E-mail a friendAmy Goodman
airdate May 1, 2008
Journalist Amy Goodman is host/exec producer of the daily international TV/radio news program Democracy Now!, which airs on more than 800 stations and on democracynow.org. She's received acclaim for exposés of human rights violations in East Timor and Nigeria and won many of journalism's most prestigious awards. Goodman began her broadcasting career as a volunteer at NY's Pacifica station WBAI, ultimately becoming its news director. Co-author of three New York Times best sellers, her new book is Breaking the Sound Barrier.
Author of "Standing up to the Madness," explains how the Patriot Act has impacted Americans' civil liberties. (3:24)
Amy Goodman
Tavis: Amy Goodman is the co-anchor of "Democracy Now," which can be heard and seen now on stations across the country. She is also the author of a number of books, including her latest: "Standing Up to the Madness: Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary Times." As always, Amy, a blessing to see you.
Amy Goodman: It's great to be with you, Tavis.
Tavis: How are you?
Goodman: I'm very good, and especially good being with you here.
Tavis: No, I'm glad to have you on the program. The book, "Standing Up to the Madness," wonderful text. The idea for it comes from?
Goodman: From the remarkable people we meet all over the country. I wrote this with my brother David Goodman, as we have our last two books, and it is remarkable what people do. Not looking for trouble, but when trouble comes to them, how they stand up.
For example, the librarians of Connecticut. They run a Computer Connection, it's called - the computers for the libraries of Connecticut. The FBI comes to their door, they want information about who is using the computer system, and they say no. And they stand up not only to these two FBI agents but to the U.S. government - the USA PATRIOT Act.
And before they know it, they're in court, they're suing the U.S. government over the USA PATRIOT Act and the violations of patrons' privacy. They can't go into the courtroom, though - they're put in another courtroom to watch the proceedings, as if they're a group of terrorists. But they know that it's important that the principles they're standing up to is key.
Kids in Connecticut also, in Wilton, Connecticut, who think all they're doing is performing a high school play about war, taking the words of soldiers and veterans and piecing them together with their teacher until the principal comes in and says, "You will not be performing that play on the Wilton High School stage."
By the way, Wilton was actually the model for "The Stepford Wives." Ira Levin, who wrote it, grew up in Wilton. And the kids pleaded with the principal, he said, "No." He said, "That ship has sailed," and it sailed them right onto the New York stage, because theaters in New York, like the Culture Project and the New York Public Theater said, "Where there's censorship, we're there - you'll perform here." And they did what actors all their lives dream of, performing on the New York stage a play called "Voices in Conflict."
And then there are the soldiers who've stood up. People like Lieutenant Aaron Watada, the first officer to say no to war, says he won't take young men and women into an immoral war, and he stands up to the U.S. military, as has Augustine Aguayo, an Army medic who said no and refused to load his rifle in Iraq for a year, saying he'd rather be killed than kill.
These are all people who are standing up to the madness, to what is happening in this country.
Tavis: To your first story about those librarians, the reason why they could not go in the courtroom to be a part of the proceedings as opposed to watching them is what?
Goodman: They were told that they couldn't be there, and so they ended up in a courtroom a couple hours away. This took place in Bridgeport, they were in Hartford, and they were actually put into, believe it or not - and the security guard was more surprised than anyone - a storage closet. And there he closed the door on them, on four librarians, and they watched through closed-circuit TV.
And they watched over the shoulder of the judge - that's the view they had of the entire courtroom. And what was so moving for these librarians standing up to the USA PATRIOT Act is they saw that the courtroom was filled with librarians standing up for them.
Ultimately, and the reason that the FBI agent had come to them, is they'd given them a national security letter. It's like radioactivity if you're handed this. If you are handed this, it was demanding information, you are gagged automatically. You can tell no one about an NSL. But they worked together; they were called John Doe Connecticut. The gag was only lifted after the USA PATRIOT Act was renewed, when they could no - it wouldn't matter if they spoke out against it. They couldn't even testify before Congress before it.
They're the only ones in America who now can talk about having received an NSL - a national security letter. Over 150,000 have received this.
Tavis: How do you explain how this PATRIOT Act has, in fact, crushed so many people? Crushed people, threatened people, put people at all types of unease?
Goodman: It is a very big problem. It was written before 9/11; it was just passed after 9/11, and that's the big problem. I travel around the country and we support independent bookstores all over. It's not only the librarians; it's the independent booksellers who also fall under the purview of the PATRIOT Act. It says that they and the librarians have to hand over information.
There's no judge or jury here. It's just the corner cop at a federal level, which is an FBI agent. Also, there's the psychologists, and that is a remarkable story. Our chapter "Psychologists in Denial." It is dissident psychologists within the American Psychological Association, the largest association of psychologists in the world today, who have taken on their association, because unlike the AMA - the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association - the APA has not banned their members from participating in coercive interrogations.
And a group of dissident psychologists have said this is unacceptable. How can psychologists be there at Guantanamo, Bagram, at CIA black sites and actually oversee what is going on? And so now one of the leading dissident psychoanalysts, named Dr. Steve Reisner, from New York, is running for president of the APA, and he got the most nominating votes. We'll see what happens in October.
We begin the book with Gandhi, with a famous quote, and I think it applies to these psychologists, and they're taking on this massive association. "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."
Tavis: There's a state senator here in California, Mark Ridley-Thomas, who has introduce legislation to stop persons who are based in California in the medical profession from being involved in that way. So we'll see what happens with the California legislation, because if it passes here, it may get replicated across the country.
Goodman: Oh, and that's extremely significant. It would have very serious repercussions for the American Psychological Association.
Tavis: Yeah, so we'll see what happens on that legislation here in California. Notwithstanding the fact that you, more courageously than anybody else I know on radio, are raising these issues every single day - radio and TV now, on "Democracy Now -" you're raising these issues every single day and yet I wonder whether or not you think that the average American really has a good understanding of how our civil liberties have been curbed.
How they've been under threat, under attack. We hear stories here and there, but until you read this and until something happens to you or somebody you know, I wonder whether or not we really get that?
Goodman: I think people do at every level. I really think that President Bush has managed to unite people across the political spectrum against him. I think conservative Republicans, like progressives, Greens, Independents, Democrats, deeply care about privacy, care about corporate control, care about the war. Right now, those who are opposed to torture, those who are opposed to war, are not a fringe minority, not even a silent majority, but a silenced majority.
Tavis: But I've got to juxtapose that statement, your belief, Amy, with the fact that the PATRIOT Act didn't pass once, it passed twice.
Goodman: No, you're right; it had some changes in it. But I think that the tide is turning. Yes, it takes time, and that's why I also think - we also have turning points in the book, points in history. Dan Ellsberg standing up and releasing the Pentagon papers at risk of going to prison for the rest of his life, the Soweto uprising and the kids who rose up in South Africa, and we begin with Rosa Parks.
Why Rosa Parks? It's a well-known story. She stands up - she sits down on the bus, standing up for not just African Americans but for all of us, because if any of us is diminished, we're all diminished. But the media got it wrong when they told her story, because they talked about her as a tired seamstress, not a troublemaker.
The fact is, she was a first-class troublemaker. She was secretary of the NAACP; she trained at the Highlander Center in Tennessee, as you know, Tavis, working with Black and White against racism and segregation in the South. She knew exactly what she was doing.
And I think that these kinds of stories and the movements people come out of and then inspire other movements, it was as a result of the Montgomery Bus Boycott the Montgomery Improvement Association chooses a young reverend coming into town, Dr. Martin Luther King, to be their spokesperson.
In a sense, Rosa Parks helped to launch Dr. King. We come out of movements and inspire other movements, and that's, I think, where so much of the media misses out. They focus on the individual, and not the remarkable movements that give birth to so much.
Tavis: I've only got about 30 seconds here, right quick. Let me ask how it is that you remain hopeful, given that what you do is really cutting against the grain every day.
Goodman: Because I see so many people in every walk of life who are standing up, who are being so brave. I see so many movements, people in this country and around the world. This year is a turning point itself. I mean, it is so critical that people act - it's not so much who someone votes for, it's that they're involved. And it's not just standing up for themselves or their community, but what people do next November and how people organize now will affect people all over the world, because we are in the most powerful country on Earth.
What we do matters.
Tavis: Amy Goodman has a new book out, co-written with her brother, David Goodman. It's called "Standing Up to the Madness: Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary Times." There are few people who I admire and respect more than I respect and admire Amy Goodman for what she does every day. Amy, glad to have you here.
Goodman: It's great to be with you, Tavis.
Tavis: Nice to see you, as always.
Back to May 1, 2008