Title: John Kiriakou speaks at Venezuelan Embassy 04-24-2019
Show: David Hartful
Date: 2019-04-25
URL: https://youtu.be/tE62XpsFX00
Duration: 57:00

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[00:13] [Music] there's someone - not a sound system

[00:44] works where's leo [Music] here we go

[01:16] [Music] [Applause]

[01:47] [Music]

[03:08] right

[04:00] [Applause] [Music] [Applause]

[04:47] so as you know this is unprecedented I don't think there's ever been anything like this in the United States before where ordinary citizens like us have come out in solidarity with the elected government of a country to protect it from

[05:26] neo-cons and folks in the White House who are orchestrating this whole thing so here we are people power and what better place to be than in the Chavez library that's paying the Empire and I feel Chavez smiling at us right now and certainly the eyes of Chavez are looking down on us as we are here so we want to

[05:57] start this out with a representative of the Venezuelan government well in the Deputy Foreign Minister we'd love to be here with us but he is in New York with the part Minister and want to send us a message [Music]

[06:27] standing up for international law the warping of the Venezuelan embassy in Washington important to hear your voices to hear Paul for the respect of national sovereignty with respect as well as Parker will and for safeguarding to have

[07:06] friends in the United States that are standing up for justice and are standing up for what's right and for the respect of the will of the people were let's hear that you were a meaning constantly in the embassy and you have made it a place where the paint democracy dialog can really be established and can really flourish hopefully this is

[07:36] maintain in our premises for a long time I know today our meeting you have a very important educational meeting to talk about a way that our region Latin America has been constantly intervene by foreign forces and by foreign interests that have attempted against democracy and against social justice so hopefully

[08:07] today will be a very fulfilling encounter and that you know we help each other to understand our region and to make sure that our countries are respected dimensional ball and respect justice so thank you very much for being there [Music] [Applause]

[08:45] we're sandy can't be United States Carlos was tremendously helpful to us when we were to Venezuela recently on so many levels I'm sure others who've been developed on the same thing he was never seen such a big smile on somebody's face when we were walking he was with us walking down the hall he just lovely so we appreciate Carlos greatly my name's

[09:17] Kevin Zeese by the way and with no resistance services outside very openly showing their presence their intimidation but we know we're not intimidated and the secret please I guess the Secret Service in the backyard early this morning taking pictures of buildings Vivian

[09:47] Benjamin and I went out and spoke with them to see what was up and they were very vague they said that they were not planning to enter embassy I said I'm

[10:24] doing the job that the US government should be doing and we've been here for quite a while and we plan to stay here for the foreseeable future until Venezuela United States to talk to each other I know that sounds so minimal that we are talking to a adolescent president I'll talk to each other and work out a relationship there's also an embassy in Venezuela Caracas the USM is vacant so

[10:55] the event is longer we do something there we don't think so and I hope they don't we don't want to see that content pretend that escalates into a conflict but we're here as civilians particularly embassy to stand up the Vienna Convention is stand against trespass to stand against the coup a coup that has failed in Venezuela I know they know he's a u.s. puppet they'd always to hide

[11:26] to the US government we know the economic problems they're facing are coming with the US government you know the electrical grid the attack is coming for the US government and only attempted assassination of President Maduro tinea from the US they know that Windows chief of staff and plans for terrorism in the United States paid for by the US government a billion dollars the u.s. blamed on spending of money seized from Venezuela to cause chaos in Venezuela with terrorism this has all come out of

[11:57] documents cell phones computer seized from Wanga why those chief of staff and bodyguard they were planning a bring in mercenaries from Central America trained in Colombia funded through the Bank of America dressed in military uniforms of the Venezuelan government to try to pretend that the military is opposed to the military supports reading some of

[12:27] these pictures here and there's this second picture the fourth picture he's reading the Venezuelan Constitution there so we're standing with the Venezuelan people in solidarity and so tonight we have a really fantastic show for you a credible speaker well I'm not gonna introduce I'm gonna do somebody else who was very important to us as well the lawyer one of the lawyers for the embassy protection collective moral Fair Haven Hilliard constitutional

[12:58] lawyer well-known in Washington DC directs the partnership for civil justice fund as to the many cases that have expanded the rights protesters in Washington DC and she's here on behalf of our collective wants to give you a few words with people from

[13:32] all over the United States to spin here to stay in this building and to stand up while it's called the embassy protection collective it's a collective standing up for human rights for democracy for international law are not standing up for so these are people of the United States who are fighting for the things that we awoke dear and the Vienna Convention as Kevin mentioned is what

[14:05] mutters international buildings diplomatic structures and relations under the Vienna Convention and embassy is enviable even if there are bad relations even if relations break down the US government cannot just cease the embassy at its whip now as Kevin mentioned the Secret Service has been coming here they have been threatened by State Department representatives and we

[14:39] want to send a very clear message a very clear message which is that everyone is here is here lawfully at the invitation of the people lawfully in charge of this building which is owned by the government of Venezuela second there are

[15:10] laws in the District of Columbia that protect people from eviction and people have been staying here and sleeping here and have been here for a long period of time in order for the government to move to remove people under eviction there were due process requirements and have not been met there's been no notice it's been no due process there's been no opportunity to challenge and attempted eviction so the message that we want to

[15:40] say to every single State Department official to every Secret Service Officer danwon police officer in the metropolitan Police Department and the US Marshal to anyone who is thinking about taking action against the people who are lawfully present in this building it is our view it's the view of the collective that any such action is an unlawful act anyone then orders or

[16:14] effectuates or carries out an unlawful act an unlawful seizure or an unlawful arrest of any person who is standing up for democracy for human rights and against their government this government the government of the United States illegal pas so for all the people who are present here today and were staying strong I want to say it's an amazing amazing event and it's an amazing signal

[16:46] and message to the US government that the people of the United States will not fold and will not be cowed and will not be friend with illegal actions [Applause]

[17:21] Thank You Maura thanks to everyone here and to all of the people who are watching us on Facebook livestream all of the those people who have responded in the last days in the last week's to the appeal from the collective a real special I would say death of gratitude from all of the all of us in the progressive movement

[17:56] [Applause] but frankly without their having been the anchor for this collective this would not actually be able to happen so it shows that individuals and

[18:28] organizations but even small numbers of individuals make a difference that's how progressive movements start people say oh you're so small popular you've actually changed well of course you're swell until you get bigger we

[19:10] co-hosted daily two-hour show on radio Sputnik called Bobby clear which is I'm Washington DC radio stations other stations and it's a podcast in many places and you know it's been a real it's been very very interesting of course to work together every day to evaluate assess analyze have great guests on amazing experience for those of us presenting on here but I have to say in the last days we see Google has

[19:43] taken down Press TV we see Thomas or Undertown we see our G and Sputnik required to register as foreign agents we see Facebook and other social media taking down alternative media because without the alternative media the American people and people generally cannot possibly learn the truth because the function of corporate owned media is not to tell the truth but

[20:14] the function is an echo chamber for us [Applause] John and I realized that we know the same things about the same events over the past thirty years but because he was in the CIA and I was organizing against the CIA in here we know things from a completely different point of view originally but what brings us together

[20:45] is again what the US government actually did and what they did to John Kiriakou and when they're doing to Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning and other whistleblowers John Kiriakou went from being somebody who was considered legitimate in the Washington political circles to Prasanna non grata and actually a federal prisoner because he committed a great crime he was the one member of the CIA the one who told the

[21:18] truth to the American people that the CIA was engaged in a massive torture program that George W Bush was lying when he told the American people that torture didn't exist and because of that not the torturers but the person who revealed the torture was sent to prison and that's how John Kiriakou and myself in a way of men our paths crossed because John Kiriakou like

[21:49] anyone who dares as an act of conscience to tell the truth about US government illegality or criminal conduct becomes target a target in their crosshairs just like the Venezuelan government is a target in their crosshairs or the Iranian government or alternative media you name it the US government says that they only have puppets and proxies around the world but we want free thinking human beings who can come

[22:20] together and show not profit or exploitation but genuine human solidarity and cooperation can be the watchword of our species based on personal experience with and great knowledge of the CIA is now going to talk about the topic at hand which is that the u.s. government has relentlessly enduringly and comprehensively been

[22:53] engaged in the interference in other countries democratic processes not simply trying to overturn elections but kill the leaders aren't imprison the leaders who are elected by their own people but who don't follow the dictates of Washington it's a great honor to introduce John [Applause]

[23:32] I have learned more from Brian Becker in the last year and a half that I think I've learned from anybody in my life also think Wow a bunch of people the Venezuelan government the Venezuelan foreign ministry the Venezuelan embassy right here where we're celebrating freedom and democracy like the thin code pink and everybody who's been involved in this righteous event I also would like to invite the Secret Service to

[24:03] come in I want to start by talking to you about a normal event in the daily life of a CIA officer and I'm going to use a real-life example I worked in the CIA's Counterterrorism Center for a long time both before and after the 9/11 attacks and I had an idea it's kind of a dumb idea but you know what you do is

[24:35] you you throw out 30 dumb ideas and maybe one of them was good give him motive for it so I went up to the director of counterterrorism this was cover black later ambassador Cofer black big muckety-muck and I said Cofer I want to talk to you about an idea that I had for an operation he put up his hands he said listen whatever you want to do just do it I have so much money I can't simply spend it all story so I did it

[25:06] I wasted fifty thousand dollars the taxpayers money we've got a couple business class trips to Europe out of it but that's normal business of the CIA they have so much money that they can't possibly spend it on and the way that they get promoted is to do things like overthrow governments that sounds awful right just out of curiosity I went on the internet today to see how many governments did the CIA actually

[25:38] overthrew just as a CIA operation I'm not talking about sending troops I'm not talking about what twenty years of economic sanctions I'm talking about the CIA and acting a policy or program to overthrow a legitimate government it starts off with seven it starts off with seven and those seven are and I'm going to tell you as soon as I turn a page

[26:11] Iran 1953 we're still paying for that stupid idea we overthrew that government when we became British Petroleum just for the money because the Brits asked us to because they were telling me to do it themselves and they said well the Americans will do it for us and we did here we are three generations later and people are still dying because of that stupid decision Guatemala 1954 Congo

[26:43] 1960 Dominican Republic 1961 South Vietnam 1963 Brazil 1964 to late 1973 you see anything here that may be a pattern that we overthrow these governments and they're taken over usually for many many decades by either fascist dictators or military windows I call that failure I wouldn't call that a successful foreign policy now on

[27:14] curiosity how many countries has the US government tried to overthrow since the end of the Second World War there's actually a number Medicus like plain blue how many 41 42 57 countries man I'm a greek-american very proudly so and I have lots and lots of cousins still in Greece who lived through the military dictatorship there

[27:46] there's a word for it in Greek it just means the seven years because those seven years were so terrible and so many people died that they can't even bring themselves to call it anything else but the seven years and all you have to say is the seven years and everybody knows what you're talking about tanks in the streets shooting rounds into college campuses slaughtering people wholesale somewhat to overthrow a democratically elected government to install a military

[28:19] dictatorship that suspends all human rights civil liberties for it to then collapse under its own weight after killing everybody or exiling those they couldn't kill and then to see the country sort of wrench back to democracy on its own not with us though so what happens even when a country makes it back to democracy what happens is they hate the United States right I have cousins who are just working people farmers taxi drivers and now they're

[28:53] members of radical parties the Communist Party because the United States actions so put them so damage their families that they just can't get Paxton multiply that by 57 you know the Gallup Organization came out with a poll just within the past year and they did this poll in almost every country in the world obviously there are some countries that there have access to but in almost every country in the world

[29:25] what was the country that is the greatest threat to human rights because obviously the Iranians with their movie business and their submarines in there

[29:59] so this is not something that is accidental this isn't something that one policy gone wrong this is who we are and it's who we are because we allow it to happen as as it wouldn't occur to most other governments on the planet to say you know what I don't like his politics and indeed continued other thing that happened to be when I was at the CIA I

[30:30] had come back from overseas duty in Pakistan and I got promoted I became the executive assistant to the Deputy Director it's a big job big deal right you have access to everything so my first day of the job my boss said to me well actually I said to him so what are we doing right I didn't know what I was supposed to do all I know is that I had to Steve Jobs what do you want me to do he said I can't tell you until you sign these secrecy ratings I said okay I went up to the seventh floor it's the

[31:00] executive floor knocked on the door said I'm supposed to sign some secrecy greetings I decide six different documents when I finished signing the sixth one I said so what gives and the guy says well and I should tell you this is in July of 2002 he said next February we're going to invade Iraq we're going to overthrow Saddam Hussein and we're going to open the world's largest Air Force Base so that we can move all of

[31:32] our air assets from the Persian Gulf into Iraq and deprive of a sovereign bin Laden of the ability to say that we are polluting the land of the Two Holy Mosques I looked at this guy like he was scene and all I could think to stammer out was we haven't cut deadlines yet I thought that's what this whole thing was about were supposed to catch bin Laden he killed 3,000 Americans and he said look the decisions been made you can [ __ ] all you want nobody's gonna listen to you this is what we're doing and so

[32:04] that's what we did now a few weeks later I went back up to his office and I'm telling you this because this is typical of what happens in the CIA and the White House and the Pentagon and even the State Department I guarantee you it's happening right now as we speak I went into his office and he was at his desk for the white piece of paper and a box of Crayola markers colored markers I said what you doing he said oh I'm designing the new Iraqi flag I said that maybe the Iraqis should do and he said

[32:36] no but that's the arrogance that we see in our policy that's a normal event to have a gs-15 aircraft designing another country's flag to be imposed on them by the way that had exactly the same colors as the Israeli flag which I'm convinced was not an accident that's the way government works in this country I wanted to also talk about the mechanism

[33:08] for overthrowing a government you know there's actually a bureaucracy to this and this is the thing about the CIA people think that the CIA is everywhere and is everything the truth is there are a lot of morons there are a lot of Psychopaths and sociopaths we can get into that a bit but it's a big slow lumbering bureaucracy just like everything else uncomfortable and so if some dope comes up with an idea you know

[33:39] I want to overthrow let's say the Venezuelan government there's a process that goes through there's an office as crazy as this sounds there's an office that you go to to overthrow a government I'm not allowed to say the name of it it's classified rest assured there's a certain office that you go to and you tell the people in this office yeah there's this I want to overthrow this government and you know if somebody Jack's think an object after the plan is in trade and then you know it'll die but but I'm gonna overthrow the government

[34:10] and then say okay well we'll write up a plan and then we'll see what happens I'm not making light of this this is honest to God as God is my witness this is the way it works this office writes up the plan and they send it to the Justice Department to make sure that it's it goes to something called the office of legal counsel OLC we all know about OLC we all know about John you and j5e and how they may denote that stand on its trunk to make

[34:42] the torture legal in the in the early part of last decade but it goes to ofc and LMC while it is supposed to say oh you know what this is not legal there are three things that would make an attack on a foreign country legal it's very clear everybody knows this is it's if the country attacks you if you are invited in by the country or if the United Nations Security Council votes to give you the permission to enter the country that's it that's clear it's

[35:14] international law but what they do in OLC is they twist and warp US law to make it stand on its Trump to justify this clearly illegal program and they write this up it's highly classified so nobody knows about it so don't bother writing your Congress you're not and then it goes to the National Security Council in the White House well the National Security Council is amenable so when I say it goes the

[35:44] National Security Council I mean it goes to John Bolton it says dear mr. Bolton the CIA wants to overthrow the Venezuelan government we think it's legal for these reasons what do you think and he says and the Justice Department thinks it's legal so it must be legal and he signs it and then it goes back to the CIA with all the signatures on it I should say

[36:15] in the interim he rises the President to sign up the president finally signs it and then it goes back to CIA and it sits in a vault in the operation center and a copy in a vault in the in the director's office now I was there the day that the torture program was approved and I remember the Deputy Director erupting me during my briefing repeatedly to say with me it doesn't torture program is

[36:47] they just asked for the moon and stars thinking somebody at some level will say oh come on we can't do this we can't waterboard people and murder them and put them in you know coffins with boxes of cockroaches to make them insane but they'll be took anything out and so the President signed it and the deputy director kept saying I can't believe the President signed that memo mark my words the same thing is happening right now with Venezuela somebody at the CIA would remember a

[37:18] memo we should overthrow the government of Venezuela justice said that sounds legal and john bolton said not only does it so maybe it sounds like a great idea and that should be US policy and I also guarantee you that they had the same conversations about Iran and a half a dozen other countries and then it went to the president anybody want to put money on whether the president sign this I wouldn't wanna make that better and then it went to the CEO that's what happens but in the end nothing good

[37:53] comes of any of this we've got lessons learned we've seen what's happened in Iran and the Dominican Republic and hawala and Greece and Cyprus and Honduras and the Philippines and everywhere else were we overthrowing governments nothing good ever comes of it so I would posit and I would say this to any American if you are a patriot the only position that you can take is to

[38:24] oppose this government's position on Venezuela Becker said I'm better said we're propagandized as a people we are fed only what the big corporations and the US government want us to three I don't watch Network Mays anymore of

[38:56] course myself I won't read till the sword I want to read our team and Sputnik and al-jazeera and I mean that's people ask me where do you get your news and then besides my personal beef with MSNBC but I feel like I have to have alternative news because that's the only way to really understand what's happening in the world there's not a

[39:27] giant conspiracy against the American people to trick us into thinking that white white dough is the legitimate president of Venezuela one white dough is the Schmo from GW grad school that nobody ever heard of and somebody in the White House said you know what this guy should be the president he's just some guy from GE [Music]

[39:58] anyway I'm going to keep it short because it's hot and there are a lot of us I don't happy to take questions if if we're doing that kind of thing but thank you for being here keep up the fight we got to fight the secret service because I know in my bones that they're planning something that's grossly illegal it's a terrible violation of international law [Applause]

[40:59] it was like overnight she drank the kool-aid and I don't know what the precipitating event was but I like Venezuela for example or even Iran I just can't take her seriously anymore

[41:51] for forward thinking and progressive how do we stop our evil country from taking over these countries self-determination and taking and feeling their natural I have determination in the incident

[42:33] Natural Resources and you know I never call me naive but they never really gave that much of a thought until 1991 I was I was working on Iraq and Kuwait during the first Gulf War and I was in Saudi Arabia waiting to go into Kuwait with the Marines on the bration day which I did and I said to one of the guys that play in with us one of the embassy guys how proud I was to be a part of this to liberate this country and to liberate

[43:06] the country and bring democracy and human rights and he looked at me like I was nuts this is really this is really a great day and he said if this country had gravel its oil do you think we would give two shits about what happens please no no and that's why when the news came out that

[43:37] Afghanistan has a trillion dollars worth of rare earth metals should anybody be surprised that we're still in Afghanistan no and Venezuela has lots and lots of oil some say oh it's dirty oil is full of sulfur it's not like Libyan oil yeah well guess what it's a day's boat ride from the refineries in Texas so I agree with you at the risk of sounding cynical this is all about oil and we want their oil [Music]

[44:09] we're doing do red pepper again we have to talk to Brian Becker because I've never seen anybody organize people at Brian's ever dose it's ridiculous on no notice he can turn fifty thousand people here I think another thing Brian did that I thought was a stroke of genius no sooner were the words out of Donald Trump's mouth that he wants to have a military grade in his own honor Brian was standing outside the Department of Interior and he preserved

[44:41] all possible parade routes yes sir he speak to the racial element of this school because this is why doe 80 black or something like that is their motto can I talk to the ratio of component of this that's an important question and it's one that really is not being addressed in any of the mainstream outlets one who I chose a fascist let's just call this baby's baby here

[45:12] the man's a fascist he's aligned with another fascist Charleson ro in and Brazilian cities alive with extreme right-wingers in Colombia and yeah I mean these are these are the white people of Latin America there are the Spanish and Portuguese descendants of Spanish to Portuguese immigrants in Latin America they don't like the indigenous people they took the country from them they took the resources from them and by god they hate me in in the minority and so I think this is all part of a broader racial issue to keep

[45:46] indigenous people down and to make sure that that white right-wingers control the economies yes actually they call themselves a Spaniard experience I've heard that myself yeah but not just in Venezuela but elsewhere no they haven't auto pilot for example they don't call themselves Guatemalans they call themselves great question so

[46:33] in my own experience can I talk about some of the people that I know what are the people like in general it's not an easy answer most people are there just because they're patriotic and they think that they can express their patriotism by doing whatever it is the CIA wants them to do whether it's analysis or operations or if they're scientists they work in technology the Science and Technology Directorate they just want to do something in public service they think that they're doing the right thing

[47:03] in the Director of Operations that the culture is wildly different a CIA psychiatrist once told me that the CIA seeks to actively hire people who have sociopathic tendencies not sociopaths sociopaths have no conscience they easily pass a polygraph because they don't register guilt in any way but it's easy for a sociopath to slip through the process because if you don't feel guilt you don't react to the polygraph and so

[47:34] here we have people who are Cowboys just by virtue of their own personal beliefs and then you train them and give them weapons and literally unlimited budgets and you send them overseas I'll give you one example I won't use his name although it's out there in the press so I'm not going to use it as I said earlier I worked in the counterterrorism center for many years I sat about 10 feet away from a guy who was working on Latin American issues he was a nice enough guy he'd say good morning every

[48:05] day that's a good morning to him you know how's your family nice how was your vacation whatever I never really was clear on exactly what he did because he was part of a group called I won't tell you what he was called went about it was a it was a very onerous title for a group it had the word special in it yeah so they were doing something special I wasn't ready to it was after I left the CIA that he retired and Vanity Fair didn't feature

[48:37] story about him and as it turns out even been a hitman for the County cartel before joining the CIA so he was a mass murderer but by god he was patriotic and so they hired him so would they hire him to do they hired him to kill people that's all his job was to kill people I worked good with a guy in the Middle East just before 9/11 very closely we even we've been groomed together overseas and then 9/11 happened and I

[49:07] lost track of him for about eight weeks and then I ran into him at home and I said hey Billy great big he said very quietly doing that game stick he looked at me like I was crazy this is killing people what do you think I've been doing and I realized I hadn't been begging to go to Afghanistan because I was a fluent Arabic speaker and they wouldn't send me well they never do is why they didn't need to interview anybody capturing people to

[49:40] interrogate them they were murdering them so that's that's the attitude inside the Directorate of operations there aren't just sociopaths we've slipped through the cracks there are psychopaths and I'm going to go one beyond that too there are a million psychological studies out there from the American Psychiatric Association the American Psychological Association even in Psychology Today magazine saying that virtually every major CEO in America is

[50:13] associate a clinical associate thing because the only way that you can work your way up to that level is to have no conscience as you clog your way to the top stepping on the bus and everybody around you well this money is a big company just like any other big organization where lives are at stake and the stakes are very high so of course the CIA's leadership is going to be made up of sociopaths and Psychopaths people who can kill without second thought and go to bed at night and sleep like a baby and that's not an

[50:45] organization I wanted to be in video sir yeah you speak a little bit about Jeana half full and how it was that she was invited by tromping her role in the torture gene and that's why I worked for Jeana I wrote a 1,200 weirdo edit The Washington Post about Gina that's why the FBI still sits in front of my house [Music] Gina asked for Gina in my view Gina's an associate that she and I'm not saying

[51:17] anything here that's not been in the press well Gina was the she was a very senior officer in the counterterrorism center when I was there she was a 32 year operational veteran recruiting spies to steal secrets all over the world never married devoted solely to the job and she was a protege of Jose Rodriguez Jose Rodriguez was the head of counterterrorism after coca black was actually the night before I went to

[51:48] prison Jose tweeted at me and he said don't drop the soap ask for [Music] Jose I am on the right side of history and you were not and when Jose became the deputy director he made Gina the head of counterterrorism Gina continued to move up well when she was the head of counterterrorism she threw out to one of the secret sites just to watch the prisoner be torture

[52:23] not for any other reason she was so senior it's so important that she really ought to have just stated in her office at headquarters thinking the big plots but she wanted to see and enjoy yeah and so she did and she's never had to answer for that I wrote it up that just recently there was there was a document that was Declassified as part of the Guantanamo hearing on how to Sheikh Mohammed I'm not joking on page 20 2014 6 but this

[52:57] document totally serious they don't release it all at one time they released a little bit it said that Gina was the chief of base at one ton of them during the torture program nobody knew that so she has this inner flood she likes this she's intuitive and I think that that's that's so incredibly dangerous and sick that's exactly the person that you don't want to be in a position like that but somehow Gina has been able to win over both the Obama people and the Trump

[53:28] people because they don't fail all about her don't forget that she made the senior service under Obama she ended up running counterterrorism under Obama and being made deputy director of the CIA under Obama Trump just promoted [Music] so [Music]

[53:58] social media in the attempted coos it was used effectively in Nicaragua and and you know what well actually probably I have talked about this on our show when it appeared that the uprising what was it the Green Revolution I think they called it in Iran I had a chance of succeeding Hillary Clinton personally called Twitter and asked them not to do their nightly maintenance so that Twitter would remain up so the opposition could continue to organize to overthrow the Iranian government so there's a real role for social media now

[54:29] we could do the same kind of thing by sharing our information on social media I will advise one note of caution and that is that the cops are on social media to not just local cops harassing you know the wall street protesters I mean FBI CIA DEA ATF they're all on social media they all have fake accounts and they're all spying on us besides the fact that Facebook Twitter Google everybody has formal relationships with

[55:02] the FBI and the CIA so even if they're not spying on your account Facebook and Twitter and the others will voluntarily give your information to them yes on the other side that's a good point on the other side this could be the savior of some of these democratic movements if you've got whatsapp but it's not taking time by the government or viber for example or signal something that's encrypted Kalinda Minster could

[55:36] be covering first where people can hear you on the other side of you you mean the people in the street you see listen we've got right I'm sorry I misunderstood you how the US subsidizes it all the ways they've always done this listen every every English language radio station in Yemen I'm telling you from firsthand experience is the Department of Defense propaganda operation every one of them and they try to mimic NPR on purpose they call it in

[56:08] many voices right but it's all propaganda this is an active program used by all the major departments and agencies to spread propaganda especially among the youth now this is our taxpayer money at work that's also something that you that's very dangerous that our members of Congress do

[56:40] for what you do to educate the American public and we are so grateful that you came here tonight for a very historic talk in at a very critical moment in Venezuelans history so if you could all stop your live streaming and your filming and you can stop
