Democracy Now! - February 24, 2015

In what has been described as the biggest intelligence leak since Edward Snowden, Al Jazeera has begun publishing a series of spy cables from the world’s top intelligence agencies. In one cable, the Israeli spy agency Mossad contradicts Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s own dire warnings about Iran’s ability to produce a nuclear bomb within one year. In a report to South African counterparts in October 2012, the Mossad concluded Iran was "not performing the activity necessary to produce weapons." The explosive disclosure comes just as the United States and Iran have reported progress toward reaching a nuclear deal, an outcome Netanyahu will try to undermine when he addresses the U.S. Congress next week. We go to Doha to speak with Clayton Swisher, the head of Al Jazeera’s investigative unit, which broke the Iran story and several others in a series of articles called, "The Spy Cables."

In Texas, up to 2,000 immigrant prisoners in Raymondville staged a two-day uprising to protest inadequate medical care at a privately run prison. After refusing to eat breakfast on February 20, prisoners seized control of part of the prison and set fires. Critics have described the jail as "Ritmo" — short for Raymondville’s Guantánamo prison — or simply "tent city," since most of the prison population sleeps in massive Kevlar tents. In a report last year, the American Civil Liberties Union described living conditions as "[not] only foul, cramped and depressing, but also overcrowded." The Willacy County Correctional Center in Raymondville is owned and operated by Management & Training Corporation, a private company based in Utah. It is one of 13 privately run so-called "Criminal Alien Requirement" prisons. The latest reports indicate that the prisoners are being relocated from the facility after it was deemed "uninhabitable." We speak to Carl Takei, a staff attorney with the ACLU’s National Prison Project. Last year he wrote the report, "Warehoused and Forgotten: Immigrants Trapped in Our Shadow Private Prison System."

As Democracy Now! continues to mark the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X, we are joined by his daughter, Ilyasah Shabazz, and friend, A. Peter Bailey. Both were inside the Audubon Ballroom on Feb. 21, 1965, the day Malcolm X was shot dead. Shabazz was just two years old, while Bailey was among the last people to speak with Malcolm X that day. Shabazz is a community organizer, motivational speaker and author of several books, including the young adult-themed "X: A Novel" and a memoir, "Growing Up X." Bailey is a journalist, author and lecturer who helped Malcolm X found the Organization of Afro-American Unity and served as one of the pallbearers at his funeral. Bailey is the author of several books, including "Witnessing Brother Malcolm X, The Master Teacher." Shabazz and Bailey discuss the circumstances surrounding Malcolm X’s killing and share personal reflections on his life and legacy.

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