Photo from PBS Frontline film “Covid’s Hidden Toll”
On this show:
0:08 – Donald Trump has signed a memorandum to exclude undocumented people in the U.S. from census tallies that determine the apportionment of seats in Congress. We break this down with Ari Berman, a senior reporter for Mother Jones covering voting rights. He is also the author of the book Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America.
0:34 – A major tech company has landed a federal contract for contact tracing that raises major concerns over privacy — because the same company works with ICE to help speed up its deportation machine. April Glaser (@aprilaser) reports on technology for NBC News. Read her latest story: “Palantir’s pandemic contracts stir concern ahead of IPO”
0:45 – A brutal raid on Black prisoners has taken place at Soledad State Prison in California. We talk with Tasha Williams, who wrote about the raid for the San Francisco Bay View; her husband is incarcerated there. Read Tasha’s piece here.
1:08 – Portland independent journalist Tuck Woodstock gives an update on the nightly protests and says the media needs to focus its coverage on the protesters and bystanders injured by law enforcement munitions, not just the deployment of federal agents to the city.
1:20 – Chicago police brutally beat a crowd including youth activists last weekend in Chicago, knocking out the teeth of a teenage girl named Miracle Boyd. Mayor Lori Lightfoot barricaded her house from protesters and is facing intense criticism for embracing the prospect of federal agents being deployed to the city to address “crime.” For more on the organizing underway in Chicago and Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s response, we speak with Tynetta Hill-Muhammad, a BYP 100 chapter member in Chicago.
1:34 – Daffodil Altan (@daffodilaltan) is a investigative journalist with Frontline PBS, which just released a stunning new documentary about COVID and agricultural workers called “Covid’s Hidden Toll.” You can watch it here.