Gun Violence Epidemic; NSO Spyware and Repression; US Diplomacy Rebranded

Shootings continue unabated in the United States. What can be done to address the root causes of violence?

Maurice Cook, Executive Director and lead organizer at Serve Your City, and Bryan Weaver, founder and executive director of Hoops Sagrado talk to us about the never-ending epidemic of gun violence plaguing the country, with 56 people being shot in Chicago over the weekend, and a baseball game in Washington DC getting canceled after a shootout just outside the stadium. We talk about how shootings are discussed in the media and the importance given to them depending on which part of the city they happen and who the victims are, and discuss Illinois becoming the first state in the US to ban police from lying or using deceptive tactics while interrogating minors.  

Chris Garaffa, Web developer, technologist, and security and privacy consultant, talks to us about revelations that the NSO Group’s Pegasus software is the “weapon of choice for repressive governments seeking to silence journalists, attack activists and crush dissent,” according to an analysis conducted by journalists and Amnesty International.  We also talk about how Apple phones-which are generally considered to offer more privacy protections-are not immune from this kind of spyware, the response from NSO claiming innocence from these allegations, and the US government accusing China of the Microsoft hack earlier this year, with the EU and NATO joining in the bandwagon.

Margaret Kimberley, Editor and senior columnist at Black Agenda Report and author of the book "Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents", joins hosts Bob Schlehuber and Michelle Witte to talk about Tony Blinken’s instruction to US diplomats to acknowledge America’s own struggles with human rights and the mainstream media’s inability to acknowledge the same, the Biden administration transferring its first detainee out of the Guantánamo Bay prison, and reports that the US Commerce Department has for the last decade used a little known security force to investigate and surveil employees which racially profiled persons of Middle Eastern and Chinese descent.

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