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- [00:05]
A
Hello, everyone, and a warm welcome to Amanpur. Here's what's coming up. Still on the street, protesters stand up in Minneapolis as some Republicans come out against the Trump team's immigration tactics. And this is cruelty. This is inhumane, and this is a death sentence. Haitians in America brace for deportation. I ask President Biden's former Assistant Secretary of State about the dangers of sending them back to a country riddled with gang violence. Then. Hate radio. The unnerving story of how the Rwandan airwaves paved the way for genocide. Playwright Nick Milo Rao joins me.
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B
Plus, that technology is now being used to determine whether somebody should be deported.
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A
The ICE surveillance state. Joseph Cox tells Hari Srinivasan how the US Government is using new tech to write up Targetless.
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C
Paula.
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A
Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Paula Newton in New York, sitting in for Christina Manpur. The whole world is watching what's happening in Minnesota, the state at the center of President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey says local police won't enforce federal immigration policy. President Trump tells him he's, quote, playing with fire. Some Republicans, though, are now speaking out after the killing of ICU nurse Alex Petty. With Senator Thom Tillis railing against both Homeland Security Chief Kristi Noem and top White House advisor Stephen Miller.
- [02:07]
B
Stephen Miller never fails to live up to my expectations of incompetence. Why do you think he should resign? I, you know, I'm gonna leave that up to the president. I can tell you, if I were.
- [02:17]
C
President, neither one of them would be.
- [02:18]
B
In Washington right now.
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A
But do you think you think Noem should step down?
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D
I think Noem needs to decide what I mean.
- [02:24]
B
I think if Noem looks at her body of work, I could not be if I were in her position. I can't think of any over the last year. She's got to make her own decision, or the president does. But she has taken this administration into the ground on an issue that we should own.
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C
We should own the issue of border security and immigration.
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B
But they have destroyed that for Republicans, something that got the president elected. They have destroyed it through their incompetence.
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A
So hearing that, Trump responded by calling Senator Tillis a loser and a frequent target of Trump. Congresswoman Iliane Omar was attacked last night in Minneapolis. A man, as you see there, ran at Omar, spraying what is still an unknown substance. That was before he was tackled and taken away. Now, that's the understatement here. It's an extraordinarily tense time in America. We want to Go straight to our Kevin Liptak, who's been following developments there in Washington for us now. You know, we've seen a lot of movements from the administration in the last 48 hours. Perhaps it's a pivot. Is it optics, though? And I am wondering what discernible change people in Minnesota may see on the ground, if any.
- [03:33]
D
I mean, I think what you have not seen so far is any pullback of these wide scale immigration enforcement operations. There's no indication that, for example, the agents that have been causing so much anger among the community there have started departing. And in fact, just yesterday we saw an operation that got a lot of headlines when ICE agents tried to enter the Ecuadorian consulate, which drew a lot of anger from the government of Ecuador. And so you are still seeing some of these operations underway. And I think it just underscores that the changes in the pivot that President Trump seems to have been putting in place is not a change in policy. It seems to be a change in tactics. And when you talk about Tom Homan, who is the president's border czar, who has been sent to Minnesota to sort of supplant the leadership that had been in place there previously, this is not someone who is opposed to the president's tactics. Tom Homan is a hardliner through and through. The difference is what he sees or how he sees all of this playing out. He isn't necessarily in favor of these widespread sweeps of the community to try and look for every undocumented migrant that might be living there. His goal is for much more targeted operations going after migrants who may have criminal histories, who may be violent criminals, and try and go after them in a much more. Of course, the other objective seems to have been to try and cool temperatures with local leaders in Minnesota with the governor, Tim Walls, with the mayor, Jacob Frey. And it had seemed until a couple of hours ago that that was working. You know, Tom Homan met with them on the ground. Both sides of those conversations came away saying that they were productive. Tom Homan acknowledging that, yes, they would continue to have disagreements, but that there was some progress made. Of course, now President Trump coming out warning Jacob Frey that he was playing with fire by saying that he would not allow some of these federal enforcement officials to operate in this state and calling for them to withdraw entirely does seem to be reigniting some of those tensions that initially at least had seemed to be easing.
- [05:53]
A
Yeah. And you can imagine that in Minnesota on the ground that certainly the fear remains now. We had people even like Senate Majority Leader John Too And Kevin, this really got my attention because he refused to back Homeland Security Kristi Noem. And now you have this perhaps new scrutiny of Stephen Miller. Right. He's the deputy chief of staff there at the White House. Do you think there is a broader shift going on with the Republican Party at the moment? I mean, I have heard more than one Republican politician say the president is getting bad advice, not saying Stephen Miller, but pretty much pointing in his direction. Right.
- [06:27]
D
And we should say Stephen Miller, his title is deputy chief of staff, which very much understates how much power and how much influence he has in the West Wing. The president very much relies on Stephen Miller and has relied on Stephen Miller for the better part of a decade, for almost all of his policy advice, whether it's on immigration or most recently in this term, whether it's on foreign policy and any number of issues. And so, yes, you do hear Republicans begin to whisper that Stephen Miller is a bad influence on the president, that he is suggesting policies that are not benefiting the president's either objectives or his politics. But I think it's still a very far cry from the president dismissing Stephen Miller. This is someone who has been around the president for quite a long time. The president has said in the past that, yes, Stephen Miller is someone who is out there in a lot of ways, but still, I think the president maintains a lot of confidence in him to carry out his agenda. When it comes to Kristi Noem, I think the story might be a little different. Certainly for now, the president is sticking with Kristi Noem. He said very explicitly yesterday that he did not expect her to resign. He held this lengthy meeting with her in the Oval Office earlier this week that came at her request. And there was no indication over the course of those two hours that she was expecting to see her job pulled out from under her. I do think it's notable when you start to hear some of these senators come out and be very critical of the job she's done. Certainly that's an indication of a shifting position. But Thom Tillis, we should note, is not running for reelection. He has now become one of the top critics of the president. The other senator that we heard from yesterday, Lisa Murkowski, is someone who has also never held her tongue in her criticism of President Trump. Who we have not heard from yet are the president's loyalists. The people who are behind him in almost everything. They very much still backing the president in all of his sort of personnel decisions.
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A
You do wonder, though, what they, all of them may hear when they head Back home in terms of the tactics used in Minnesota. Kevin Liptak, grateful to you, appreciate it. Now we turn to what will happen with the Haitian community. In less than a week, Haitians in the United States are set to lose what's called temporary protected status. In other words, 350,000 Haitians are at risk now at being deported. Some US lawmakers are already ringing alarm bells, warning that sending them back to Haiti amounts to a dis. The United nations warns that armed gangs and the violence they are perpetrating just continues to escalate with in recent months more than 8,000 killings and that's how many were documented just in the last year. Brian A. Nichols focused on Haiti during his time as during his time under President Biden's administration. He was the assistant secretary of State for Western Hemisphere affairs. And he joins us now from Washington, D.C. and grateful to you as we try and turn our attention, as has happened as many times, it has not affected any change. And we need to get to what is a core contradiction right now in the State Department you used to work for it maintains this Level 4 Do not travel warning to Haiti, of course, citing the rampant gang violence there. And at the same time, DHS, Department of Homeland Security is saying, look, 350 Haitians, you are no longer protected here in this status. You need to go home. DHS is offering 1000 bucks to self deport. I mean, how dangerous do you believe this new policy is for Haitians and what do you believe will come out of it?
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E
Well, this is a crucial time in Haiti. Haiti's in a prolonged political security, economic and humanitarian crisis. The metropolitan Port au Prince area, the capital is, is riddled with gangs. The interim government in Haiti has made progress in recent weeks in going after the gangs and their leaders who are all internationally sanctioned. But the violence, the rapes, the murders, the assaults that Haitians, particularly in the area where most Haitians live, is critically bad. And I would add that the impact, impact of removing 350,000 Haitians to their own country from the United States would also be a tremendous economic blow to Haiti because many, many of those people provide economic remittances, payments to their family members in Haiti. And the economy there is already in a serious recession. So losing those remittances would also dramatically harm Haiti as a nation.
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A
It is such a good point, especially at such a critical time for aid. Aid being cut in so many by so many governments now, including the United States. I do want to give people the context of which you speak. You know, you noted how bad the situation was when you left a year ago, and things have gotten so much worse. Just to give people some insight, the UN says gangs control up to 90% of the capital. That's including all major roads and ports. As we were saying, Over 8,000 people killed in 2016, 25 alone in gang violence. More than 1.4 million Haitians are internally displaced from their homes, and more than 6 million, I want to point out, that is well over half the population in need of humanitarian assistance. You know, I know this is going to be perhaps a naive question, but people are wondering, given all the efforts of you and others, why are things still so much worse?
- [12:30]
E
Well, Haiti has long been suffering at the hands of a pernicious, rapacious elite that has exploited the security situation for their own benefit, including now some members of the Transitional Presidential Council in Haiti. The situation there, you can go back to the founding of Haiti, where the country was saddled with enormous debts that it had to repay to its former colonial master, France. And over time, Haiti has failed to achieve economic stability. But Haiti can have a much better future. And I think that, you know, the Trump administration has done some positive things. I think the creation of the gang suppression force with the UN mandate that will increase the funding and resources going for security in Haiti is a very important step. The conversion of the mandate to one that has the UN mandate, that has a political component will help as well. But Haiti also needs dramatically increased economic and humanitarian assistance. Just today, Doctors Without Borders Ms. On San Francisco released a report talking about the surge in rapes in Haiti. And that's just one of the many scourges that Haitians are dealing with.
- [13:59]
A
Absolutely. And that has been going on in Haiti, unfortunately, for many years. And yet, you know, you speak of nations, whether it was the U.S. canada, the UN also obviously trying to get involved on the ground, not much has changed. The political situation right now at this hour remains fraught. I mean, Haiti is governed by this nine member transitional presidential council with seven voting members. It was created in 2024, as you pointed out, to try and steer the country through what everyone wants, which are fair and free elections, which, to be frank, right now seems like a dream. You know, a few days ago, five of those seven moved to oust the prime minister just weeks before the council's mandate expires. And that's supposed to happen next week. You know, the US has called the move illegal and warned of consequences. But. But, you know, I'm going to ask you a question that no one in Haiti can answer right now. I Know, if you speak to its citizens, they can't. Who holds legitimate authority in that country right now. And it seems like any effort to try and stabilize the political situation ends up in failure.
- [15:05]
E
Well, since the 2021 assassination of the last elected president in Haiti, there's been a series of, of interim leadership. And the Transitional Presidential Council was created with the participation of Haitian stakeholders and the mediation of the United States, the Caribbean Community, Canada, others UN to try and find a path forward to elections. But that was a limited term with the specific mandate of restoring security and getting the country to an election. That term is up on February 7th. Those people need to step aside. They've demonstrably failed to uphold their part of the bargain. I would note that the prime minister now, Alex Didier Fizz Ami, has done a very good job in trying to navigate a very difficult security, economic and political situation. And the attempts to remove him and prolong their tenure by the members of the Transitional Presidential Council really flies in the face of the desires of the Haitian people who want an election. But the first step to an election in Haiti is restoring security. Then you've got to have campaigns, you've got to have the infrastructure in place for people to vote safely. And hopefully by the end of this year or into next, you'll be able to have an election that reflects the will of the Haitian people. Doing so prematurely would mean that gang leaders are able to control the political environment in Haiti, and that would be unacceptable.
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A
Yeah, but as you understand, they likely do right now as well, which is why you have so much turmoil in that council. And so I ask you, is that not what Haitians are staring down at this point, More political turmoil in the next two or three weeks, even though, as you point out, the United States and other countries support the prime Minister and what he's trying to do?
- [17:04]
E
Well, I think it's crucial that the Transitional Presidential Council step down at the end of their tenure on February 7th. I think the prime minister has demonstrated that he is able to take the steps necessary to move the country in a better direction. He has been respected, he's been active and engaged and focused on the key issues of security and trying to deal with the humanitarian and economic crisis in the country. There's a debate right now in Haiti as to whether or not they would have, you know, one of the members of the Transitional Presidential Council continue as acting president. Haiti's constitution calls for a two headed government with a president and a prime minister. And that's one of the debates that's going on There I do not see any support really for the member. The current members of the Transitional Provincial Council continuing, even the groups that put them forward for Those positions in April 2024 have largely withdrawn their support from them.
- [18:18]
A
Again, though, it doesn't set up a good situation in the weeks to come since we have you, I do want to discuss more of the broader issue of hemispheric affairs right now. The Don Roe Doctrine, you know, you said that in fact, when you were in office in 2024, before there was a Don Roe Doctrine, that in your words, there's no region that's more important to the United States than the Western Hemisphere. You kind of saw that echoed in this State Department policy. You spent your tenure building what you called a network of partnerships. I mean, in terms of the Don Roe Doctrine, though, it explicitly revives and also hardens the old Monroe Doctrine. We have seen the administration remove Nicolas Maduro, but to note, not his regime from Venezuela. It's now issuing blunt warnings in Haiti. Still, it's unclear what it's doing in other parts of the hemisphere, including places like Cuba. How do you view this pivot in the hemisphere by the Trump administration?
- [19:21]
E
Prioritizing the Western Hemisphere is important, but doing so in a way that strengthens our partnerships and our relations with the countries of this region is vital. To force our will upon the other countries in our hemisphere and to exert violence and force to achieve our goals harkens back to the worst times in our relationships and sows the seeds for future unrest in our region. There's going to be a bounce back, a pushback from this type of a policy that does not take into account the ideas, the desires, the goals of the peoples of this hemisphere. And to just impose our will as a hegemon is not going to serve the longer term interests of the United States. Extending the hands of friendship, of trade relations, economic investment and democracy, which is something that the so called Don Row Doctrine really has omitted from its toolkit. It hasn't taken steps to. It is policy itself democratic government.
- [20:39]
A
Right. It's not just the document. Right. It's the policy itself. It's so we don't have a lot of time left.
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E
Here's the policy.
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A
Yeah, we don't have a lot of time to go here. But I do want to ask you about Marco Rubio, who, you know, has a lot of experience in the region and a lot of interest in the region. He said to the U.S. senate Foreign Relations Committee that the U.S. plans to establish a diplomatic presence in Caracas and CNN. We've reported that the CIA is also to have planning to have a foothold in Venezuela. How do you see this mix of diplomatic outreach but also very coerc rhetoric and actions?
- [21:19]
E
Well, I think that having a diplomatic presence in all of the countries in our hemisphere should be a positive thing, but that implies having a real relationship with the governments and respecting the will of the peoples of this region. Given all the things that got us to this moment, the United States would be pushing for democratic government in Venezuela. Maria Carina Machado and Edmundo Gonzalez demonstrated that they enjoy the support of the overwhelming majority of Venezuelan citizens. They had an election in 2024 that proved that without any shadow of a doubt. And the majority of the countries in our region recognized Edmundo Gonzalez as, as the president running as a proxy for Maria Carina Machado, Nobel Prize Laureate. So this is a time to push for democracy, not for an authoritarian government in Venezuela that will only provide us with oil, but not longer term stability or respect the will of the Venezuelan people.
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A
Brian A. Nichols, we will have to leave it there, but we will, of course, watch developments politically on the ground in Haiti, but also with Haitians in the United States. States as they continue actually to have some legal challenges to being deported. Brian A. Nichols for us. Appreciate it.
- [22:42]
E
Thank you for having me.
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A
Later in the program, can words kill? That's the central question of hate radio production, revealing the dark role of Rwanda's media to incite genocide. Milo Rao, director and writer, joins us next. Next to the power of propaganda and a warning from recent history. In the 1990s, Rwanda saw a brutal genocide of Tutsis by Houthis, and it unfolded at an extraordinary speed with some 1 million people killed in about 100 days. The world was shocked even as it failed to act. But there were warning signs, like the hate filled radio broadcasts that incited violence, condemning Tutsis as less than human and eventually urging listeners to commit unspeakable atrocities. The theater production Hate Radio takes us right into the broadcast booth of Rwanda's notorious radio station RTLM. Now it was first performed in 2011 and next month it comes to St Anne's Warehouse in New York and its playwright and director, Milo Raut joins us from Stockholm. Welcome to the program, sir. Appreciate it.
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F
Hi. Hi. Thanks for having me.
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A
You know, it seems as if we're talking about something that would be innocuous. It is anything but. So when we talk about a radio program for people who may not be familiar with what was RTLM and what is its place in Rwandan history.
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F
The history of RTLM is quite interesting because it was created after the opening, after the opening of Rwanda itself, after the creation of democracy there by the pledge of international community. So they wanted to create independent private radio station, and that was rtlm. So actually the idea was very well, but then it came under the influence of extremists, and that's how it was created. And it prepared the genocide. And during the genocide, it was even a tool to point on people where they were hiding, to even speed up the genocide. And of course, in the last days, it was bombed and the different moderators and hosts were disappearing. Some were taken by international justice and live still today so I could meet some of them.
- [25:15]
A
Yeah. And I'm sure some of the stories were just hard to really envision in terms of how this ended up playing out in this genocide. Can you give some insight to our audiences as to why you decided to recreate these broadcasts in this play in a theater, which some people, it would be called documentary theater. And some people are wondering why you felt this was the most powerful vehicle to do it in.
- [25:43]
F
I think in that moment, there was no television in Rwanda, and this was the. The first independent radio studio. So you can't over evaluate the influence that it had on. On what actually happened. And it was also this radio that in an even funny way. So when you watch the show that we did, which just shows the radio studio, it's a lot of fun, it's very good music. It's a lot of different hosts, it's a lot of different stars. It was even a call in radio. So it was very, very modern at that very moment for people that were not used to this. They were used to speeches of the president, to traditional music, to priests talking. And all of a sudden you had this kind of crazy boy group. They were casted. So where there was the funny guy from the city, then there was the lady talking to the more traditionalist people from the countryside and so on, so everybody could identify with them. And they moved more and more, let's say the barrier, what you in the open and public space and whatnot. So it started with little jokes, racist jokes, with sexist things, with little theories, putting paranoia on the listeners. And it went more and more. And in the end, it was really a kind of a station to kind of command the killings. So it was a very fast development. And I think you can really not overestimate the influence of this radio studio. Even I met a lot of people that were in the army that liberated Rwanda. So as soldiers and even them they listened to it because they loved the music. And of course, they knew then what the other side was doing. And I think the specific thing we do in this show, we not only recreate a show, we recreate a show. And all the hosts in the studio that you see on stage are played by survivors of the genocide. So you could say that the victims are playing the perpetrators, telling them why they should commit genocide against themselves. So it's a very. It's a very hard way of staging it and to understanding it the same way, because at the impression I have to work together with the people that really listen to this to survive this.
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A
Radio, it would be quite jarring. Milo, I do want to give our audience just an idea of what you're talking about here. We're going to listen to an excerpt, and it's from a caller that calls in to thank RTLM radio for what they do, and they then go on to request a song. Listen.
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D
But we need to move it, move.
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A
It for Move it, move it.
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E
Yay.
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A
You know, in testimony that I have seen in courts and extradition hearings from Rwanda, I heard a lot, obviously, of this call to genocide, which was presented as evidence. Right. It was cold, hard evidence. I had not heard a lot of this. I had forgotten. And it is so jarring. How do you reconcile this kind of programming with the legacy of RTLM's genocidal language? It was incredibly harsh and dehumanizing for Tutsis.
- [29:09]
F
Yeah, yeah, true. It's extremely harsh. And I think the hardest part of it, and you could hear it in this excerpt, that it is mixed with pop culture, with fun, with good mood. So when we imagine fascism and genocide, especially in Europe, we see, of course, these black and white pictures of Adolf Hitler and this kind of stuff. And then you have this radio studio when you present it, and we are touring since 15 years in all continents, everybody thinks that it's from their city because it looks like the radio station from today. And that makes it extremely influential and extremely effective at that very moment. And you have speeches that are super direct, super political. And then you have this kind of talking about music and choosing the program. When we presented it the first time, it was in Rwanda, and we did it in front of the Rwandan Senate. And the wife of the director of the Senate, she survived the genocide and she said that for the first time she listened to these songs again. For example, I like the movie Movit because she didn't listen to them anymore because they were on that stage, on that. On that radio station. So it's this mix that makes it so, so effective and so horrific that as a public, you even start to move with the music, you know, and you start. You start laughing with the jokes, and then you fall immediately into the trap. And that's the. I think that's the interesting thing of the studio and why it was so effective.
- [30:43]
A
Wow, that is a startling thing that you say that what is essentially pop music would be associated with genocide in that way. And I do want to talk to you about two words that stick out to me was the issue of the word cockroaches as it was used, but also the intimacy of the violence that actually was perpetrated. For many years, this radio station was referred to as Radio Machete. And the documentation of the horrific violence, neighbor on neighbor, and bringingpulling it all back to this kind of dialogue on this radio station. How powerful was that for you in staging this?
- [31:23]
F
It was extremely hard. It was extremely hard. What you described with cockroach, for example. So there is this whole process of dehumanization, legitimization, of course, of the enemy, but also of the genocide, creating the enemy, creating the Tutsi. They didn't exist as a. A group of people. They were a crazy mix of ethnical enemies and political enemies and so on. So it was really something happening in a slow way. It was just like jokers first. Then it became more serious and serious, and in the end, it became very clearly, you have to kill them now, and we call you to kill now. These and these people that are hiding in this school or that school or in this house and that house, even pointing numbers of cars and numbers of streets and so on and so on. So it was super explicit and at the same time, as you say, super personal. You could call in children, called in, you know, they were talking to the victims before killing them through the radio. And all this together gives. Gives a mix that for me, before I knew this radio was not. I didn't know about that. And of course, now I became very sensitive to hate speech. So when people are starting to talk like this, to make kind of a political program, a political speech like this, mixing fun and dehumanization and calling metaphorically for killing the enemy, but it's not meant like this, but perhaps it can become reality. So this is an extreme, good example how a society can shift from democracy, from popular culture into something extremely dark.
- [33:00]
A
And that context that you give us is so important. As you said, this was after Rwanda was in a. You know, had. Had elections. I want to kind of give voice to the survivors here who talk about this. And just to quote one here saying that I don't believe I'm quoting a survivor here. I don't believe in an end to genocide. I don't think this is the last time we will experience these most heinous of atrocities. If there was one genocide, then there will be many more. It is grim and yet it is likely steeped in reality. Her testimony and yet you with this theater production, a very provocative one. How do you see it? How do you believe this will contribute to understanding the power of hate speech?
- [33:48]
F
You understand the power of hate speech really by living its atmosphere. That's how this show functions. That's why I did it, by the way, because there are a lot of shows about genocide, but especially about the genocide in Rwanda. And there's a whole iconography of it and there's a whole thing how you talk about it. But for example, there was never a way to really understand, to really being immersed in what it means to almost, as I said, dancing to the music and to understand that you can become subject of this kind of radio too, you can become perpetrator of a genocide too, without even trying to understand because it goes slow. And I wanted to show that. I just wanted to give two hours. And there's a product in the Nepalogue and you quoted from, from one where we understand what is the outcome of it, what is the reality of all this Fun. What is the reality of this? And I think it's kind of balance that the play tries to establish.
- [34:48]
A
Certainly the production now will be in New York, but given the first time you did it in 2011, it clearly has much residence beyond Rwanda. Milo Rao, thank you for joining us. Appreciate it. Now stay with cnn. We'll be right back. Back with more after a break. So over the past year, about 230,000 people were arrested in the United States by ICE and deported by the Trump administration. That's more than the total number of deportees during President Biden's entire four year term. Now, under Trump's immigration crackdown, ICE Age are picking people off the streets and from their homes at a very high rate. But what tools are enabling them to target neighborhoods? Joseph Cox is the founder of 404 Media and has done extensive reporting on the federal agency and its expanding surveillance technology. He speaks to Hari Srinivasan about the role of Palantir in facilitating all of this.
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C
Paulo, thanks. Joseph Cox, thanks so much for joining us. You and your team at 404 have been doing a series of stories about how technology is being used in the mass deportations and the raids that we're seeing around the country by ice. One of your most recent articles was titled Elite, the Palantir app ICE uses to find neighborhoods to raid. In it, you write, palantir is working on a tool for Immigration and Customs Enforcement that populates a map map with potential deportation targets, brings up a dossier on each person, and provides a confidence score on the person's current address. Now you've learned that ICE is using it to find locations where lots of people it might detain could be based. How does this work?
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B
So it is a map interface and an ICE official will simply draw a circle or a square onto that map and all of these, these small pins will appear. They'll then click onto one of those pins and that will be a specific person or an ice's sort of vernacular, a target. That'll be their name, date of birth, a photo, if they have it, and as you said, the address and the address confidence score. Elsewhere in the user guide I obtained explaining how this tool works, it says these addresses can come from the Department of Health and Human Services, uscis, which is part of dhs, and various other sources as well. It seems to be a tool that brings together data from all of these usually separate places and sources and brings it into a sort of all in one single tool that ICE can use to find neighbourhoods to raid, maybe write up target lists and eventually supervisors to approve those lists and send people out into the field.
- [37:44]
C
So how did you confirm the connection between ICE and the company Palantir here.
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B
So Elite is an acronym. And then in the user guide, the full text of that was spelled out. I then, as I usually do when I get leaked documents, I started googling around. The only mention of that spelled out acronym on the entire web was included in a palantir contract for 29.9 million. To me, that made a very solid link between this particular tool and Palantir. And of course, of course, last year we already reported that Palantir was working on immigration enforcement for the second Trump administration. They were doing various data analytics services and products and that sort of thing. But this was really the first link that we got between, oh, they're making this specific tool and ICE is using it. It was finally bridging that divide between Palantir doing some frankly obscure technology work over here and what is actually happening on American streets.
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C
So what does ELITE the acronym stand for?
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B
ELITE stands for Enhanced Leads, Identification and Targeting for Enforcement. That is A very unique acronym.
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C
You mentioned that there's a confidence score. So how is that calculated?
- [39:05]
B
According to the user guide. There are two main metrics that dictate or influence that confidence score. The first is, is the source of that data, so the Department of Health or wherever it may come from. And the second one is the recency, as in, when was the last time that address was updated? And that's especially important for ICE, because when it's trying to find people to detain and deport, and those could be people with no criminal conviction, or it could be what they describe as the most wanted or the worst of the worst, or whatever it may be that dhs. It may be. However, DHS is describing that those addresses are really, really important for ICE because they can finally try to track down where that specific person may be. And that's why they have a confidence score. They want to be quite efficient in what they're doing. They don't want to be sending personnel around randomly. They do want to find a specific location to go and target. And that is what this tool at least hopes to do.
- [40:06]
C
You know, if this tool has been and is being used in the raids that we're seeing around the country.
- [40:14]
B
So, in December, ICE officials and Customs and Border Protection officials gave really illuminating testimony in a case going on there. It was discussing an immigration raid that happened in October. They targeted a woman who has the initials MJMA in the court transcripts, and about 30 other people as well. And in that testimony, a night official explicitly said that they used something called elite, describing how it's used to build up target lists, describing how they went to neighbourhoods that they called target rich, because there were lots of people there that they could potentially detain. And that was one of the key pieces that allowed me to do this investigation, because this is hearing from ICE officials themselves about how they're using this tool, what it's useful for. Because when I approached DHS for comment on this, they weren't going to readily confirm those details themselves. That testimony has been really, really illuminating, not just for this story about Palantir, but various other ones about the surveillance tech that ICE is using in the field.
- [41:18]
C
Is anything that Palantir is doing today illegal?
- [41:23]
B
As far as I know, nothing that Palantir is doing is illegal. This data sharing between agencies is the fruit of an executive order order from President Trump. So it is legally authorised in that sense. It's crucial to remember that Palantir doesn't go out and gather data. They're not performing facial recognition. They're not tracking phones. All Palantir does is, it seems quite well, bring all of this data together so the customer, in this case ice, can understand it.
- [41:54]
C
Just as a note, we have reached out to both ICE through the Department of Homeland Security and to Palantir about your reporting. We haven't received any comments. You mention in your reporting that you've reached out multiple times to Palantir, to ice, and they have not gotten back to you, correct?
- [42:12]
B
Yeah, I have heard from the company once or twice over my several months of reporting, and usually they say they regret that the leaks have happened rather than commenting on the substance of the leaks themselves. I would say say it's much more interesting to look at what they say internally, of course. And Palantir justifies its work with ICE by saying it believes it can make ICE's work more efficient, more transparent, more accountable. Ultimately, ICE is the one deciding how to use this technology, if they use it at all. ICE is the one that decides we're going to detain this person or track down people in this.
- [42:55]
C
Wired recently had an interesting report about internal communications at Palantir where there were several employees that were very concerned about how the company's products are being used in ICE enforcement. And quoting from the Wired story now, they were talking about an internal wiki, kind of a reference base inside Palantir that employees all have access to. And it said the wiki acknowledges, quote, increasing reporting around US Citizens being swept up in enforcement action and held, as well as reports of racial profiling allegedly applied as pretense for the detention of some US Citizens, but argues that Palantir's customers at ICE remain committed to avoiding the unlawful, unnecessary targeting, apprehension and detention of US Citizens wherever and however possible. We should note that Wired also said that they tried to reach up for comment and did not receive one. So it's interesting that there is kind of this internal tension, at least from employees.
- [43:53]
B
Yeah, we saw this in the first Trump administration as well. When Palantir was doing some work with ice, it was specifically working on a system called ICM for Homeland Security Investigations. You know, that's the part of ICE which focuses on cybercrime or child abuse or money laundering, that sort of thing. Some employees still had an issue then. This time, the outrage does seem to be much more visceral, I would say, indicating by the leaks that I've received and why it has received received as well. But employees in that company can't necessarily change the policy directives of Palantir as a whole, especially when you have leadership such as the CEO Karp saying that it is the responsibility of tech companies to help defend the west, defend democracy. Now, of course, myself and I think other people who look into Palantir as well, well, find that quite a strange thing to marry with the idea that they say they wish to defend American and Western values while also providing the technological infrastructure for the agency that now says it does not need a warrant to enter buildings. I sincerely try to square that circle and I would love if Palantir responded to my requests for comments to my requests for comment to elaborate on that as well.
- [45:12]
C
You've also reported about facial recognition technology, and so many people have seen these viral videos where the ICE agent really just sticks his or her phone up directly to the person and kind of takes a snapshot. And that phone that they have in their hand is comparing the image to some much, much larger database. Is that effective? Where did all those pictures come from?
- [45:38]
B
So we first revealed the existence of this app called Mobile Fortify last June, thanks to leaked emails from inside US ice. I then steadily got more information over the coming months. And essentially it uses the system the Customs and Border Protection has at the border to verify who is entering the country. It has turned that inwards onto American streets, where, as you say, an ICE official or another DHS official can use their phone, point it at someone's face and instantly query a database of something like 200 million immigrants, images that DHS has, compares it to. Those brings up an interface identifying the person, their name, date of birth, whether they've been given the final order of deportation, all of that sort of thing. And ICE and CPP officials are using this to an attempt to verify people's citizenship. That said, recently we reported that the app may not always be accurate. In that earlier case I mentioned of mjma, the woman in Oregon, and who officials testified about. When a Customs and Border Protection official scanned her face, it returned two different names. When you first learn about facial recognition as a researcher or a journalist, you learn it can be very inaccurate, especially against people of colour. We've seen time and time again, black people especially have been misidentified by facial recognition and then they face charges or they've been detained, they've been arrested, they've been put in jail for some time. That technology is now being used to determine whether somebody should be deported or not. And ICE believes that a result from that app is definitive proof of someone's status and it overrides a birth certificate.
- [47:26]
C
There's a group of Democratic lawmakers that are Trying to reign in the use of mobile fortify. Representative Benny Thompson, who authored this legislation, he's the Homeland Security ranking member. He said ICE's use of mobile fortify to determine a person's legal status is an outrageous affront to the civil rights and civil liberties of U.S. citizens and immigrants alike. DHS should not be conducting surveillance by experimenting with Americans faces and fingerprints in the field, especially with unproven and biased technology. What's their legislation proposing?
- [47:59]
B
So the aim of the legislation is not to eliminate this app, it's more to rein it in. And it does that or plans to do that in several different ways. The first one would be that DHS cannot use this out on American streets. It would be restricted to ports of entry into the country. Another is that DHS would not be allowed to roll out a version of the app to local law enforcement, which is what we reported they were planning to do, which would have meant that organisations who are part of the 2287 program, basically local law enforcement working with ICE on immigration enforcement in some capacity, they would be allowed to use the app. This legislation would aim to tackle that as well. So it wouldn't eliminate it outright, but it would try to rein it in somewhat.
- [48:46]
C
So you know, look, different databases, different information sitting in disparate places. That was one of the things that, that led to greatest terror attack in the United states right after 9 11. This was one of the key goals is hey, if you have information over here and it's not connected and talking to this information over here, we could have prevented this next attack. And that's why we're combining all these data sets. What is wrong with that thinking or at least how these technologies are being used today?
- [49:18]
B
I think that's a totally fair point. And I would say that the key, key idea is context and consent as well. Of course, I think when somebody goes to pay their taxes and they provide an address to the irs, they don't believe, or they wouldn't have believed before, that that could end up being used for immigration enforcement. I don't think many people would believe that when they go to try to seek medical help, either through Medicaid or some other mechanism of the Department of Health Health, they wouldn't have assumed that that data could then be used for immigration enforcement as well. And this data sharing between agencies can be beneficial for some things, of course is useful if members of the intelligence community are talking to one another about certain very high profile dangerous terrorist threats for instance. But crucially that's not what we're talking about here, we're talking about, about immigration enforcement as part of a mass deportation campaign which is unfortunately also targeting US Citizens and they're being pulled out of the houses as well, and people, of course, being hurt and dragged very indiscriminately. The context here is very, very different to, say, data sharing in the war on terror.
- [50:37]
C
Reporter and co founder of 404 Media, Joseph Cox, thanks so much for all your reporters.
- [50:42]
B
Absolutely. Thank you so much.
- [50:45]
A
And finally for us, it's a tragedy that transformed space flight history. Forty years ago today, the NASA Challenger space shuttle exploded midair 73 seconds after liftoff from Florida, killing all seven members on board. Now, the nation saw the harrowing moment live on television while thousands of spectators on the ground ground were left shocked. The high profile launch drew special attention as it was the first time a teacher, Christa McAuliffe, would be sent to space. The incident led to a massive overhaul of NASA's management, meaning 87 subsequent missions would go on without a hitch until 2003. Bianna Golodriga sat down with journalist Adam Higginbotham earlier and asked him why by four decades on, the Challenger disaster remains memorable for so many people.
- [51:38]
B
By 1986, you know, having sent men to the moon, having rescued people in Apollo 13, having sent up Skylab, they seemed to be able to do anything they put their minds to. So the idea that seven astronauts could die live on television in a space shuttle that was also kept carrying the teacher in space, the first citizen astronaut, seemed totally inconceivable. And so I think that's one main reason why it's lodged in the minds of Americans in a way that the Columbia accident hasn't. Because in 1986, nothing like that has happened before.
- [52:20]
A
And we will have the full interview for you later on this.
- [52:23]
B
This week.
- [52:24]
A
That does it for us. I want to thank you for watching and goodbye. From New York.
- [52:39]
B
I'm Dr. Sanjay Gupta.
- [52:40]
A
Host of the Chasing Life podcast.
- [52:43]
B
This is literally, Dr. Gupta, a social prescription.
- [52:48]
A
The idea of, of your doctor, your social worker, prescribing you something social in your community, like an art class, like bicycling lessons, the same way they would prescribe a pill. My guest, Julia Hotz, author of the.
- [53:03]
B
Connection Cure, has traveled across more than 30 countries to see how this approach.
- [53:08]
A
Is really being used. Isolation and loneliness is some of the greatest social pain we can experience. And it's not just in our heads.
- [53:17]
B
Because if you think about it evolutionarily.
- [53:20]
A
We needed to have a people, a tribe around us, listen to Chasing life.
- [53:26]
B
Streaming now, wherever you get your podcasts.