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The Politics Behind ‘Russia-gate’
We are in the midst of what has been referred to as “Russia-gate”. The Democrats with their neoconservative allies and most of the major media are alleging, with no proof, that President Trump has been in collusion with Russia and specifically that Russia helped tilt the election in his favor. Mainstream journalist and New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has for example compared the alleged Russian hacking of the Democratic Party emails to be another Pearl Harbor or 911. This hysteria is extraordinarily dangerous inasmuch as Trump may be put into a position in confronting Russia, the other major nuclear power in the world.
Guest – Robert Parry is a Washington DC investigative journalist and co-founder of Consortium News. He has covered Washington for nearly 4 decades. One of the many important stories he broke was on the Iran-Contra scandal. His latest book is America’s Stolen Narrative: From Washington and Madison to Nixon, Reagan and the Bushes to Obama.
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Electronic Devices Seized And Data Requested From Inauguration Arrestees
At the Trump inauguration protests earlier this year over 200 people were mass-arrested and charged under the Felony Riot Act, punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a $25,000 fine. Those picked up in the sweep — including journalists, medics and legal observers — had their phones, cameras and other personal belongings confiscated as evidence. Law enforcement is compelling Apple, Facebook and Google to hand over the personal information of many of those arrested. The tech giants appear to be complying, or are willing to comply with these data-mining requests. Several of the persons arrested have been contacted by Facebook and Apple and notified that their personal information has been requested by the United States Attorney’s Office. An Apple customer notice to one noted that: “Apple will be producing the requested data in a timely manner as required by the legal process.” An NLG attorney representing several of the protesters, Mark Goldstone, has said that one of his clients will fight vigorously to prevent the data from being handed over as the phone was not even present at the demonstration.
Guest – Stephanie Lacambra, a criminal defense staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Stephanie is a long-time indigent criminal defense trial attorney and immigration defense activist who graduated from UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law in 2004. Before coming to EFF, she worked as a Deputy Federal Defender for two years at the Federal Defender’s Office of San Diego trying federal felony cases ranging from illegal entry into the US to drug and alien smuggling. Then she spent the next decade working at the San Francisco Public Defender’s office trying dozens of cases ranging from robbery to attempted murder. She continues to speak truth to power by protecting individual privacy rights from government overreach as part of the Civil Liberties Team at the EFF.
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