and plungig nearly the entire populaonon into darkness. As othursdayelectricalower was restored to about halff residedents. The pupuerto rico elelectric eny authority says its goal is to restore power for all residents by this weekend. In new york, a grand jury indicted the suspect in the moreukkah attack for five federal hatete crimes thursday. Graftoton thomas allegedly stabd at least five e jewish worshipes who wewere celebratingananukkah a a rabbis house in monsey last month. His lawyers say he is mentalally ill. A nenew Study Suggests that raising the minimum wage by one dollar an hour could save thousands of lives of people from dying by suicide each year. Anand that if the minimum wage d been at least 2 an hour higher, nearly 60,000 lives could have been saved between 1990 and 2015. Suicide is now the second leading cause of death in the United States among children and youth ages 1024. With the suicide rate among black youth rising faster than any other racial group. And in texas, elana carr has died. She was the mother of Atatiana Jefferson, the African American woman who was killed by a white Police Officer in carr had been october. Fighting illness at the time of her daughters death, and Atatiana Jefferson known to family members as tey had been her caretaker. Former fort worth Police Officer aaron dean chacha percent through her bedroom window while responding to a nonemergency Wellness Check called for by neighbor who saw teys front door had been left open. Tatyana atatianas father also dieied in november of a het attack, less than one month after his daughters death. And those are some of the headlines. This is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. A longtime facebook executive has admitted the companys platform helped donald trump win the 2016 election and it may happen again this year. In an internal memo, facebook Vice President Andrew Bosworth wrote so was facebook responsible for donald trump getting elected . I think the answer is yes. Bosworth, who was a backer of Hillary Clinton in 2016, went on to write that the company should not change its p policies in an effort to hurt trumps reelection chances. Bosworth credited trump for running the single best Digital Ad Campaign ive ever seen from any advertiser. In his memo, bosworth referenced the role of the shadowy data firm Cambridge Analytica butut downplayed its signinificance. However, a new Netflix Documentary called the great hack argues Cambridge Analytica has played a significant role in the u. S. Election and elections across the globe. Cambridge analytica was ununded by the rigwwing llioionae bert mercer. Trumps s form advdvis steveve bannon of breitbart ne w was o of the companys kestratetests and clmsms to ve namedhe coany. Caridge analytica harvested sosome 8milllliofacebobo profiles without thesesers knledgdge consese and used the data to ayay vots duduri th202016 cpaigign. The storofof camidgege alyticaca is f featured t the new documentary therereat hk, whichahas be shohortsted f f an oscar all of ur interactions, yoyour cdit t ca swipes, web search, locatis,s, likes ey all collected in rettime io a illiondlaraye industry. The reagame chaer was cambridge analica. They worked for the trump cacampai andnd the brexit mpaign. Theytarted ung infortion rfare. Claimedidgenalytica to hav5000 data pnts on every amican vot. Am well, elier thiweek i spoke tohe direcrs of t grt hack,ehane noaim and rim ameras well opagandaesearcheemma briantnd a a fmer employee at cambdge analytica nad britny kaise who hasegun postinonline arove of docunts detaing the companys operions, inuding s work wh presidt trumps rmer natnal secuty advis jo bolton. Kaiseras also itten abt her experience at the company in the book targeted the Cambridge Analytica whistleblowers inside story of how big data, trump, and facebook broke democracy and how it can happen again. She is one of two former Cambridge Analytica employees featured itthe gat hack. The otr is christopherylyle. Is incorrect toalall mbmbridganalalyta an algithm company or data science company. It is a fullservice propagagana machine. Amy i asked Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Brittany Kaiser to talklk about how she became involved with cambridge aanlytica. I think is important to note this. Their people all around the world working for Tech Companies that im sure joined that company in order to do something good. They want the world to be more connected. They want to use technology in order to communicate with everybody, to give people more engaged in important issues. And they dont realize while youre moving fast and breaking things, some things get so broken that you cannot actually contemplate or predict what those repercussions are going to look like. Chris wylie and i both really idealistically joined Cambridge Analytica because we were excited about the potential of using data for exciting and good impact projects. Chris joined in 2013 on the data side in order to start developing different types of psychographic models. So he worked with dr. Aleksandr kogan in the Cambridge Psychometrics Center at Cambridge University in order to start doing experiments with facebook data to be able to gather that data which we know was taken under the wrong auspices of Academic Research and was then used in order to identify people psychographic groupings. Amy now, explain that, psychographic groupings, and especially for people who are not on facebook, who dont understand its enormous power and the intimate knowledge it has of people. Think of someone youre talking to whos never experienced facebook. Explain what is there. Absolutely. So the amount of data that is collected about you on facebook and on any of your devices is much more than youre really made aware of. You probably havent ever read the terms and conditions of any of these apps on your phone. But if you actually took the time to do it and you could understand it because most of them are written for you not understand, it is written in legalese you would realize that you are giving away a lot more than you would have ever agreed to if there was transparenency. This is your every move, everywhere youre going, who youre talking to, who your contacts are, what information youre actually giving in other apps on your phone, your location data, all of your lifestyle where youre going, what youre doing, whatat youre reading, how long you spend looking at different images and websites. This amount of behavioral data gives such a good picture of you that your behavior can be predicted, as karim was talking about earlier, to a very high degree of accuracy. And this allows Companies Like Cambridge Analytica to understand how you see the world and what will motivate you to go and take an action or, unfortunately, what will demotivate you. So that amount of data, available on facebook ever since you joined, allows a very easy platform for you to be targeted and manipulated. And when i say psychographic targeting, im sure you probably are a little bit more familiar with the myersbriggs test. So the myersbriggs that asks you a set of questions in order to understand your personality and how you see the world. The system that Cambridge Analytica used is actually a lot more scientific. Its called the ocean fivefactor model. And ocean stands for o for openness, c for conscientiousness whether you prefer plans and order or youre a little bit more fly by the seat of your pants. Extraversion, whether you gather your energy from being out surrounded by people or youre introverted and you prefer to gather your energy from being alone. If you are agreeable, you care about your family, your community, society, your country more than you care about yourself. And if you are disagreeable, then you are a little bit more egotistical. You need messages that are about benefits to you. And then the worst is neurotic. You know, its not bad to be neurotic. It means that you are a little bit more emotional. It means, unfortunately, as well, that you are motivated by fearbased messaging. So people can use tactics in order to scare you to doing what they want to do. And this is what was targeted when they were gathering that data out of facebook to figure out which group you belonged into. They found about 32 different groups of people, different personality types. And there were groups of psychologists that were looking into how they could understand that data and convert that into messaging that was just for you. I need to remind everybody that the Trump Campaign put together over a million different advertisements that were put out a million different advertisements with tens of thousands of different campaigns. Some of these messages were for just you, were for 50 people, a 100 people. Obviously, certain groups are thousands, tens of thousands or millions. But some of them were targeted very much directly at the individual to know exactly what youre going to click on and exactly what you care about. Amy so they were doing this before Cambridge Analytica. But describe i want to actually go to a bannon clip, steve bannon, who takes credit for naming Cambridge Analytica, right . Because you had scl before, defence. And then it becomes Cambridge Analytica, for Cambridge University, right . Where kogan got this information that he culled from facebook. Yes. Amy this is the white house chief strategist steve bannon in an interview at a Financial Times conference in march 2018. Bannon said that reports that Cambridge Analytica improperly accessed data to build profiles on American Voters and influence the 2016 president ial election were politically motivated. Months later, evidence emerged linking bannon to Cambridge Analytica, the scandal, which resulted in a 5 billion fine for facebook. Bannon is the founder and former board member of the Political Consulting firm he was Vice President of Cambridge Analytica. All Cambridge Analytica is the data scientists and the applied applications here in the United States. It has n nothing to do w with Te International ststuff. The guardian actually tells you that, and the observer tell you that, when you get down to the 10th paragraph, ok . When you get down to the 10th paragraph. And what nix does overseas is what nix d does overseas. Right . It was a data it was a data company. And by the way, cruzs campaign anand the Trump Campaign say, hey, they were a pretty good data company. But this whole thing on psychographics was optionality in the deal. If it ever worked, it worked. But it hasnt worked, and it doesnt look like its going to work. So it was never eveven applied. Amy so that was steve bannon in 2018, key to president trumps victory and to his years so far in office before he was forced to before he was forcrced ou. What was your relationship with steve bannon . You worked at Cambridge Analytica for over three years. You had the keys to the castle, is that right, in washington . Yes, for a while i actually split the keys to what is steves house with Alexander Nix because we used his house as our office. His house is also used as a breitbart office in the basement. Its called the Breitbart Embassy on capitol hill. And thats where i would go for meetings. Amy who funded that . I believe it was owned by the mercer family, that building. And we would come into the basement and use that boardroom for our meetings. And we would use that for planning who we were going to go pitch to, what campaigns we were going to work for, what advocacy groups, what conservative 501s he wanted us to go see. And i didnt spend a lot of time with steve, but the time i did was incredibly insightful. Almost every time i saw him, hed be showing me some new Hillary Clinton hit video that or he had come out with war announcing that he was about to throw a Book Launch Party for ann coulter for adios, america , which was something that he invited both me and alexander to, and we promptly decided to leave the house before she arrived. But steve was very influential in the development of Cambridge Analytica and who we were going to go see, who we were going to support with our technology. And he made a lot of the introductions, which in the beginning seemed a little less nefarious than they did later on, when he got very confident and started introducing us to white rightwing Political Parties across europe and in other countries and tried to get meetings with the main Political Parties or leftist or green parties instead to make sure that those farrightwing parties that do not have the worlds best interests at heart could not get access to these technologies. Amy you said in the great hack, in the film, that you have evidence of illegality of the trump and Brexit Campaigns, that they were conducted illegally. I was wondering if you can go into that. I mean, it was controversial even, and carole cadwalladr, the great reporter at the observer and the guardian, was blasted and was personally targeted, very well demonstrated in the great hack, for saying that Cambridge Analytica was involved in brexit. They kept saying they had nothing to do with it until she shows a video of you, who worked for Cambridge Analytica, at one of the founding events of leave it, or brexit. Yeah, leave. Eu, that panel that i was on, which has now become quite an infamous video, was their launch event to launch the campaign. And Cambridge Analytica was in deep negotiations, through introduction of steve bannon, with both of the Brexit Campaigns. I was told, actually, originally we pitched remain, and the remain side said that they did not need to spend money on expensive political consultants, because they were going to win anyway. And thats actually what i also truly believed and so did they. So steve made the introductions to make sure that we would still get a commercial contract out of this political campaign, andnd both to vote leave and leave. Eu. Cambridge analytica took leave. Eu, and aiq, which was Cambridge Analyticas esessentially digital l partner, before Cambridge Analytica could run our own digital campaigns, they were running the vote leave side, both funded by the mercers, both with the same access to this giant database on American Voters. Amy the mercers funded brexit . There was Cambridge Analytica work, as well as aiq work, in both of the leave campaigns. So a lot of that money, in order to collect that data and in order to build the infrastructure of both of those companies, came from mercerfunded campaigns, yes. Amy and again, explain what aiq is. Aiq was a company that actually ran all of Cambridge Analyticas digital campaigns until january 2016, when molly schweickert, our head of digital, was hired in order to build ad tech internally within the company. Aiq was based in canada and was a partner that had access to Cambridge Analytica data the entire time that they were running the vote leave campaign, which was the designated and Main Campaign in brexit. Amy so when did you see the connection between brexit and the Trump Campaign . Actually, a lot of it started to come when i saw some of caroles reporting, because there were a lot of conspiracy theories over what was going on, and i didnt know what to believe. All i knew was that we definitely did work in the Brexit Campaign we as in when i was at Cambridge Analytica, because i was one of the people working on the campaign. And we obviously played a large role in not just the Trump Campaign itself, but trump super pacs and a lot of other conservative advocacy groups, and others, that were the infrastructure that allowed for the building of the movement that pushed donald trump into the white house. Amy i mean, it looks like Cambridge Analytica was heading to a billiondollar corporation. Thats what alexander used to tell us all the time. That was the carrot that he waved in front of our eyes in order to have us keep going. Were building a billiondollar company. Arent you excited . And i think that thats what so many people get caught up in, people that are currently working at facebook, people that are working at google, people that are working at companies where they are motivated to build exciting technology, that obviously can also be very dangerous, but they think theyre going to financially benefit and be able to take care of themselves and their families because of it. Amy so what was illegal . The massive problems that came from the data collection, specifically, are where my original accusations come f from because data was collected under the auspices of being for Academic Research and was used for political and commercial purposes. There are also different data sets that are not supposed to be matched and used without explicit transparency and consent in the united kingdom, because they actually have Good National Data Protection laws and international Data Protection laws through the European Union to protect voters. Unfortunately, in the United States, we only have seen the state of california coming out and doing it. Now, on the other side, we have Voter Suppression laws that prevent our vote from being suppressed. We have laws against discrimination in advertising, racism, sexism, incitement of violence. All of those things are illegal, yet somehow a platform like facebook has decided that if politicians want to use any of those tactics, that they will not be held to the same Community Standards as you or me or the basic laws and social contracts that we have in this country. And make a whistleblower Brittany Kaiser. Only, we speak to the directors , which hast hack just been shortlisted for an academy award. [music break] amy this is democracy now , im amy goodman. We continue our lolook at facebook,analytica, and the roles and the 2016 election and other elections earlier this week, i spoke to the directors of the great hack, Jehane Noujaim and karim amer, as well as emma briant and Brittany Kaiser. I asked karim amer to spspeak about suppressing the vote. It was important for us to show in the film the expansiveness of cambridges work. This went beyond the borders of the u. S. And even beyond the borders of the eu and you pay. Cambridge used in pursuing this global influence industry that they were very much a part of, they used Different Countries as petri dishes to learn and get the knowhow about different tactics. And from improving those tactics, they could then sell them for a higher cost higher margin in western democracies, where the election budgets are, you know we have to remember, i think its important to predicate that the election business has become a multibilliondollar global business, right . So we have to remember while we are upset with Companies Like cambridge, we allowed for the commoditization of our democratic process, right . So people are exploiting this now because it has become a business. And we, as purveyors of this, cant really be as upset as we want to be when we have justified that. So i want to preface it with that. Now, that being said, whats happened as a result is a company like cambridge can practice tactics in a place like trinidad thats very unregulated in terms of what they can and cant do, learn from that knowhow and then, you know, use it parlay it into activities in the United States. What they did in trinidad, and why it was important for us to show it in the film, is they led something called the do so campaign where they admit to making it cool and popular among youth to get out and not vote. And they knew amy you had the indian population and the black population. And the black population. And there is a lot of historic tension between those two, and a lot of generational differences, lot of generational differences, as well, between those two. And the do so campaign targeted was was done in a way to, you know, by looking at the data and looking at the predictive analysis of which group would vote or not vote, get enough people to dissuade them from voting, so that they could flflip the election. Amy targeted at . Targeted at the youth. And so this is really when you watch amy do so actually meant dont vote. Do so, dont vote. Dont vote. Amy with their fists crossed. Amy and that it became cool not to vote. Exactly. And you look at the level of calculation behind this, and its quite frightening. Now, as emma was saying, a lot of these tactics were born out of our own fears in the United States and the u. K. Post9 11, when we allowed for this massive weaponization of influence campaigns to begin. You know, if you remember president bush talking about, you know, the battle for the hearts and minds of the iraqi people, all of these kinds of industries were born out of this. And now i believe what were seeing is the hens have come home to roost, right . All of these tactics that we developed in the name of, quoteunquote, fighting the war on terror, in the name of doing these things, have now been commercialized and used to come back to the biggest election market in the world, the united statates. And how do we blame people for for doing that when weve allowed for our democracy to be for sale . And thats what brittanys files today, that shes releasing and has released over the last couple days, really give us insight to. The hindsight files that brittany has released show us how there is an auction happening for influence campaigns in every democracy around the world. There is no vote that is unprotected in the current way that we in the Current Space that were living. And the thing thats allowing this to happen is these information platforms like facebook. And that is whats so upsetting, because we can actually do something about that. We are the only country in the world that can hold facebook accountable, yet we still have not done so. And we still keep going to their leadership hoping they do the right thing, but they have not. And why is that . Because no industry has ever shown in American History that it can regulate itself. There is a reason why antitrust laws exist in this country. Theres a tradition of Holding Companies accountable, and we need to reembrace that tradition, especially as we enter into o where the stakes 2020 could not be higher. Amamy Brittany Kaiser, can you talk about the Crooked Hillary Campaign and how it developed . This started as a super pac that was built for ted cruz, keep the promise one, which was run by kellyanne c conway and funded by the mercers. Converted into becoming a super pac for donald trump. They tried to register with the federal Election Commission the name, defeat crooked hillary, and the fec, luckily, did not allow them to do that. So it was called make america number 1. This super pac was headed by david bossie, someone that you might remember from Citizens United who basically brought dark money into our politics and allowed endless amounts of money to be funneled into these types of vehicles so that we dont know where all of the money is coming from for these types of manipulative communications. And he was in charge of this campaign. Now, on that twodaylong debrief that i talked about and if you want to know more, you can read about it in my book they told us amy wait, and explain where you were and who was in the room. So, i was in new york in our boardroom for Cambridge Analyticas office on fifth avenue. And all of our offices from around the world had called in to videocast. And everybody from the super pac and the Trump Campaign took us through all of their tactics and strategies and implementation and what they had done. Now, when we got to this defeat crooked Hillary Super pac, they explained to us what they had done which was to run experiments on psychographic groups to figure out what was working and what wasnt. Unfortunately, what they found out was the only very successful tactic was sending fearbased, scaremongering messaging to people that were identified as being neurotic. And it was so successful in their first experiments that they spent the rest of the money from the super pac over the rest of the campaign only on negative messaging and fearmongering. Amy and crooked, the oo in crooked was handcuffs. Yes. That was designed by Cambridge Analyticas team. Amy karim . And one thing that i think its important to remember here, because theres been a lot of debate among some people about did this actually work . , to what degree did it work . How do we know whether it worked or not . What brittany is describing is a debrief meeting where cambridge, as a companyny, is saying, this is what we learned from our political experience. This is what actually worked. And theyre sharing it because theyre saying, now this is how we want to codify this and commoditize this to go into commercial business. Right . So this is the company admitting to their own knowhow. There is no debate about whether it works or not. This is not them advertising it to the world. This is them saying, this is what weve learned. Based off that, this is how were going to run our business. This is how were going to invest in the expansion of this to sell this outside of politics. The game was, take the political experience, parlay it into the commercial sector. That was the strategy. So there is no debate whether it worked or not. It was highly effective. And the thing thats terrifying is that while cambridge has been disbanded, the same actors are out there. And theres nothing has been nothing has changed to allow us to start putting in place legislation to say there is something called information crimes. In this era of Information Warfare, in this era of information economies, what is an information crime . What does it look like . Who determines it . T . And yet without that, we are still living in this unfiltered, where placespace like facebook are continuing to choose profit over the protection of the republic. And i think thats whats so outrageous. And i think its pretty telling that only two people amy jehane. Only two people have come forward from Cambridge Analytica. Why is that . Both of the people that have come forward, brittany and chris, and also with caroles writing, have been targeted personally. And its been a very, very difficult story to tell. Even with us, when we released the film in january, every single time we have entered into the country, we have been stopped for four to six hours of questioning at the border. Amy stopped by . Stopped by on the border of the u. S. , in jfk airport, where youre taken into the back, asked for all of your social media handles, questioned for four to six hours, every single time we enter the country. Amy since when . Since we released the film, so since sundance, since january. Every time weve come back into the u. S. Amy and on what grounds are they saying theyre stopping you . No explanation. Amy and what is your theory . My theory is that its got something to do with this film. Maybe were doing something right. We were at first weve been stopped in egypt, but weve never been stopped and the u. S. This way. We are in can citizens. Amy you talk about people coming forward and not coming forward. I wanted to turn to former Cambridge Analytica coo, the chief operating officer, julian wheatland, speaking on the podcast recode decode. The company made some significant mistakes when it came to its use of data. They were ethical mistakes. And i think that part of the reason that that happened was that we spent a lot of time concentrating on not making regulatory mistakes. And so for the most part, we didnt, as far as i can tell, make any regulatory mistakes, but we got almost distracted by ticking those boxes of fulfilling the regulatory requirements. And it felt like, well, once that was done, then wed done what we needed to do. And we forgot to pause and think about ethically what was what was going on. Amy so, if you could decode that, brittany . Cambridge analytica coo julian wheatland, who, interestingly, and the great hack, while he really condemned chris wylie, did not appreciate chris wylie stepping forward and putting Cambridge Analytica in the crosshairs in the british parliament, he was more equivocal about you. He talk about wheatland and his role and what hes saying about actually abiding by the regulations, which they actually clearly didnt. Once upon a time, i used to have a lot of respect for julian wheatland. I even thought we were friends. I thought we were building a billiondollar company together that was going to allow me to do great things in the world. But, unfortunately, thats a story that i told myself and a story he wanted me to believe that isnt true at all. While he likes to say that they spent a lot of time abiding by regulations, i would beg to differ. Cambridge analytica did not even have a Data Protection officer until 201818, right before they shut down. I begged for one for many years. I begged for more time with our lawyers and was told i was creating too many invoices. And for a long time, because i had multiple law degrees, i was asked to write contracts. And so were other amy didnt you write the Trump Campaign contract . The original one, yes, i did. And there were many other people that were trained in human rights law in the company that were asked to draft contracts, even though contract law was not anybodys specialty within the company. But they were trying to cut corners and save money, just like a lot of Technology Companies decide to do. They do not invest in making the ethical or legal decisions that will protect the people that are affected by these technologies. Amy i wanted to bring emma briant back into this conversation. This issue of military contractors and the nexus of a and government powewer, the fact that with trumps election, military contractors were one of the greatest financial beneficiaries of trumps election. Karim amer. The issue is that also these when we think of military contractors, we think of people selling tanks and guns and bullets and these types of things. The problem that we dont realize is that were in an era of Information Warfare. So the new military contractors arent selling arent selling the traditional tanks. Theyre selling the amy although theyre doing that. Theyre doing that, as well, but theyre selling the equivalent of that in the information space. And thats a new kind of weapon. Thats a new kind of battle that were not familiar with. And the reason why its more challenging for us is because theres a deficit of language and a deficit of visuals. We dont know where the battlefield is. We dont know where the borders are. We cant pinpoint, be like, this is where the trenches are. Yet were starting to uncover that. And that was so much of the challenge in making this film, is trying to see where can we actually show you where these wreckage sites are, where the casualties of this new Information Warfare are, and who the actors are and where the fronts are. And i think, in entering 2020, we have to keep a keen eye on where the new war fronts are and when theyre happening in our domestic frontiers and how theyre happening in these devices that we use every day. So this is where we have to have a new kind of reframing of what we are looking at. Because while we are at war, it is a very different kind of borderless war where asymmetric information activity can affect us in ways that we never imagineded. Amy and, emma briant, you talked about when facebook knew the level of documentation that Cambridge Analytica was taking from them. Yeah. Amy i mean, Cambridge Analytica paid them, right . Yes. I mean, they were providing the data to o gsr, who then, you kn, were paid d by amy explain what gsr is. Sorry, the company by kogan and joseph chancellor, their company that they were setting up to do both Academic Research but also to exploit the data for Cambridge Analyticas purposes. So they were working with on mapping that data onto the personality teststs and gigiving that access to Cambridge Analytica, s so that they could scale it up to profile people across the target states in america especially, but also all across america. They obtained way more than they evever expecteted, as chris wyle and brittany have shown. But i also want to ask, when did ouour governments know abobout t cambridge ananalytica and scl le doing g around the w world and n they were starting to work in our elections . One of the issues is that these technologies have been partly developed by, you know, grants from our governments and that these were, you knknow, defense contractors, as we say. Wewe have a responsibility for those companies and for ensuring that theres reporting back on what theyre doing, and some kind of transparency. As karim was saying, that if you you k know, were in a statef global Information Warfare now. If you have a bomb that has been discovered that came from an american source and its in yemen, then we can look at that bomb and often theres a label which declares that its an american bomb that has been bought, that has, you know, been used against civilians. But what about data . How do we know if our militaries develop technologies and the data that it has gathered on people, for instance, across t e middle east, the kind of data that snowden revealed how do we know when that is turning up in yemen or when that is being utilized by y an authoritarian regime against the human rights of its people or against us . How do we know that its not being manipulated by russia, by iran, by a anybody whos an ene, by saudi arabia, for example, who scl were also working with . We have no way of knowing unless we open up this industryry and hold these people properly accountable for what theyre doing. Amy a defense was the Parent Company of Cambridge Analytica. Emma briant to her upcoming book propaganda machine. We will be back in less than 30 seconds. [music break] amy continue our look at cambridge analytytica, facebook, and a role in elections. I spoke to the directors of the great hack, as well as whistleblower Brittany Kaiser has begun posting a trove of documents online detailing the operations of the nowdefunct company. I asked d researchermma briantnt to talk about the significance of the documents. I think the biggest reveal is going to be in the american campaigns around this. I thinknk you have not seen the half of it yet. This is the tip of the iceberg, as ive been saying. My thing that i think that i is most interesesting of whats ben revealed so far is actually the iran camamign becaususe, you kn, this is a a very complex issue, and it really is an exemplar of the kinds of conflicts of interestst that im m talking at at a company that is set out to profit from the arms trade and from the expansion of war in that region and from the favoringng of one side in a regional conflict, essentially, backed by american power, by the escalatition of the conflict wih iran and, you knowow, by getting more contracts, of course, with the gulf states, the uae and the saudis. And of course, t they were tryig to put trump in power, as well, to do that, and advancing John Boltonon and the other hawks who have been trying to demand that sanctions to keep sanctions and to get out of the iran deal, which they have been arguing is a flawed deal. And, of course, scl were involved in doing work in that region since 2013, including they were working before that on iran for presisident Obamas Administration which im going to be talking more about in the future. The issue is that there is a conflict of interest here. So you gain experience for one government, and then youre going and working for others that maybe are not entirely aligned in their interests. Amy it was for the election of donald trump that happened during the obama years. That is when Cambridge Henry look up Cambridge Analytica really gained its strength in working with facebook. And scls major shareholder, vincent tchenguiz, of cocourse, was involved in the early establishment of the Company Black cube and in some of its early funding, i believe. I dont know h how long they stayed in any kind of relationship with that firm. However, the firirm black cucube werere also targeting Obama Administration officials with a massive smear campaign, as has been revealeled in the media. And, you know, this opposition to the iran deal and the promotion of these kinds of, you know, really fearmongering advertising that brittany is talking about is very disturbing when this same compmpany is also driving, you know, advertising for gun sales and things like that. Amy wait. Explain what black cube is, which goes right to todays headlines exactly. Amy because harvey weinstein, accused of raping i dont know how many women at last count, also employed black cube, former Israeli Intelligence folks, to go after the women who were accusing him, and even to try to deceive the reporters, like at the new york times, to try to get them to write falslse stori. Absolutely. I mean, this is an Intelligence Firm that was born, again, out of the war on terror. Israels war on terror, this time, produced an awful lot of people w who had gone through conscription and developed really, you know, strong expertise in cyberoperations or on developing Information Warfare technologies, in general, intelligence gathering techniques. And black cube was formed by people who came out of the Israeli Intelligence industries. And they all formed these companies, and this has become a Huge Industry which has not regulatedn properly and properly governed, and seems to be rather out of control. And they have been also linked to cambridgegenalytica i in the evidence to parliament. So i think the involvement of all of these companies is really disturbing, as well, in relation to the iran deal. We dont know that Cambridge Analytica in any way were working with black cube in this, at this point in time. However, the fact is that all of this infrastructure has been created, which is not being properly tackled. And how theyre able to operate without anybody really understanding whats going on is a major, major problem. The founder of Blackwater Erik prince was also an investor in Cambridge Analytica. So he profits from arm sales around the world and military contracts and has been accused of causing the necessary death of civilians and very many different wartime situations. He was one of the investors in Cambridge Analytica and their new company, emerdata. And so i should be very concerned, and everyone should be very concerned, about the weaponization of our data by people that are actually experts in selling weapons. So thats one ththing that i thk needs to be in the public discussion, the difference between what is military, what is civilian, and how those things can be used for different purposes or not. I think what is important to see is, as in the clip you showed, chris wylie is talking about how it is a full propaganda machine. What does that mean . I would beg to say what is happening is were getting network of thee influence industry, the buying and selling of information and of peoples behavioral change. It is a completely unregulated space. What is very worrisome is as were seeing more and more of what emmas talking about and what brittany has shown, is this Conveyor Belt of militarygrade information and research and expertise coming out of our defense work, thats being paid for by our tax money, then going into the private sector and selling it to the highest bidder with different special interests from around the world. So what you see in the files is, you know, an oil Company Buying influence campaign in a country that its not from and having no you know, no responsibility or anything to what its doing there. And what happens in that, the results of that research, where it gets handed over to, no one knows. Any contracts that then result in the change that happens on the political ground, no one tracks and sees. So this is what we are very concerned about is because youre seeing that everything has become for sale. And if everything is for sale our elections are for sale. Exactly. And so how do we have any kind of integrity to the vote, when were living in such a condition . Democracy has been broken. And our first vote is happening in 28 days, and nothing has changed. No election laws have changed. Facebooks a crime scene. No research, nothing has come out. We dont understand it yet. This was why we felt so passionate about making this film because its invisible. How do you make the invisible visible . And this is why brittany is releasing these files. Because unless we understand the tactics, which are currently being used again, right now, as we speak, same people involved, then we cant change this. Amy facebooks a crime scene, jehane. Elaborate on that. Absolutely. Facebook is where this has happened. Initially, we thought this was Cambridge Analytica, right . And that Cambridge Analytica was the only bad player. But facebook has allowed this to happen. And they have not revealed they have the data. They undererstand what has happened, but they have not revealeded that. Amy and they have profited off of it. Well, its not just that theyve profited off it. I think whats even more worrisome is that a lot of our Technology Companies, i would say, are incentivized now by the polarization of the american people. The more polarized, the more you spend time on the platform checking the endless feed, the more youre hooked, the more youre glued, the more their kpi at the end of the year, which says number of hours spent per user on platform, goes up. And as long as thats the model, then everything is designed, from the way you interact with these devices to the way your news is sorted and fed to you, to keep you on, as hooked as possible, in this completely unregulated, unfiltered way under the guise of freedom of speech when its selectively there for them to protect their interests further. And i think thats very worrisome. And we have to ask these Technology Companies, would there be a Silicon Valley if the ideals of the open society were not in place . Would Silicon Valley be this refuge for the worlds engineers of the future to come reimagine what the future could look like had there not been the foundations of an open society . There would not be. Yet the same people who are profiting off of these ideals protecting them feel no responsibility in their preservation. And that is what is so upsetting. That is what is so criminal. And that is why we cannot look to them for leadership on how to get out of this. We have to look at the regulation. You know, if facebook was fined 50 billion instead of 5 billion, i guarantee we wouldnt be having this conversation right now. It would have led to not only an incredible change within the company, but it would have been the signal to the entire industry. And there would have been innovation that would have been sponsored to come out of this problem. Like, we can use technology to fix this as well. We just have to create the right incentivization plan. I have belief that the engineers of the future that are around can help us get out of this. But currently, they are not they are not the Decision Makers because these companies are not democratic whatsoever. Amy emma briant . Could i . Yes, please. I just wananted to m make a poit about how important this is for ordinary americans to understand the significance for their own lives, as well, because i think some people hear this, andnd thy think, oh, tech, this is s maye quite abstract, or, you know, they may feeeel thatat other iss are more important when it comes to electiotitime. But i want to make the point that, actually, you know w what . This subject is about all of those other issues. Thisis is about inequatyty and t being enenabled. If y you care about, y you know, haviving a proper debate aboboul of the issues ththat are relevat to america r right now, so, youu know, do you care about the you knowowthe horrififying state of american prison system, whats being done to migrants right now, if you care about a minimum wage, if you care about the healthcarere system, you cae about the poverty, the homelessness on the streets, you care about american prosperity, you care a about the environmemt and making sure that y your country doesnnt tuturn into te environmenental disastster that australia is experiencing right now, then you have to care about this topic because we cant have an adequate debate, we cannot, like, know that we have a Fair Election system until we understand that we are actually having a discussion from american to american, from country to country that isnt being dominated by rich Oil Industries or Defense Industries and brutal leaders and so on. So i think that e e issue is that americans need to understand that this is an underlying issue that is stopping them being able to have the kikinds of policies that wod create for them a better society. Its stopping their ownwn abiliy to make change happepen in the ways that they wanant it to happen. Amamy emma briant its not an abstract issue. Thank you. Amy what would be the most effective form of regulation . I mean, we saw old standard oil brbroken up, these monopolies broken up. Yeah. Amy do you think thats the starting point for Companies Like facebook, like google and others . I think thats a big part of it. I do think that elizabeth warrens recommenendations whent comes to that and antitrust and so on are really important. And we have legal prececedents o follow on that kind of thing. But i also think that we need an independent regulator for the Tech Industry and also a separate one for the influence industry. So america has some regulation when it comes to lobbying. In the u. K. , we have n none. And quite often, you know, American Companies will partner with a British Company in order to be able to get around doing things, for instance. We have to make sure that Different Countries jurisdictions cannot be, you know, abused in order to make something happen that would be forbidden in another country. We need to make sure that were also tackling how money is being channeled into these campaigns, because actually, there is an awful lot we could do that isnt just about censosoring or taking down content, but that actctualy is, you know, about making sure that the money isnt being funneled in to fund thesese actl campaigns. If we knew who was behind them, if we were able to show which companies were working on them and what other interests they might have, then i think this would really open up the system to better journalism, to better you k know, more accountability. And the issue e isnt just about whats happening on the platforms, a although that is a big part of it. We have to think about, you know, the whole infrfrastructur. Amy propaganda researcher emma briant, Jehane Noujaim and karim of the greats hack, and Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Brittany Kaiser. To see the first hour of our discussion, go to democracynow. Org. Democracy now is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning. Email your comments to outreach democracynow. Org or mail them to democracy now p. O. Box 693 new york, new york 10013. [captioning made possible by democracy now ] man its been whwhile. Sami ure has