POLICE STATE: Interview With Greg Palast

Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestsellers, Armed Madhouse and The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. His investigative journalism and television reports are frequently seen in the U.K.’s Observer and BBC’s Newsnight. In the U.S. he is virtually banned from the mainstream media, but can be found in Harper’s Magazine and throughout the Internet. Fresh back from his investigations into Mexico’s recent election, Palast just dropped us a line to fill us in on the news that you won’t hear from Anderson Cooper and the rest of the newsroom hairdo gang.

Interviewed by Dustin Glick

NYI: Do you feel that the U.S. has become a police state?

Greg Palast: Well, if you’re in Guantanamo, it’s a police state for you. Whatever happened to the story about the people being held incommunicado in the United States? What was it, 1,100 the ACLU was trying to uncover? The story just disappeared. So whoever was rotting in jail is still rotting. Now as for the war on terror, hey I have no problem going after Saudi Arabian hijackers, but I don’t see any investigation going in that direction. And by the way, that whole checking the checking accounts thing — believe it or not, Bin Laden doesn’t use his ATM card now. He has a feeling that they’re watching the checking accounts. This is bullshit — that’s not how they move their money and they know it. This is not part of the war on terror, it’s part of the war on democracy.