War to newspapers across the country. Simplto gogas from pubc telephe to pubc teleone, ner usinghe sam one, moving in thboston area, the cambridge area, so that you would not be traced. Amy we will speak to mr. Boston himself, the wellknown historian and political economist Gar Alperovitz. Then to the stateless of the union as President Trump continues his crackdown on the immigrant communities. Immigrants are taking refuge in churches. We go to colorado to speak with sandra lopez, a mother of three u. S. Citizen children, who has taken sanctuary in a carbondale unitarian parsonage to avoid deportation. I was not willing to be arrested because they are a brooding me from my home, my children up rooting me from my children, my home, my future. How am i going to wan gas if no. No. I made the valiant decision to go into sanctuary. Amy all that and more, coming up. Welcome to democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. President trump said thursday he will not block the release of a secret memo on fbi surveillance drafted by Republican HouseIntelligence Committee chair devin nunes, clearing the way for its release today. Trumps move prompted a chorus of outrage from democrats on capitol hill and fed speculation that trumps own handpicked head of fbi, christopher wray, could resign in protest over what the bureau called grave concerns over the memos accuracy. The memo purports to show that the fbi abused its power when it began surveilling Trump Campaign adviser carter page in 2016 due to his dealings with russia. The memo is expected to lay blame on the actions of Deputy Attorney general rod rosenstein, the same man who is the only official with the authority to fire special counsel robert mueller. This is california congressman adam schiff, the ranking democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. Speaking thursday. The white house knows it would face a firestorm if it fired bob mueller. What is more effective is to fire bob muellers boss. Why is that more effective . Rob rosenstein decides the scope of bob muellers investigation. If Ron Rosenstein is fired and someone takes his place that is a yesman for the president , then they can limit what bob muellers investigation in ways we will never see. Amy House DemocraticMinority Leader Nancy Pelosi has called for congressman nunes to be removed as chair of the House Intelligence Committee over the memo. Democrats say nunes altered the memo after the committee voted to send it to President Trump. At the white house, President Trump refused to address the impending release of the nunes memo thursday, ignoring repeated, shouted questions from reporters as he boarded a helicopter en route to a Republican Party retreat in west virginia. In los angeles, Police Arrested a 12yearold girl thursday, charging her with negligent discharge of a firearm after a shooting at the Sal Castro Middle School left four people injured. Police now say the girl unintentionally triggered a semiautomatic handgun brought into a classroom. Among those hurt was a 15yearold boy who was shot in the head. Officials said he was expected to fully recover. The u. S. Gun violence archive reports this was the 166th accidental shooting so far this year with over 2,000 such incidents last yr alone. A new study findmany schoolchildren across the u. S. Face toxic levels of air pollution in classrooms with low income groups and students of color for more likely to be affected. Rely on epa and census data to examine some 90,000 u. S. Public schools. The study found that africanamerican and latino students in particular are more likely to attend schools near industrial sources of air pollution tied to neurological harm including lead, mercury, and cyanide. A warning to our tv viewers, this next story contains some disturbing imagery. The Associated Press reports that scores of minority Rohingya Muslims from a village in burma were massacred by Government Forces last august and buried in five mass graves, who then tried to cover up evidence of their crimes. After Government Forces opened fire on defenseless civilians. The ap cited interviews with two dozen survivors or family members of victims, along with cell phone video footage of the attacks aftermath, smuggled past police by a villager who filmed the corpses after they were unearthed by heavy rains. The video, timestamped september 9th, corroborates witness accounts that burmese soldiers used acid to partially dissolve the bodies of their victims to make their identification more difficult. At the united nations, the special human rights envoy on burma said thursday that the video showed the hallrks of a genoci. Since august, nearly 700,000 rongya musm refugees have fled Burmas Rakhine state to neighboring bangladesh after vigilantes and burmese soldiers unleashed rape and murder while burning hundreds of villages. Meanwhile, a pair of reuters journalists who were arrested after covering the persecution of rohingya villagers have been denied bail by a Burmese Court in yangon. Wa lone and kyaw soe oo face up to 14 years if convicted on the colonialera official secrets act, despite International Condemnation over their arrests. This is wa lone speaking briefly to reporters as police led him away in handcuffs from a courtroom on wednesday. The police told us to sign a document about our arrests when we were detained. They said they will add more charges unless we send the document. Amy on thursday, the office of un secretarygeneral Antonio Gutteres called for the journalists release, citing the erosion of press freedom in burma. In amman, jordan, the head of the arab league warned thursday that the trump administrations decision to withhold tens of millions of dollars in aid to Palestinian Refugees threatens the stability of the entire middle east. The comments came after the state Department Said it would withhold 65 million of 125 million for the u. N. Relief and works agency known as unrwa. This is unrwa commissionergeneral pierre karhenbuhl, speaking to arab league leaders. What is at stake excellencies is the dignity of palestine refugees and regional stability. If 525,000 students no longer have access to education, if 3 million patients cannot access 1. 5 million if people can no longer receive emergency assistance, we will undoubtedly witness and see a catastrophic rise in insecurity. In cuba, the eldest son of fidel castro commited suicide on thursday after a long struggle with depression. Fidel castro diazbalart, who was known affectionately as fidelito or little fidel for his resemblance to his father, was 68 years old. Castro diazbalart was a Nuclear Physicist who studied in the rmer soviet union. He was also a relative of some of the most strident anticastro cuban exiles living in the United States, and cousin of congressman Mario Diazbalart and former congressman lincoln diazbalart, both republicans from florida. Kenyas government is defying an order to allow three of the Largest Television channels to temporarily resume operations after the stations were forced off the air for broadcasting footage of the symbolic inauguration of opposition candidate raila odinga. Odinga took second place in a president ial vote last year that was later overturned by courts, who cited mismanagement by the electoral commission. Odinga boycotted a revote in october, paving the way for an easy victory by incumbent president uhuru kenyatta. In the united kingdom, the labour party is considering forcing homeowners to send lots sell lots to construct affordable housing. The proposal comes after Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn said this week that if elected prime minister, he would immediately purchase a dozen homes for homeless residents. In the Pacific Island nation of the maldives, a court has thrown out terrorism charges against former president Mohamed Nasheed and several other former politicians. Mohamed nasheed was the maldives first democratically elected president , known internationally for his work on Climate Change. In 2012, he was ousted in what he called an armed coup by supporters of former dictator Maumoon Abdul gayoom and has since been living in exile in great britain. In cape town, south africa, officials have ordered water use cut in half as the city is it actedo run out of water on april 16th, a day thats been dubbed day zero. Officials say a combination of urban sprawl and Climate Change is responsible for the water crisis in south africas secondlargest city. Meanwhile, in california, officials with the department of Water Resources said thursday the state could be headed into another drought, after a measurement of the winter snowpack in the sierra nevadas yielded just 13. 6 inches, or about 14 of normal levels. Between 2011 and 2016, much of california faced an exceptional drought, unprecedented in recorded history, before heavy rains and snow from an el nino weather pattern brought a reprieve last year. Climate scientists have warned that humaninduced Global Warming is making much of california far drier than its historical norm, threatening crops and helping to fuel unprecedented wildfires. In austin, texas, City Council Members voted 101 on thursday to bar their city from doing business with any Company Involved in the construction of President Trumps expanded wall on the u. S. Mexico border. Austin joins dozens of other cities whove moved to divest from border wall contractors. In response, deputy secretary of Homeland Security elaine duke this week accused cities of blackballing companies, telling a crowd at the Border Security expo in san antonio the practice is something we shouldnt be tolerating. In california, San Francisco george gasconney says he will throw out more than 3000 marijuanarelated convictions dating back decades, while reviewing whether to change thousands of other felony drug convictions to misdemeanors. The comes just weeks after californias legalization of Recreational Marijuana use went into full effect with the new year. And dennis peron, longtime medicalmarijuana advocate, has died at the age of 72. Peron was a leader in the campaign that resulted in passage of proposition 215 in 1996, the firstever state law legalizing cannabis for medical use. Peron was an activist during the hiv epidemic of the 1980s and advocated for the use of marijuana to treat symptoms of aids patients. Peron was a vietnam veteran who blamed exposure to agent orange for the lung cancer that ultimately contributed to his death. And those are some of the headlines. This is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. We begin todays show looking at a decadesold mystery. Behind who helped Daniel Ellsberg in 1971 leaked the pentagon papers. The 7000page classified history outlining the true extent of u. S. Involvement in vietnam. Time, the pentagon papers represented the biggest leak of classified documents in history. Daniel ellsberg once faced espionage charges and possibly life in prison for leaking the documents, which he photocopied while working as an analyst for the rand corporation. The nexen Administration Made comes to ruin his life going so far as to break into his psychiatrists office to uncover incriminating information. Henry kissinger dubbed him the most dangerous man in america. Title of acame the documentary about Daniel Ellsberg. It was the evening of october 1, 1969 when i first smuggled several hundred pages of topsecret documents out of my safe at the rand corpotion. It contained 47 volumes. Studyn was to xerox the and reveal the secret history of the vietnam war to the american people. The fbi wasrying to find out who gave the New York Times a copy of the pentagons secret study. Like a thunderclap, you get the New York Times publishing the pentagon papers and the country is panicng. This is an attack on the whole integrity of government. If whole file cabinets can be stolen and made available to the press, you cannot have order in the government anymore. It was staggering. The raw topsecret, eyes only documents. I think it is time in this country to quit making National Heroes out of those who steal secrets and publish them in the newspaper. In my first year of marriage, we are talking about him going to prison for the rest of his life. We felt so strongly that we were dealing with a National Security crisis, Henry Kissinger said that dr. Daniel ellsberg was the most dangerous man in america and he had to be stopped. Amy an excerpt from the most dangerous man in america. While the nixon adminisation attempted to send m to life in prison, authorities never charged anyone with helping him. As interest in the pentan papers gross thanks to the new Steven Spielberg film the post, about the Washington Post role in revealing the pentagon papers, one of his coconspirators has come out of the shadows. His name is Gar Alperovitz. For more than 40 years, he kept a close secret. Helped, he clandestinely sectionslsberg deliver of the pentagon papers do newspapers. He kept his role in the pentagon papers leak a secret until this week, when he spoke to the new yorker magazine. The identities of who else worked with them remains a secret. Daniel ellsberg says the secret role this group played was so crucial in releasing the pentagon papers that he gave them a code name, the Lavender Hill mob. Alperovitz went by the alias mr. Boston. Ellsberg told the new yorker, he took care of all of the cloak and dagger stuff. Gar alperovitz now joins us from washington dc. Dr. Was about how you became the conduit to the newspapers and why you wanted to play this role . Gar i had been working in the government, i had worked in the senate and i saw the gulf of tonkin resolution come in, which was a fraudulent resolution authorizing powerful action by. He government i had also read about the bombing of hiroshima and how insiders made decisions against the Public Interest and lied to the public. I met dan by accident. He invited me to dinner and we hit it off. One thing led to another and the next day or two, i was presented with the fact that these papers were available and we could make them public. The question was should we do that and could i help . I decided obviously it was an important thing to do. The goal of tonkin resolution, which had authorized this massive war, very much what happened like any rack, was iraq, was a phony resolution based on distorted facts. Millions of people were going to die and it was important to try to do what one could do to stop the war and what i could do to help was help with the paper distribution. Amy how did you do that . , 7000he question was pages of paper and dan was very anxious, understandably, to get the story out once it had been blocked out by the New York Times. Amy explain that. For people who dont understand what it means to be blocked by the New York Times. We are talking about 1971. To had gotten these papers the New York Times and wanted the stories published, but explain what happened next. Gar the Nixon Administration went to court and stopped the New York Times from publishing. That was a major infringement of the constitutional right of the free press, but nonetheless there was a stop. Then the question was, it was stopped, how could you bring the story to the American Public . Decisions clandestine in which decisionmakers in the government knew that they were doing something that was a most impossible in many peoples lives would be lost and there was great deception to the public. That is what the pentagon papers show. If it went on to put other papers, which had not yet been stopped, because they had done nothing yet, could they publish the papers . The next one was the Washington Post. We got the papers to the Washington Post and they published and then they were stopped and we tried to keep that process going as long as we could. Amy explain what happened with Washington Post. There is more attention because of the Steven Spielberg film