Democracy Now! Audio - Democracy Now! 2026-10-16 Friday

Episode Date: October 16, 2026

Democracy Now! Friday, October 16, 2026

From New York, this is Democracy Now. I'm going to fight so that one day I can say to President Donald Trump, you crushed me. You trampled on me as a trans woman. But I'm still standing and I'm still alive. Estrella, bittersweet freedom for a quote-unquote bad Mexico. surprise-winning journalist Maria Najosa is out with a new documentary tracking the story of a trans woman named Estreya, who was jailed for almost a decade in a men's prison in Texas, then deported to Mexico.

This is the exact moment when Estrella and I hug for the first time in almost a decade, the first time since I have known this woman who's become a woman. so special to me. In 2017, Estria was arrested inside a courtroom by agents from the Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Pras, we look at what ICE is doing in Roxbury, New Jersey, in defiance of a court order. We'll speak to Democratic Congresswoman, Annalia Mejia. And finally, against tech oligarchy, worker resistance in the world's most powerful industry. We'll speak with the authors and longtime tech worker organizers, JS-10 and Clarissa Redwine. We wrote this book to give people insight into how the tech oligarchy centralizes their power and extracts.

For anyone who is organizing within tech or outside of tech, it is important to understand the opposition on the other side. All that and more coming up. Welcome to Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, The War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. The community of Bend, Oregon is in mourning following a school shooting at the Silver Rail Elementary School. Police say three children, ages 5, 8, and 11, and a teacher were killed by a 16-year-old resident of the town who used a long gun to blast his way through the school's locked doors. A seven-year-old student was also critically injured along with a teacher. The suspected shooter was reportedly fatally shot inside the school by an armed member of the community who pursued them into the school. The mayor of Bend, Oregon spoke to the media after the shooting. Be a safe place. Them?

Where children can learn and feel secure. What happened today should never have. happen. Like so many in our community, I'm struggling to make sense of a loss that feels unimaginable. In suburban Chicago, a self-described neo-Nazi teenager has been arrested for allegedly planning to carry out a mass shooting at the largest Hindu temple in Aurora, Illinois. Police say 19-year-old Alexandros Paparacas visited the temple Sunday, but his AR-15 jammed, authorities were alerted by one of the teenager's co-workers at Taco Bell. At his mother's home, police found a rifle, hundreds of rounds of ammunition, tactical gear,

and a manifesto in which the teenager described himself as a, quote, sociopathic white supremacist neo-Nazi filled with hatred fantasizing about mass murder nearly every day, unquote. He's been charged with making a terrorist threat an illegal gun possession. President Trump's called off Defense Secretary Pete Hegset's plan to live-stream the execution of Nadal Hassan, the former Army Major who killed 13 people at Fort Hood in Texas in 2009. Hassan is scheduled to be executed by firing squad on December 3rd. In a statement, Trump said live-streaming the execution, quote, might have been a strong deterrent for the world, unquote. But he acknowledged many people would rather not watch Hassan be killed. Last week, the UN Human Rights Office warned that live streaming the execution would amount to a public execution and violate the prohibition on torture.

Another oil tanker has been struck near the Strait of Hormuz. This follows the sinking of two ships earlier this week and comes after maritime officials said 12 vessels were attacked in and around the strait between October 5th and 11th, the highest pace of attack since the U.S. imposed a naval blockade of Iranian ports. Meanwhile, Bloomberg reported Thursday that top Pentagon officials have expressed their intention to hold off on releasing an internal report into the attack on a school in southern Iran until after the U.S. midterm elections at the earliest. The bombing killed at least 156 people, 120 of the victims were children, 26 were teachers, the rest were parents. In Yemen, five people are dead after Houthi militias struck the presidential palace in Aden, the seat of Yemen's Saudi-backed internationally recognized government. Yemeni officials

said the prime minister was unharmed while two of his bodyguards were killed. This follows Houthi strikes on Saudi oil infrastructure in recent days, as well as nearly two dozen attacks on Kankhalid International Airport in Riyadh. That Saudi officials say killed 17 people and injured more than 300. Palestinian health officials say Israeli strikes on Gaza, killed four Palestinians, and left nine others hospitalized Thursday. This is Mahmoud al-Nakla, Gaza city resident, who says he narrowly escaped with his life after Israeli authorities gave him less than 10 minutes to evacuate his home before bombing

his neighborhood. Every single day there are bombings and people get displaced. This is the third time for us, the third time we've been bombed, and we have nothing to do with anything. We're just ordinary civilians who want to live like human beings, just like the rest of the world. There's nothing for us. Even life's basic necessities don't exist. We're like the walking dead. On Wednesday, Palestinian toddler, Mario Ghanem, was treated for burns after she witnessed her mother being

burned alive and a fire set off by an Israeli air strike on their Gaza city home. Response care, the Council on American Islamic Relations, called on U.S. lawmakers to end U.S. support for Israel's assault, writing, quote, the horrific video of a little girl surrounded by fire as her mother burns to death in their home exemplifies the reality of Israel's genocide in Gaza. We cannot comprehend how any political leader with a conscience could continue to fund the sheer cruelty of the Israeli government and the war criminals who carry out its orders. unquote. This comes as the Times of Israel reports, U.S. officials signed a deal to supply 12 advanced Apache helicopter gunships to the Israeli Air Force at a cost of approximately $1 billion. The publishing giant Penguin Random House has withdrawn a book about Palestine for young readers just days before its scheduled release following editorial disputes with the

books Palestinian-American authors. According to the Guardian, copies of displacement and the Palestinian-American story were due to arrive in bookstores and libraries in September. But authors Alana Hadid and Jan Amatari withdrew their manuscript when editors at Random House children's books requested changes to their account of Palestinian history. The authors now plan to publish through interlink books, a Palestinian-owned U.S. publisher. In a statement, co-author Janan Matari said, quote, they continued to try to sanitize our history because they didn't want to make certain communities uncomfortable, but decolonial history is supposed to make you uncomfortable, unquote. Al Jazeera reports an Israeli advertising technology firm helped to infect dozens of devices with malicious spyware

designed to collect a wide range of sensitive data on journalists at the network. Al Jazeera condemned the cyber attack as an assault on press freedom. The findings were corroborated by the Citizen Lab, which found in an investigation that the ad company Discover Tech used personalized advertisements to deliver spyware from Kandiru, another Israeli firm that was blacklisted by the U.S. government in 2021 over its malicious software. It's the first ever public confirmation of zero-click mercenary spyware delivered via targeted ads. Turkish authorities have raided the headquarters of one of the few TV news outlets not aligned with Turkey. Broadcasts from Halk TV were halted on Wednesday as police searched the channel's Istanbul offices, arresting nearly a dozen people. authorities appointed a trustee manager to oversee the popular broadcaster. Press freedom groups condemn the raid as a politically motivated move against the opposition.

This comes as Human Rights Watch warns the Turkish government is arbitrarily arresting and prosecuting activists' environmentalists ahead of the COP 31 UN Climate Summit in the city of Antalya on Turkey's Mediterranean. Coast. Democracy Now will be broadcasting from COP31 in Turkey next month. The Washington Post has revealed the names of private donors who've donated about $330 million to help fund President Trump's new White House ballroom. Tech giants Nvidia and Apple each gave $25 million. Comcast paid $7.5 million. dollars. Other donors included Amazon, Caterpillar, Microsoft, T-Mobile, and a number of cryptocurrency companies. Another donation came from the daughter of the Venezuelan-born international banker, Hareda Velutini, who'd been indicted in 2022. Trump pardoned him in January months after his

daughter pledged to donate $2.5 million for the ballroom. And Albania's leader is resisting calls to resign, and amid student-led demonstrations demanding his ouster. On Thursday, protesters clashed with police in Albania's capital, Toronto, for a third straight day prompting Parliament to cancel its session. To protest against our most corrupt government ever, who is misusing resources. This is the most ever seen, and it needs to go as soon as possible. Protesters are demanding Albanian officials cancel the sale of a swath of southern coat line to a luxury resort development backed by President Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Albania joins a wave of student-led protests that began in France over overcrowded classrooms, teacher shortages, and crumbling infrastructure.

Those protests have since spread to Greece, sent to Argentina, where on Thursday thousands of students in universities. workers marched in the capital of Buenos Aires to oppose deep cuts to education by far-right President Javier Milley. The truth is we're living on a subsistence wage that barely covers our basic needs. And the truth is we have colleagues who are in the position of working nights, teaching in the morning and sleeping whenever they can. It's truly insane given this situation we're in. It's extremely serious.

And those are some of the headlines. This is Democracy Now.org, the War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. U.S. immigration officials are facing new accusations of misleading local authorities about their activities in New Jersey. Earlier this week, Iiss confirmed it had secretly used a federal government warehouse in Roxbury, New Jersey, to stage and process detained individuals in September. The Trump administration says the processing was done in the warehouse parking lot, but not inside the building. This was despite an order from a judge barring the site's use for immigration enforcement action until an environmental study was finished. Early this year,

the Department of Homeland Security spent nearly a billion dollars to purchase the Roxbury warehouse and 10 others with plans to convert them into ICE jails. After DHS Secretary Mark Wayne Mullen replaced Christy Nome and pledged a lower profile style of enforcement, DHS announced it would sell several of the warehouses, but not the one in Roxbury. Roxbury is located about 35 miles northwest of the notorious ice jail Delaney Hall in Newark, which has been the site of months of protests. We go now to New Jersey to speak with Democratic Congresswoman on a Lilia, Mechia. Congress member, Maria, thank you so much for being with us.

You have exposed this story. What exactly is going on? Well, thank you. Thank you. And first, let me say my heartbreaks for the families mourning their children to such senseless violence in Oregon. It is heartbreaking and yet another reason why common sense gun control is needed across our country. And hopefully new momentum will take shape in the 120th. Now, I'll say, you know, this is not surprising to catch ICE and DHS. essentially trying to skirt or cherry pick which laws they actually adhere to. What is surprising is that they would finally tell on themselves. For some time, there has been escalated activity, ice activity, terrorizing communities across my district, across New Jersey, across the country. Many activist organizers, community members noted that they saw, they believed that there was

activity happening at Roxbury despite a court order and thankfully engaged with my office, other members of the New Jersey delegation, and we have persisted in trying to uncover the truth. We're going to continue because, again, ICE in this administration cherry picks which laws it adheres to and then breaks due process and equal protection for the many. Can you explain more in detail what the laws are that are broken here. And the significance of the amount of money that DHS spent buying this warehouse in Roxbury, New Jersey, as well as others around the country and what they're doing with them now. Well, in the late spring, after ICE disclosed that their intention around this warehouse facility, New Jersey stepped in and a court deemed, a court upheld, issued an order stating that,

ICE may not use the facility at Roxbury as a detention center. They may not process individuals there. They may not house individuals there. And apparently what has happened on at least two occasions, ICE agents did go to this site, did take individuals there. They say that they process several individuals on those two occasions. And then when a Newark Field Office director found doubt that they were in effect in violation of the law, told them that they had to cease and desist. But again, what this points to is an inability by ICE to adhere to court orders, an inability by ICE to be transparent because community members and the state and my office on multiple occasions asked whether or not this site was being utilized. Finally, they have confessed that

they are, they have been using this site. But again, the The trust is broken with this agency, and it is exactly why we need to abolish and replace ice. We need comprehensive immigration reform. The American people do not want chaos and violence, which is what this administration has brought to our streets. Can you also talk about Delaney Hall in New Jersey and Newark? You confronted DHS Secretary Mark Wayne Mullen in June about Delaney Hall describing what you called medical abuse. which included sporadic insulin, abuse of pregnant women withholding blood pressure and other medication. Can you talk about what he said and what information you've gathered at this point?

Well, sadly, sadly, we gained very little information because, again, this administration and across the board have been stonewalling both members of Congress, community members, refusing to answer questions about how actually, how are they upholding one international law, our own constitution, making sure that people who are in their custody are, in fact, kept healthy and safe. We have to remember that this administration in many ways moved the goalpost. They took individuals who had temporary protective status and moved them from legal to illegal. They have slowed down the DACA process, again, moving people from on the right side of the law, putting them on the other side of the law.

And then when you're captured, even when you are trying to adhere to the law and follow the process for an asylum application or an immigration court, what we are finding is that these agents are violently taking people, turning their guns on people, and then housing them in prison-like conditions. I have gone to Delaney Hall and the Elizabeth Detention Center on multiple occasions. And on multiple occasions, in fact, on every single occasion, I have encountered people who have complained that they have chronic health conditions, but they're not receiving the medication that they're required to take, that they have been prescribed by their doctors, that upon entering the facilities, their medications are often changed, or they're given a handful of pills that they can't identify.

I've met individuals who, as you said, are pregnant and not receiving prenatal care that is required, including people with pre-existing conditions and pregnancy, which combined make their pregnancies more vulnerable, are not given the care that they deserve. Again, these are individuals that are not the worst of the worst, as Donald Trump tried to portray. These are gardeners and grandmothers. These are young people and women, mothers, fathers, fathers, individuals who have been trying to adhere to the law, who would like to be able to have a due process and their day in court. But unfortunately, this administration is just moving with

a level of impunity and cruelty that, frankly, should shock every single American. You have, as we wrap up, the New Jersey Attorney General's office saying it's carefully reviewing reports of ICE activity at the Roxbury Warehouse. Have you received an update on this? And Geo Group CEO told investors about the bed and facility expansion on an earnings call, not to Congress, not to the public. Can you talk about the significance of this being exposed by private company and not by the Department of Homeland Security? Exactly. Now, this exposes what is actually underneath Trump's ramp up on and immigration enforcement.

Many Americans may not know that essentially two corporations own the majority or oversee the majority of detention centers in this country, CoreCivic and Geo Group. This is a massive multi-million dollar, if not billion dollar industry. In fact, Geo Group had a massive contract with our government in order to house as many undocumented people or process as many people as possible. I believe that this is the reason why you have individuals who even when they've signed their own self-deportation orders are held for months. Because again, every bed that is filled is an increase to that stock price and to someone's bottom dollar. But we have two corporations profiting from cruelty and an administration that is willing, obviously, to have this insider game in order to bed. benefit those who are closely connected to this administration at the expense of everyone. Again, the American people need to remember that it is your tax dollars that are paying core civic and geo group to, in effect, mistreat people. I want to thank you for being with us, Democratic Congress

member, Annalia Maria, representing New Jersey's 11th congressional district. Coming up, Estreya, Bitter sweet freedom for a quote-unquote bad Mexican. We'll speak with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Maria Najosa, out with a new documentary tracking the story of a trans woman who was jailed for almost a decade in Texas in a men's prison, then deported. Stay with us. Why not You know

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performed by Juliette deNegas in our Democracy Now studio. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the Warren Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. Soon after President Trump's inauguration, in February of 2017, one of the first people arrested by immigration agents inside a courtroom was Estreya de Montina Gonzalez, a trans woman from Mexico. She was there to get an order of protection against an abusive boyfriend. But she never got

the trance. Estreya spent most of the next decade caught up in the U.S. criminal and immigration systems this summer after serving a nine-year sentence in a Texas men's prison, Australia was deported to Mexico. Journalist Maria Najosa was the first journalist to interview her after that courtroom arrest, and she's been speaking to her ever since for about a decade. Maria Najosa is the Pulitzer Prize-winning host of Latino USA. A new audio documentary is out today about Estreya, her life, or deportation, and the evolving relationship with Maria. It's called Estreya, bittersweet freedom for a quote-unquote bad Mexican. This is a clip from a video that accompanies the documentary.

It begins with Estreya, stepping out of a bus and seeing Maria Najosa, who is waiting for her in Mexico City. This is the exact moment when Estrella and I hug for the first time in almost a decade, the first time since I have known this woman who's become so special to me. We've seen each other's faces through glass and through bars. We've also talked over the phone so many times I've lost count over the years. Estrella is my source. But our relationship over these years deepened in a way that challenges the old norms of what a journalist and her source should look like.

I told Estreya that if the U.S. government deported her after she was released from prison, that I would be there to welcome her home. That's journalist Mariana Hosa, introducing her new audio documentary and video about Estreya. This is a clip of an interview with Estreya about her deportation. that Maria did with her in Mexico City. I did not feel Mexico's hug, okay? I did not feel Mexico's hug, okay? An iron bunk bed, a bed in case you decide to stay. And wait for the money our president gives out.

$2,000, I think. And you have to wait for it, because really, as an immigrant, you need it. You need it for transportation. When I arrived in Mexico, I thought, God, what is next for me? How am I going to survive in my own country? What's going to happen with my husband and me? What about all those plans I had to study cosmetology and become a nurse?

Where will I live? We're joined now by Marianne Hosa, the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist founder of Futuro Media. also the host of Latino USA. Her latest story, Estreya, Bitterweet Freedom for a so-called bad Mexican. This is an astounding story.

I listened to it like in the early hours this morning. Talk about this relationship you developed way back days after President Trump was first inaugurated in 2017. How you met Australia. So here's the thing, Amy. This is 2017.

it's a decade, almost a decade ago. And there were places where immigration officials and agents, Border Patrol, were not supposed to go. Schools, churches, hospitals, courthouses, and courtrooms. Now, they're everywhere in those places. But in 2017, Estrella was the first person that we heard of who was taken by plainclothes officers sitting in the back of the courtroom. Where was she?

She was in El Paso. She was about to get an... order of protection from a judge as an undocumented woman who was a victim of trafficking and abuse. And at that moment, they take her, they put her into an unmarked car. And then when journalists asked questions, they lied about it. Ice and Border Patrol said, no, we didn't, we didn't take anybody from a courtroom in a courthouse. Of course, there were cameras. And then part of the story was not just that someone was taken from a courtroom in a courthouse, but that ICE and Border Patrol lied about it. Now, these are things that we, the mainstream jury,

journalists understand that this is happening. What did they say when the video was shown of them taking her from the courthouse? Essentially, oops. Like, it happened. The video was there. There was no way for them to make up for the fact that they had lied. When I go to meet Estrella, who was in an El Paso jail, that's, I mean, you know, I walked in, Amy, like with many sources, you're going to do an interview, and then, you know,

you move on to another story, but Estrella herself just captivated me. I was fascinated by how she was able to survive through, you know, growing up, teased, abused, threatened as an effeminate young boy at the time who then understands that she's actually a woman. She was treated horribly, but Estreya has always had this larger-than-life personality. And so during these 10 years when she was behind bars, by the way, I was banned twice by the Texas Department of Corrections from going to visit her or writing her, that's when I was like, this is not just any human being. She is an incredible survivor and she's an extraordinary source to take us into the prison, into an immigration concentration camp, and now in her journey as she was deported into Mexico.

So she's taken for immigration reasons, but then they charge her with a criminal offense of fraud? Correct. She's charged. Estrella is a victim of trafficking. Her ex-boyfriend who was abusing her would force her to commit check fraud. Under the threat of abuse or rape, he tried to kill her multiple times. And so she pleads guilty for, I believe it's two checks. For the nonviolent crime of fraud, they give her nine years. And then she ends up in a maximum security men's prison in Texas. I want to go to your questioning of Australia, the interview, about President Donald Trump. you have lived through what I'm calling the dark decade from Donald Trump's inauguration to Donald Trump's second term

how do you understand this dark decade Donald Trump cannot take away the love I feel for my man Donald Trump cannot take away the love I feel for myself Donald Trump cannot take away my happiness I'm going to fight so that one day I can say to President Donald Trump you crushed me you trampled on me as a trans woman

but I'm still standing and I'm still alive you can't steal my heart it's the only thing you cannot do my heart is not an immigrant my heart belongs to me and you can't take that away And this is Maria Josa asking Estreya how important it was for her to find love in that Texas prison.

How important was it for you to find love in the prison? It's what made me feel alive, what kept me from dying, or committing suicide. I felt loved. And I found a good man. And I found a good man. you ended up finding God towards the end of your time in prison. How important

did God become for you? I began to feel loved. The idea that God doesn't love you because you're a homosexual or a trans woman, that isn't true. God loves us all equally. God has no hang-ups. God does not judge.

Tell us more about Australian, that you say? So during the time that Estrella was behind bars, I started reading Victor Frankel, this man's search for meaning. Victor Frankl survives outstitch. Victor Franco, by the way, was undocumented

himself at points in his life. And I'm reading this book about a survivor of a concentration camp in the Holocaust and what he needed to do, Amy, basic two things he says that you have to have in life to find meaning. Even if you're in a concentration camp, even if you're a woman in a men's prison, you have to have love and purpose. And so while Estrella is in prison, you know, she falls in love with a man who never expected

to fall in love with a trans woman. His name is cool. They make a pretty gorgeous couple. There they are. Actually, you can see them. And Estrella's purpose, when she realized, like, I'm going to be behind bars for a decade, her purpose was, I am going to break free of this men's body that I was born into, I am going to transform myself into the woman I've always wanted to be. And that's her purpose. And she achieves that against all odds. She gets the hormone treatment in the Texas prisons and becomes this beautiful woman. And by the way, there is a lot of trauma in Estrella's story, but she is an extraordinary survivor and loves life. But also, Amy, Estrella and I laugh a lot. That's ended up happening during the 10 years or 9 and a half years that she was behind bars.

we'd end up talking about our bodies, how she's working out to become this woman and how I'm working out in order to stay young. We'd talk about her cooking in the prison. So it became a relationship where I was able to find joy from Estreya in the most unexpected ways and in the most unexpected place. And can you talk about how she was able to make the physical transition in prison, in Texas? So there is a law in Texas that states that if you are already in transition or you want to transition, you can actually advocate to get the hormones. And Estrella did this on her own. I had nothing to do with it. You know, the relationship between Estreya and I were very close, but we also talk a lot about the journalist-source relationship.

So I was not in her life there in terms of, let's say, get the hormones. She did it herself and changed her body. Talk about that moment. and talk about a journalist giving her source, hope. When she come, you visit her yet another time in the Texas prison, and she says, I have a gift for you. Yeah, so Estrella, she starts telling me, Maria, when you come see me, this was when I wasn't banned by the Texas Department of Corrections.

When you come and visit me, I have a gift for you. And I'm like, Estrella, you're in prison. You can't give me a gift. Oh, I have a gift for you. When we're in the prison, she's behind a plexiglass, and she says, I'm going to give you your gift. Do not react when you see what I'm going to show you. And then she opened her left inner wrist.

And right here she has tattooed in script, Maria Inno Rosa. Honestly, Amy, as a journalist, I freaked out. I was like, this is too much, Estrella. No, no, no. You, like, cross the boundaries. And then she said, when I'm most lonely, you're the only one who has been there to answer my calls. When I'm alone in that isolation cell,

I take my arm, I put it to my heart, and I feel you. And so as a human being, I was like, I understand that. As a journalist, a little bit hard. But as a human being, I was like, I get it. And then, Amy, there's the great story of, we go to visit Estrella to do a story about her with camera and sound.

My son was doing sound. Camera was Keren Carrillo and a videographer, now for NPR. And they fall in love on the way to go interview Estrella. I'll teach you to fall asleep in the backseat. I fell asleep in the backseat because it's a two and a half hour drive from Dallas to Wichita Falls where she was. I go to sleep. They're talking logistics. And when I wake up, I was like, oh, my God, they just fell in love.

They're getting married November 6th. If Estreya had a passport, she would be there in the Dominican Republic. But again, the story of Estrella has so much darkness, but also so much hope. And as a journalist, you know, I'm documenting all of this now. My next plan is to do the next installment, Estrella's first year. in Mexico as a trans woman, and that will be the next update on Latino USA. And my next book is about Estrella. Which is very interesting.

You won the Pulitzer Prize for your coverage of another person in prison who was freed, sentenced to life in prison as a minor, Suave, and your incredible series on him. You know, I think that covering people who are behind bars humanizes all of us. when you're able to go into a prison and you're able to see what it's like, yes, there is horror, but there's also a lot of humanity. And Suave never gave up on hope that somehow he was going to get out, even though he was sentenced to life in prison. And Estrella never gave up hope in finding love, in transforming her body.

And I would tell her, many times I would say Estrella, you were getting out. Remember that. Swave never thought that he was going to get out, and yet he's free. you will get out, you will have a life when you get out. So you call the documentary Estreya, and you talk about her as a quote-unquote bad Mexican. Talk about the significance of this story. She is all the things targeted in this administration. She is trans, she is immigrant, she is Mexican.

She's undocumented. She's been formally deported. She has a criminal record. She embodies everything that we are told by this administration that we must hate. And that's why the surprising thing is that when you look at Estre and you're like, wow, but I'm learning something from you. But you are the most dehumanized person in the country, in the world maybe. You're the most vulnerable person, and yet I'm learning from you,

which again is what I think a lesson from Victor Frankel, which is, you know, you have to see yourself in the people most unlike you. and find love in that story. So for me, Estreya's story is a story of hope and joy. Now that we're not being taped on every prison phone call, there are things that we can talk about, like her love life, like the fact that she's deeply in love with Kuhl, who I think will eventually see this piece.

And he never expected to fall in love with her. And the reason why he did, Amy, is because she's an extraordinary human being. In the prison, Estrea, I was cooking for everybody. She made these prison pre-processed food that she would turn into a cake or a pizza or a lasagna or a tamal. So Estrella, now we find a lot of laughter between us. And yet, you know, when we're off the record, we can do that. And yet, when we're on the record, we very clearly understand journalist source. And I think, as you know, because you're a brilliant journalist, there are sources who come into your heart.

and that makes us better journalists in my view. Well, let's end with Estrea's words talking about her relationship with you, Maria Enogosa. You need the support and love of certain people. The closest to you. In your case, you gave me strength during those times. The sec.

In the seg. In the seg. in that solitary cold cell where I had only two photos of you to hold I would say to myself I'm going to make it through this there's a woman back home rooting for me

let me come on Estrella I needed to have you closer to me I needed to carry you with me Whenever I was put in the sea unit, whenever I was placed in solitary confinement, because I felt so alone. What did you end up doing? I tattooed your name tattooed on me. I had Maria Inhoosa inked on. Too many, it might have seemed crazy.

But for me, it was a way to feel you close. Because remember, for a while, there were no phone calls. No cards. No letters. No visits. So one way or another, I had to keep you close. An excerpt from Estrella, bittersweet freedom for a quote-unquote bad Mexican.

The new documentary by Maria Enojosa, the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, founder of Futuro Media, also host of Latino USA. We will do this interview in Spanish and speak with Estreya, self and posted at Democracy Now.org slash ES. Coming up against tech oligarchy, worker resistance in the world's most powerful industry,

Maria, thank you so much for joining us. Oh, Amy. Always ton of me. Love you. Back in a minute. Just here sitting, thinking about quitting. Once I have just one more smoke. And I've got habits.

Curse in traffic And I might ride Your bumper close Lord knows I'm a fighter And I hold on tighter To the folks I love Then I probably should I got my BAD

And I get vengeful And get reasonful And I know how to hold a grudge And I'm impulsive I'm all my bullshit And I bite back when push comes to shepherd. You can quote me will I wouldn't change it. By Christina Vane, performing at the Brooklyn Folk Festival.

This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the Warren. Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. If you work in the tech industry, your boss might not want you to tune in to our next segment. It's about a remarkable new book called Against Tech Oligarchy, worker resistance in the world's most powerful industry. It's written by longtime tech worker organizers, Clarissa Redwine and J.S. Tan. Drawing on their own experience organizing at high-tech companies, they chronicle the rise of the tech worker movements. It's early victories and the challenges it faces today,

as tech titans consolidate their economic and political power, while tech workers face mass layoffs. Clarissa Redwine helped unionize Kickstarter, where she was fired amidst a union busting campaign before workers went on to win union recognition. J.S. Tan is a former Microsoft software engineer who publicly challenged Microsoft's work with the Pentagon, with ice, and with fossil fuel companies, including its use of cloud and AI technologies to help Chevron expand oil extraction. Their new book comes as tech companies embrace artificial intelligence, workplace surveillance, and increased automation. At Meta, for example, a new initiative will collect workers' mouse movements, keystrokes, and some screenshots to help train AI models to replace them in the future. In response, Meta workers reached out to United Tech and Allied workers, a branch of the communication workers' unions. to discuss unionization efforts and how best to resist. Clarissa Redwine and JS10 join us now.

We welcome you both to Democracy Now. It's great to have you with us. Clarissa, let's start with you. First of all, explain what Kickstarter is and how you got the experience you did and then how you tried to unionize your workplace, though it ultimately did get unionized. Yes, it did, yeah.

So I joined the tech industry in a moment where there was a lot of optimism for what tech could do for society. And Kickstarter was especially idealistic where the reason the platform exists is to give communities a tool for bringing projects to life, cultural projects, but also technology. And, you know, in 2016, when I joined, there was a moment where tech management and workers felt aligned and united against the Trump administration. But as the years went by, we saw over and over tech companies capitulating, becoming complicit in the rise of the alt-right. And there came a moment at Kickstarter where we had the same experience.

So there was a moment where Breitbart wrote an article saying that a Kickstarter project was inciting violence. This project was a comic book called Always Punch Nazis, which they did not like. And management decided, rather than stand up to Breitbart and this push from the alt-right, that they would cancel the project. And I and my coworkers demanded that we keep this project on the site. And that moment of collective action was transformative for myself, but also my coworkers, where we saw the promise of collective action. And after that, we decided we wanted structural power in the workplace.

We wanted lasting change. And we fought for a union, and we won. And talk about where you went in that struggle. Yes. So I was part of the core organizing group at Kickstarter. And when management was attempting to bust the union, they decided to fire a third of our organizing committee in the same week. And unfortunately, I was first to go, but it was all completely worth it. And the reason that Kickstarter is such a bright spot in the tech worker movement is because it showed tech workers across the industry that it was possible to work.

win a union. And ever since I've been organizing and building worker power. And JS-10, talk about your experience at Microsoft. Yeah, you know, so I started in the tech industry in the mid-2010s, and my first job out of college was at Microsoft. And, you know, I think it was around that time where, where this idea that the tech sector, you know, with the rise of the internet especially, was going to be this place that could really push for a more open society, a more connected society, and even a more democratic society. And so coming out of college,

myself and a lot of us coming out of these CS departments had these ideas that joining the tech industry and building these internet platforms would allow us to do just that. And so that's what happened to me when I went to Microsoft. But I think over the course of the 2010s, what we saw was that the tech, tech industry wasn't quite the industry that it had sort of promised to its workers and to the public.

Rather than making the world more open, more democratic, we saw it really be the culprit of misinformation. When I started at Microsoft, they were starting to get involved with military contracts with the Pentagon. In particular at Microsoft, at that time when I was working there, there was this really strong, messaging push from the bosses that Microsoft was going to be this place that was really going to push the agenda of sustainability and green technology. But from the inside, it was clear to me and many of my coworkers that actually they were collaborating with the oil and gas companies and in many cases helping them intensify the drilling that these companies were doing.

And how did they respond to those inside raising objections? Yeah, I mean, compared to some of the other companies, they were a little bit more tactful and not sort of just outright firing a lot of the organizers. But in my case, you know, I had gone to Kazakhstan and had sort of seen up close how Chevron wanted to use Microsoft cloud and AI technologies to drill and to extract even more oil. And, you know, I came back to the U.S. and wrote about it all in an essay. And that ended up getting me in some trouble where I ended up getting pushed out of the company. And what do you do now? Well, now I'm a graduate student at MIT, and I continue with Clarissa to continue to organize in the tech worker movement. So this latest news that we just included in the lead about meta, Clarissa, a new initiative

collecting workers' mouse movements, keystrokes, and some screenshots to help train AI models to replace them in the future, especially for the Luddites among us. If you can explain what exactly that means. Yes, absolutely. So, you know, if you think about how a company operates, Management is always trying to cut costs, cut corners, and the management at Meta saw that they had this very valuable resource, which was their employees and their work that their employees do every day. So they decided to ingest all of this activity from their workers every time that you click on your keyboard, every time you move your mouse, and they used all of that data to train an AI model that could actually do software engineering, could do some of the core work. that these employees do every day. And unfortunately, this news slipped in the company and workers were enraged, not just because this felt

like they didn't give consent for their data to be used this way, there was a threat of automation, but also because management was doing this in a very insecure way, not following procedures within the company. And luckily, I was embedded with some workers at Meadow when they were pushing back and got to see up close. how they, you know, had this amazing open letter that gained traction,

thousands of signatures seemingly overnight. They were speaking back to management and even organizing in more structural, strategic ways behind the scenes. I mean, the meta-AI surveillance came as the company announced 8,000 layoffs in May. Right, and that's very convenient to announce layoffs right before you're going to have this initiative that is very extractive of your workforce. You know, your workers want to keep their heads down. and not make waves. But I'm very excited and really proud of the workers at Meta that did stand up in that moment. Also from our headlines today, the Washington Post has revealed the names of private donors who've donated $330 million to help fund President Trump's ballroom, the new White House

ballroom. Tech giants, and Viti and Apple each gave $25 million. Other donors included Amazon and Microsoft. your response. Well, actually, since you worked for Microsoft, J.S.10. Yeah, you know, that's a great question. And I think that really gets to the tip of the iceberg of what is a broader shift in the politics of Silicon Valley. You know, I'm sure your listeners know fully well

that, you know, the tech elites have coaxied up with Trump and now they're embracing the kind of politics that's much more associated with MAGA. And tech workers know this well as well, you know, in their own workplaces, they're seeing a reduction in DEI initiatives, a crackdown on sort of the open culture that was once so celebrated in the tech industry. And, you know, there are many ways to explain this shift. You know, we've seen in other reporting and other books that, you know, for instance, tracing key figures like Peter Thiel or Curtis Yarvin and how the spread of right-wing ideology permeated through Silicon Valley. You know, we've also sort of seen reporting

that looks at why it was under the Biden administration that the tech elites essentially moved away from the Democratic Party, especially as they cracked down on monopoly-type patterns in the tech industry. But to that list, our book adds one more explanation, and that's really about class struggle. It's really about how it was that the tech worker movement itself was central

into the shifting politics of Silicon Valley. And I think, you know, to explain that further. Yeah. And, you know, I guess to really understand that we have to go back to 2018, which was the beginning of the tech worker movement. And, you know, that was a period in which we saw, you know, tech workers from across the industry start participating in various kinds of activism, both labor activism and political activism in the workplace.

And, you know, for folks who remember the media cycle back then, that was a moment where we were seeing this type of activism happening in the new cycle on a weekly basis. And in fact, at both big and small companies alike. And, you know, it was really quite a remarkable moment, I think, because that was a period in which the activism that was happening had fundamentally a progressive backing to it, right? The folks who were participating in this activism were fighting over things like the collaboration with the Pentagon, right? So anti-militarism. They were fighting over things like I was involved with, right, against the sort of collaborations with Big Oil. And also joining up with the Me Too movement to fight rampant sexism in the workplace. And so, you know, the way the bosses responded to that, initially they tried to sort of double down on this progressive facade.

you know, in some cases, putting more money into AI ethics, in some cases, seating to worker demands. But eventually, you know, the bosses got fed up, right? They got fed up and they didn't want to continue listening to their employees. Jayestan, you're at school now. You're at MIT. The technology of surveillance and repression is increasingly sophisticated. Are radicalized tech workers building liberatory code? You know, I think right now, oftentimes they're forced into a position where they cannot, right? They're forced into a position where their bosses are telling them that they have to do certain things or put their jobs in the line.

And, you know, I think in some cases, also tech workers themselves see the code that they're building as not having a societal problem. But what's really central in our book is that we've realized that when tech workers participate in this collective action and participate in organizing against the boss, that transforms their politics as well. Clarissa, we have 15 seconds, the most important issue you feel you want conveyed in your new book against tech oligarchy. Yeah, we hope this book inspires the workers within these tech oligarchs' own empires to stand up and push back.

like many of us did in the early days of the tech worker movement. And I think there's a lot to learn from these struggles. Clarissa Redwine and J.S. Tan, authors of the new book Against Tech Oligarchy, worker resistance in the world's most powerful industry. That does it for our show. Democracy Now is currently accepting applications for an individual giving manager to support our fundraising team. Learn more and apply at DemocracyNow.org. I'll be at Woodstock International Film Festival today at 230. You can check our website. And California next week, USC on Monday, we'll be screening. Steal this story, please. I'll be there with the film's director. Also, next week on Friday, I'll be at Stanford University, and then in San Francisco and Marin, and then on to Colorado.

Check our website. I'm Amy Goodman.