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Amanpour
Interview With German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock; Interview With "How Not To Be A Politician" Author Former British MP Rory Stewart; Interview With "Your Face Belongs To Us" Author Kashmir Hill. Aired 1-2p ET
Aired September 25, 2023 - 13:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[13:00:27]
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN INTERNATIONAL HOST: Hello, everyone, and welcome to "Amanpour." Here's what's coming up.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANNALENA BAERBOCK, GERMAN FOREIGN MINISTER: We have the stand with Ukraine because Ukraine is also defending our peace, our liberty.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Russia pounds the Black Sea port of Odessa yet again. I asked German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, if Ukraine can still count on
support from the West.
Also, ahead, "How Not to Be a Politician." Former Tory minister and MP Rory Stewart on what's wrong with today's elected officials.
Plus --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KASHMIR HILL, AUTHOR: What was different about Clearview AI, it wasn't that they made a technological breakthrough, it was an ethical one that they
were willing to do what other companies hadn't been willing to do.
ZELENSKYY (voiceover):
AMANPOUR: -- a radical erosion of privacy. Journalist Kashmir Hill tells Hari Sreenivasan about the dark side of facial recognition.
Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Christiane Amanpour in London.
A pathetic attempt at retaliation, that is how Ukraine's new defense minister described the Kremlin's overnight attack on the Black Sea City of
Odessa. Two people were killed. And the sea port, a hotel and grain infrastructure were damaged. Kyiv claims Moscow was responding to an attack
on Russia's Black Sea fleet headquarters on Friday that killed a commander. We cannot independently verify his death.
While we're at the U.N. summit though in New York, NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg told me that we're in for a long war. As a reminder, back
at the start, one country, Germany, literally turned its postwar defense policy around and vowed to provide Ukraine with military help for as long
as it takes.
In New York, I asked the German foreign ministry, Annalena Baerbock, about the urgency then and a general sense of anxiety settling in now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Foreign Minister, welcome to the program. Let me start by asking you, this week seems to have been all about Ukraine and the defense of
democracy. There was a Security Council meeting. I know Zelenskyy pretty much said, come on, U.N., step up. Give us more support.
BAERBOCK: Well, obviously, if you live for more than one and a half year in this brutal war, see your people dying every day, children being kidnapped
out of schools, out of parent's homes, you cannot wait any day longer. So, I totally not only understand but I feel the need to -- from the
Ukrainians, from the president for a wake-up call.
However, my feeling here at the U.N. is -- because I've been here the first weeks after this brutal war of aggression when many countries said, well,
we don't actually know what's going on. We don't actually know. Maybe there was -- Ukraine's fault or NATO's fault, but this definitely changed. So, I
feel way more support because many, many countries around the world see this is not only about Ukraine, this is not only about peace in Europe,
it's about our charter of United Nations.
If we allow one dictator to overrule all our peaceful rights, this will be the end of peaceful cooperation in the world.
AMANPOUR: What about domestic fatigue? Your own country, unfortunately, has the worst performing economy of the major developed countries. Is there a
fatigue in your country?
BAERBOCK: No. I mean, we're a democracy. So, everybody has their own views on things in the world. But from the beginning, vast majority of Germans,
of Europeans totally understood this could be us. I mean, Kyiv, three hours by plane from Berlin. Yes, this is a European city.
So, people, the vast majority, knows we have to stand with Ukraine because Ukraine is also defending our peace, our liberty. However, obviously, you
mentioned the economic data. We see not only inflation worldwide, we are hit hard also in Europe with regard to our economy, especially Germany. We
were so depending on Russia oil and gas. So, obviously, it has economic consequences. But this is now due up to political leadership.
In these kinds of times, you have to make the right decision to support Ukraine, the peace, but you have to explain then to people why we need to
do it and you have to work also then with others, social programs, to counter the negative effects for the normal people, the normal family. And
this is what we try to do.
[13:05:00]
AMANPOUR: So, that's really important because your country definitely turned on a dime, so to speak, changed its postwar mostly pacifist policy,
has been the second biggest of supplier of weapons to Ukraine after the United States.
But all the other domestic challenges you mentioned seems to have pushed a resurgence in the AFD and far-right, and they will have an influence, I
presume, the stronger they get. How worried are you about the AFD again surging?
BAERBOCK: Well, obviously, we are having heavy budget discussing, like in many other countries, but we are totally committed for the further support.
We underlined also in this budget that we provide 2 percent of the GDP for our own defense capabilities. We are the second biggest donor to Ukraine
after the U.S., also military-wise. And besides that, we had to take some hard decision in our budget, but we tried to counter these economic
effects, for example, by energy support packages for people.
And then, you were mentioning the far-right. Obviously, we see the challenges in this globalized world after COVID. Now, with this brutal war
where people feel insecure and then, we have also the big migration issues. So, yes, this is also about strengthening internal democracies. And again,
it's up to democratic leadership to stand up for your values but also understand that people in these times are really worried.
AMANPOUR: Talking about democratic leadership, last week you called President Xi of China a dictator. You said, if Putin were to win this war,
what sign would that be for other dictators in the world, like Xi, like the Chinese president?
BAERBOCK: Well, I mean, everybody can draw their own conclusions about a system, a one-party system, communist system with severe breaches of human
rights, and I'm talking here also to many countries. In the Indo-Pacific, we are really worried about the threats they are hearing from China, also
this new Chinese map.
But, I mean, being tough on language is not like a reason for itself. But for me, it's important to underline worldwide that this question of the war
of aggression in Russia, this is not only a European question. We hear so many voices here from African countries, Latin American. So, what is with
the Security Council? Only a few powerful countries.
So, I think everything is interconnected and I wanted to make clear that this is an issue for the whole world.
AMANPOUR: And you've actually been clear on this from the moment you ran for office and from the moment you became foreign minister. And I wonder
what you think of the fact that of the permanent five Security Council members, neither Xi nor Putin, in fact, nor Sunak, nor Macron were there,
just President Biden. Is that a coincidence or is there something about what the U.N. secretary general said to me, essentially, the impotence to
solve these kinds of problems in the Security Council?
BAERBOCK: Well, not for the presidents. I'll come back to that one in a minute. But I would say the whole General Assembly shows that, obviously,
the world has changed in the last decade, which is normal in life, but the institutions of the U.N. haven't changed. And therefore, we need a total
modernization. And obviously, also Security Council, even before the Russian war of aggression, I mean, didn't function in this world. There are
many regions of the world, like Africa, like Latin America, not even represented in this highest council.
And I think the good thing is all -- in all these worrying trends we are seeing is. The U.N. didn't collapse. We, as the United Nations, countries
of the world, took up our responsibility in the General Assembly. Showing that if the Security Council is blocked, there can be international voice.
And we keep up this effort, and I'm here also for proposing different modernization processes.
Next year, we do have the big summit of the future. Germany is also facilitating it. And yes, we do need a reform, not only of the Security
Council, but also of the financial institutions. Many countries weren't even present when we started with the IMF or the world bank. So, they are
not reflected in these so important bodies of today. So, obviously, also for the financial institutions.
We need new setup. However, and I'm trying not to be too long, some try to fill this gap when the past may be also industrialized countries weren't
honest enough to reflect critically and try to fill the gap, like China. Pretending we do not have international rules. When I was in China, I heard
at the press conference, we do not have regulations or convention on human rights. And I was saying, well, there is a universal declaration.
[13:10:00]
So, even the modernization is so important in order to save our international order, the charter, but we have to modernize it because if we
are not doing it, others try to wipe away everything which holds the world together.
AMANPOUR: You are a very senior climate activist, your green party member, and you have made climate front and center of a lot of your policy and your
politics. The Climate Week seems to have been overshadowed by everything else. I wonder how much realistic progress you believe has been made here
or in general.
You know, John Kerry complained last time he was in China that there wasn't enough vocalized support for what their commitments are. We saw Rishi
Sunak, the British prime minister, pull back from 2050 net zero commitments in terms of all the issues they were trying to do. What do you think is
happening on that global existential front?
BAERBOCK: Obviously, with regard to the devastating situation, I mean, we saw the horrible climate effects (ph) around the world, fires, floods,
people dying in the thousands. We do not do enough, obviously. On the other hand, because you mentioned I'm a green politician, sometimes I'm
wondering, because I was at the climate conference in 201, speaking there as a green politician for coal phase-out, people were laughing at this kind
of proposals.
And this is impossible in a word. In my own country, we didn't even mention coal phase-out here. Now, we are not as fast as we should have been. But
it's like 10 years later, it is kind of normal thing to phase out coal. And similar with the argumentation environmentalist but also some party said --
back in time saying, well, the future technology, the future industrial countries have to be carbon neutral. People, again, were laughing about
this kind of things.
And now, we see electric cars. And we were speaking about China, we had the automotive fear in Munich just the other week. So, we see from China one of
the most advanced electric cars. So, because of this push from economy, this is also a chance. And now, we have to combine the possibilities which
are all there in the economy, in the industry, to make a carbon neutral world together with political decisions which are quick enough.
And awkwardly (ph), at this week, we didn't delivery. But we do have the COP, the climate conference at the end of the year in the Gulf country. And
there, we have to be crystal clear to come on the 1.5 degrees.
AMANPOUR: So, let me get your reaction to that because I had Al Gore, former vice president, very prominent global climate activist. I mean, he
is literally fit to be tied. He says, the idea that we can rely on fossil fuel companies or countries to be the policemen and women of the climate
crisis is just dream vision. They have no incentive. They have no desire and they just don't do it. What is COP 28 going to be?
BAERBOCK: Well, but I'm an active politician, and he is not an active politician. Sometimes this changes the views. So, I always see the glass
half full. Because otherwise, I think you cannot do your job properly.
So, I would say this black and white is just not true. I mean, there are countries, I would say also like mine, yes, we decided as new government to
totally phase out of coal. This is was one of our core energy sources. Was in the brutal war of Russia. We cut totally with our dependency on gas.
Obviously, we had needed different gas sources from other countries, but we said that by midst of 2040, all the infrastructure for energy in Germany
loses its permission, so you cannot use the infrastructure anymore if it's not carbon neutral.
So, there are these countries, not only mine, and we could do better as well, but we have to join forces. And this is what I did here, bring
together those countries, no matter if they are all Europeans or if they are all industrialized countries, bring together small island states,
industrialized countries who are ready to walk the climate path.
Countries from Africa, like Kenya. Kenya is a front runner in this. They are going carbon neutral in the next years to show that they are models,
they are countries. And we cannot wait for the last in line any longer and this is a change and they are able to agree with Al Gore again. We cannot
wait for the last in line, so we have to combine our forces of those who really want to do something.
AMANPOUR: And back to Ukraine, again, we know that Germany has provided a lot of weapons and ammunition. There's also been some complaints. They
still want the Taurus, the cruise missile version. Are they going to get it? That's one question. The other is, are you worried that several
deliveries of the Leopard have been faulty and defective and the Ukrainians are refusing them, at least the latest one, the tank. And the things are
getting them too slow, particularly for this counteroffensive?
[13:15:00]
BAERBOCK: Thanks for the combination of --
AMANPOUR: Yes, that's a lot.
BAERBOCK: No, no, no, no. But thanks for the combination because it make clear, it doesn't only help to promise and then you cannot deliver or to
deliver things which do not work. And because -- thanks God, we weren't confronted with the brutal war in Europe lately, some of our systems were
really old-fashioned, yes?
So, because we know -- and we said it in the beginning, some are not really functioning. When we deliver, it does have to work in the field. And this
is why, with the Leos, this is the explanation why now for the Taurus, I cannot say, well, we will deliver Taurus, but this, again, is so
sophisticated. And we -- it's a new thing we are having. So, we have to be clear on every detail. How does it work? Who can actually operate with that
one? And yes, it takes some time.
I totally understand that there is not enough time in Ukraine. But when we delivered, it has to work and we saw it, for example. Also, with the IRIS-T
or with the howitzers we delivered, then you have the material but no ammunition for that, it doesn't work then as well. So, it has to come
altogether. And that is why, also, the cooperation with others.
I'm always asking, why do you wait or discuss first with the Americans or others? Because this has to go combined, yes? And this is why also the
talks from today in Washington between Biden and Zelenskyy are really important.
AMANPOUR: Foreign Minister, you have been very clear about the need to focus on women's right, children's rights, a feminist foreign policy. We
see all over the world, Iran, Afghanistan, all over the world where women bear the brunt of so much bad governance. You mentioned the children being
kidnapped from Russia. How are you doing in making that a tipping point in foreign policy?
BAERBOCK: I've been to the contact line between Eastern Ukraine and Ukraine territory before the outbreak of the total invasion. And women there
suffering for years already, after 2014, are under these occupations told me. If women are not safe, no one is safe.
And this is really something which follows me throughout my time now as a foreign minister. You see that everywhere. You see it in Ethiopia. There
was conflict in Tigre. If there is a sexual violence, destabilization, not only family, villages.
So, yes, we took a new approach of saying women rights are hard politics, it's security politics, yes? So, this is one part of it. And the other
dimension is, I always say, we have to give the war human face. This is not about tanks, ammunition numbers only. And if people do not understand, wow,
this could be me as a mother, my child being kidnapped, yes, then you do a different politics.
And one important part is why I'm talking all the time now about this deportation of children is, it's around 20,000, the figures, but nobody
knows that, for example, with South Africa, in the beginning they said, well, we don't know. Actually, maybe we should stop the shooting. And I
tried to explain to them, I mean, there's an aggressor and victim country, Ukraine. But if Ukraine stops defending itself, all the villages will be
gone. It didn't really convince them.
And then I told them about the deported children, told them, imagine, they are Russian soldiers coming to the school of your girls, telling them to go
in holidays and you never see them again, what does this have to do with any war with NATO, with Russia, with Ukraine? This is most in human thing
you can think of. And they didn't know about it. We only talked about self- defense and not the human faces. And this has changed something.
So, South Africa, for example, is now calling on Putin to say, OK, first step for peace would be to bring back these children. And this is something
we have to spread all over the world and this would be also my call to everybody actually to speak about these innocent children.
AMANPOUR: Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, thank you so much, indeed, for joining us.
BAERBOCK: Thanks so much.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: And just to note, today, Kyiv and the Pentagon confirmed that the first M1 Abrams tanks arrived in Ukraine.
Next, here in Britain, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is in a lot of hot water after he announced on world Climate Week at the U.N. no less, a major
rollback of net zero policies. An exclusive poll for "The Guardian" newspapers found that now only 22 percent of people trust the prime
minister to tackle the climate crisis after that policy rollback.
My next guest, a former Tory minister and MP is not pulling punches about the state of British politics. Rory Stewart asks, what do you do when your
political party loses its mind? No doubt many Republicans in America can relate when it comes to the MAGA wing of their party. "How Not to Be a
Politician" is Stewart's new memoir. He also co-hosts a popular podcast called "The Rest is Politics." And he's joining me now. Welcome to the
program.
[13:20:00]
RORY STEWART, AUTHOR: Thank you.
AMANPOUR: Lots of details to get into regarding climate and Rishi and all the rest of it. But first, let's talk about populism. I spoke with the
German foreign minister and she was, you know, concerned about some of the numbers of the AFD growing in Germany, and we can see this happening. And
basically, today is very much, Trump is a populous politician.
STEWART: Sure.
AMANPOUR: And the Tory Party has become very populous nationalist. Where does one go from here?
STEWART: Well, it's a terrifying phenomenon. As you say, it's global. So, we can see Narendra Modi in India, we can see far-right neofascists parties
getting stronger and stronger in Europe. Astonishing, the AFD now up to almost a quarter of votes in Germany. You can see it in Sweden, you can see
it in Finland.
Of course, we had our own version of Donald Trump in Boris Johnson here in the United Kingdom. And even though at the moment British politics
sometimes feels as though it's moving back a little bit more towards moderate ground, the roots of it are still there. And what broke it? Many
things. 2008 financial crisis, social media, the inability of the center to provide a real vision. But I think it is the biggest problem of our age,
and it will define the U.S. election and it will define the world.
AMANPOUR: And there's going to be an election here in the U.K. Before I get to that, I want to ask you about your book, "How Not to Be a Politician."
What exactly are you saying, that people shouldn't go into politics or what?
STEWART: Well, I'm saying that it's a horrible, horrible profession. I think we underestimate the damage it does to your mind, body and soul. I
mean, I do slightly feel this with colleagues of mine in the United States, Congress people, senators. There are some wonderful people. I've got a
friend called Rosa DeLauro in Connecticut who's a real person, but so many of us become sort of robots. We cease to become private people. We become
slogan spouting machines. Campaigning, fund-raising takes over everything. And there's no real room for policy, there's no room for reflection. And
above all, my point is there's no room for seriousness. Politics is not serious enough.
AMANPOUR: I want you to read then something that goes to that. We've chosen a package -- sorry, a passage from our reading, which I would like you to
read now, from your own book.
STEWART: Sure. Sure. Well, thank you. So, many of the political decisions, which I had witnessed, were rushed, flakey and poorly considered. The lack
of mature judgment was palpable. The consequences frequently catastrophic. And yet, we had continued to win elections. Politics dominated the news,
but it treated as a horse race where all that mattered was position. And to inquire after the character or beliefs of a politician was considered as
absurd as to ask the same of a horse. But to put an egotistical chancellor like Boris Johnson into the heart of a system that was already losing its
dignity, with strength and seriousness was to invite catastrophe.
AMANPOUR: So, I think for you -- I mean, that's pretty blunt. And I think, for you, people on your side point to Brexit as the height of the
catastrophe. How do you think Britain can roll back from that? We don't see it happening with this government, although Rishi Sunak has tried to
stabilized, he talks nicely to the Europeans, it's a little bit less confrontational. But even the Labour leader and the Labour Party, which is
moving back to a Tony Blair centrist Labour Party, it may not position party here, doesn't want to tackle the idea of Brexit and what it's meant
to politics and what might happen in the future.
STEWART: This is classic example. So, we've got this problem with Brexit, we've got this problem with climate, we've got this problem with A.I. These
parties essentially are chasing short-term opinion polls and marginal seats. The truth of the matter is that this Brexit deal is no good. We need
something at least much more like a customs union, which would be better for an ordinant (ph) security, better for British trade.
And tragically. even the Labour leader, who was first seen with the second referendum is now no longer even prepared to say he wants a softer Brexit.
We can see the same criminal justice policy. Our prisons are disgustingly overcrowded. We've got violence, filth, escapes. And again, neither of
these political leaders is prepared to reduce the prison population.
So, this makes me very, very worried. We can see it with Rishi Sunak, as you say, rolling back on climate change promises. But the problem is that
these are the leaders who are supposed to be guiding us in international relations and thinking through artificial intelligence. And what "How Not
to Be a Politician" is about, it's like a doctor taking you into a hospital trying to describe what it's really like, the madness of the whole
situation.
I hope it's funny. I hope that some people want to read. But above all, I want people to realize what a mess we're in.
[13:25:00]
AMANPOUR: Well, the reviews say it's highly readable and amusing for sure. But it's really -- you know, it's sad that it's amusing because it really
does talk -- for instance, you're talking about, you know, the catastrophic from your perspective, Brexit deal, which really wasn't a deal. I mean, it
just -- it was just Brexit and almost off a cliff.
You tried to vote against that, right? You and many others when you were minister in the Theresa May's --
STEWART: Theresa May's.
AMANPOUR: -- government.
STEWART: Yes.
AMANPOUR: What happened when you dared to go against the Brexit leadership of the party, Boris Johnson and co.?
STEWART: Well, that was an amazing moment in my career. So, I and some other very senior people said we would not accept Brexit. And Boris Johnson
responded by throwing us out of the party and effectively out of parliament. It's something that an American president would not be able to
do. But it's also something no previous British prime minister had ever tried to do.
And one of the things you learn about populism is very quickly they go after the constitution. If there's anything they don't like, Britain is
slightly more complicated, an unwritten constitution, but you can see it in Israel too. It's very, very quick that these right-wing populous parties go
after the constitution. And that's a big problem, because right-wing parties were supposed to be conservatives, with small C's. They were meant
to stand up for constitutions. We are now in a very unstable world, and it's pushing the left into becoming defenders of the constitution as the
right becomes less and less conservative.
AMANPOUR: Can I ask you to weigh in on what a lot of people have been reviewing over the last few days since he announced he was stepping
sideways. He didn't say aside, sideways. He's going to be chairman emeritus, nobody expects Rupert Murdoch as long as he's got breath left in
him, not to influence his own corporation.
Many believe -- many who don't agree with him believe that through politics, through his very powerful news organizations, here in the U.K.,
obviously, with News Corp. and Fox News in the United States, it has contributed to the decline in policy and the kind of politics that you're
talking about, particularly the centrist politics. Even then-British Tory prime minister, David Cameron, admitted, and we're going to play this, back
in -- back after the infamous TV hacking scandal -- the hacking scandal here.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAVID CAMERON, THEN-BRITISH PRIME MINITER: How do I think on all sides of the house, there's a bit of a need for hand on heart? We all did too much
cozying up to Rupert Murdoch. I think we would agree.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: So, it's not just Cameron, you know, I think certainly Tony Blair cozied up, before that Margaret Thatcher. All British prime ministers have
cozied up to him because they believe he is what stands between them and victory or defeat. Where do you think -- how do you see the influence of
Murdoch press in this country?
STEWART: Well, I think it's terrifying. It's terrifying the way that media owners control so much. I mean, we can see this sort of played out in the
drama "Succession." But I was very struck by it. There was huge pressure on people to attend Rupert Murdoch's parties. People would always pick up the
telephone if he called.
I myself, I remember, before I became an MP, I sat next to him at a dinner party. He very charmingly took me off of "The Wall Street Journal." Made me
(ph) speak to all the editors. He could be when he wanted a very, very charming man. But the problem is that it gave him an unbelievable form of
power. And this is something that's rotten at the heart of American politics, British politics.
It's true, also, we've had, you know, the son of a KGB officer buying the evening standard in the United Kingdom. So, we end up in a very odd
position, and we must reform and deal with. And David Cameron failed. He did not follow through on that inquiry and do the things that needed to be
done to try to regulate our media.
AMANPOUR: I mean, you talking about I think Alexander Lebedev?
STEWART: Yevgeny, his son.
AMANPOUR: Yevgeny. Sorry, yes.
STEWART: Yevgeny. Yes.
AMANPOUR: The other one was the KGB.
STEWART: Yes, exactly.
AMANPOUR: And Boris Johnson made him a lord.
STEWART: Boris Johnson made him a lord. He published very positive stories about Boris Johnson. He went partying. Boris Johnson went partying in his
castle in Italy. All of this stuff is deeply, deeply sick but it's getting worse now. And again, a lot of the book is about this with social media.
I mean, I think it's very tempting to think the problems that we have in Britain with Boris Johnson and Brexit are unique to Britain.
AMANPOUR: Yes.
STEWART: But they are structural. It's about how Twitter works. It's about Facebook works. We can see what Elon Musk is currently trying to do with
Twitter, and it's going to get much worse with A.I. I'm terrified with the next election coming in the U.S., just how much A.I. is going to make the
problem fake news far worse than anything we've seen.
AMANPOUR: Let's go back to election. So, there has to be an election before 2025 or by 2025. It's assumed that the prime minister would call one
perhaps in the summer or in the fall. But at the same time, the Labour Party, Keir Starmer, seems to be at least 20 points ahead of Rishi Sunak
and "Bloomberg" has recently done a poll, what do professional investors think would be the most market friendly outcome of the next election?
According to "Bloomberg," 44 percent say a Labour victory. 25 percent say a conservative victory.
[13:30:00]
So, you are not a Labour politician. You're no longer a Tory politician, because you were kicked out. What do you think a Keir Starmer victory? And
I say that because --
STEWART: Yes. It's very likely to win.
AMANPOUR: -- Corbyn would be completely different.
STEWART: Yes, yes, yes, yes.
AMANPOUR: What will that do to politics and policy in this country?
STEWART: Well, I think, on the positive side, Keir Starmer is not a populous politician. He's a pretty serious, almost boring politician. I
think the problem is that a year after the election we don't know what his economic policies are. Everybody thinks he's going to win, but I do this
big crowds around the country, you know, Royal Albert Hall and things like this, you ask the audience, anybody in this audience stick your hands up if
you know what Keir Starmer's economic policies are? Nobody will do it.
So, I think there is a problem. He's doing what we call a Ming vase strategy. He's trying to carry the party across very carefully with taking
no risk. And the problem for an investor, the problem for confidence in the British economy is people need to know what is he going to do on trade,
what's he's going to do on investment, what's he going to do on the European Union?
And I think if the center -- and I believe passionately in a moderate center, I know it's unfashionable. I know everybody is now --
AMANPOUR: Do you think it still exists? Can it resurface?
STEWART: I think it can be rebuilt. But I've just come back, like you, from the U.S. --
AMANPOUR: The U.N. Assembly.
STEWART: Yes, yes. And many of my friends on the left of U.S. policy say, forget the center. We just got to kill the right, right? This is very much
the modern than politics. I think it's eccentric (ph) to have any hope. It needs ideas. And that's where I'm frustrated --
AMANPOUR: Do you believe most people -- I don't know what the polls show, but clearly, the loudest voices are on the edges, on the extremes. Do you
think most people are in the center?
STEWART: I think most believe that in the end truth is in the center, that there's bit of truth on both side that you need to compromise. But to get
the energy again, the whole Clinton-Blair tradition needs to acknowledge how much we got wrong in the past and it needs to have a very clear vision
of how we're going to deliver for people in the future.
AMANPOUR: Can I just talk to you about climate? Because that is something that many, many people, voters, especially young people around the world
are very energized about. So, British prime minister, as I said in the introduction, last week on Climate Week, as it started, decided to roll
back the targets for -- you know, the -- watering down the policies. You know, I talk -- well, here's what he said about it and then, we'll talk
about the reaction.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RISHI SUNAK, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: We're confident we're on track to deliver net zero and we can do it now in a more proportionate and pragmatic
way. That's how we're going to bring people with us, maintain consent for it and minimize cost for working families that could have spiraled into the
thousands and thousands of pounds, I don't think that's right.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Gosh, with the sheep in the background. Hadn't seen that before. But this is a very old canard. Is it real? The fact that our best
intentions are going to bankrupt our people?
STEWART: I think the first thing is that it's very sad what he's done. So, the U.K. accept these targets. We were going to be in a situation 2030
where you would not be able to buy a petrol or a diesel car. And all the automobile manufactures arrange around that, people were making
investments, same with their houses, energy change in their houses. There was predictability in dates. He's pushed those dates out. And suddenly, as
soon as you get an uncertainty and wavering, all the investments change. So, it was terrible to do.
He's doing it because he's calculating that there are votes in it. I think he's wrong. I think it makes him look weak. But there is one bit of truth,
which is to achieve environmental change, we cannot put the cost on the poorest people in our society. We must make the change and change must come
from incentivizing people to change energy. But the government has to provide the cash for the poorest people to make that change.
The problem at the moment is because poor people, poor people, find the larger percentage of their income going in their fuel and their heating,
they end up bearing the brunt of the environmental taxes.
AMANPOUR: Now, I don't know what -- that's very clear. But the fact of, you know, him having done that and sort of departed from most of the G7 and
others on this, Al Gore, the former vice president, who's obviously a major climate activist, I asked him about it, because it happened the day I was
interviewing him in New York, And this is what he said about it and about Britain's position in the world.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
AL GORE, FORMER U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: I will say on a personal basis, I find it shocking and really disappointing, of course. I think he's done the
wrong thing. I've heard from many of my friends in the U.K., including a lot of Conservative Party members, by the way, who have used the phrase
utter disgust. And some of the young people there feel as if their generation has been stabbed in the back. I mean, it's really shocking to
me. But again, this is an issue for the U.K. to handle.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[13:35:00]
AMANPOUR: What does it say about Britain's -- British leadership to you?
STEWART: It's shocking. I mean, firstly, I agree with every word. But secondly, it's very, very sad. I mean, the Conservative Party under David
Cameron was that she had quite a good environmental record, stretchy (ph).
AMANPOUR: Yes.
STEWART: You know, introduced net zero targets. We were able to double our spend on climate, in the environment, in our international programs. It's
absolutely shocking that they would do this. And this is the way the populism takes root. It's not just anti-immigration, it gets going on
climate.
And the problem with Rishi Sunak, you heard him there in front of the sheep.
AMANPOUR: Yes.
STEWART: Sounds extremely reasonable, right?
AMANPOUR: Yes.
STEWART: But the underlying message is essentially signaling to people who don't believe in climate change.
AMANPOUR: I probably have only about 30 seconds left. What do you want people to take away? The first take away, not to get into politics or do it
differently?
STEWART: No, I want -- the first take away to be, our politics is in a mess in the U.S., the world and the U.K., and that we need to change it. And
read this book in order to understand how bad it is and what it is that we need to change everywhere.
AMANPOUR: And the solutions you've written down?
STEWART: Thank you.
AMANPOUR: Very good. Thank you. "How Not to Be a Politician," Rory Stewart, thank you very much.
Now, as A.I., we've just been discussing, continues to change everyday life, it's also rewriting our right to privacy. One small A.I. company in
the U.S. claims to be able to identify anyone with just about 99 percent accuracy based on just one photo of their face. "New York Times" tech
journalist, Kashmir Hill, has been reporting about the controversial software in her new book, "Your Face Belongs to Us." And joins Hari
Sreenivasan to discuss the dangers of this technology.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HARI SREENIVASAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Christiane, thanks. Kashmir Hill, thanks so much for joining us. First, let's start with the
title, "Your Face Belongs to Us." Who is the us? How did they get my face?
HILL: Well, the us in the book is primarily Clearview AI, which is this company I heard about a few years ago that scraped billions of photos from
the public internet without people's permission to create this face recognition app that they were secretly selling to the police.
SREENIVASAN: And how successful is Clearview?
HILL: Well, Clearview works with thousands of police departments. They have $2 million in contracts with the Department of Homeland Security, they have
a contract with the FBI. They've received funding from the air force and the army to work on facial recognition glasses, augmented reality glasses
that you can wear and identify someone. So, they have had success selling their products to law enforcement agencies
SREENIVASAN: So, give me an idea in the sort of grand scheme of biometrics, from fingerprints to taking a picture of your photo -- or your face and
identifying it, what goes into facial recognition to make it work and how good is the stuff you're talking about?
HILL: Yes. The technology that scientists, engineers have been working on for decades, it used to not work very well, very flawed when it came to
particularly people who were not white men. What is happening is that a computer is looking at all the information from a face, from a digital
image. And, you know, if it's trained on enough faces, which there are a lot of faces now in the internet age, it's able to kind of figure out what
is unique from one face to another.
And so, these face recognition apps go out and essentially like look for a face that matches the face it's given. And so, it -- they can work pretty
well at finding you, but they might also find doppelgangers. And so, that's been a problem in police use of the app. There have been -- several people
have been arrested for the crime of looking like someone else.
SREENIVASAN: This technology that the companies have doesn't require a nice well-lit headshot of me looking directly into the camera, right?
HILL: Yes. This is what police officers told me when I first heard about Clearview AI. They said, the facial recognition technology that they had
been using before that just worked on criminal, you know, mugshots, state driver's licenses, it didn't work that well. But when they started using
the Clearview AI app, which had newer technology, a fresher algorithm, it would work even when somebody was turned away from the camera, wearing a
hat, you know, wearing glasses.
I talked to this one financial crimes detective in Gainesville named Nick Ferrara, and he said, you know, it's incredible. I had a stack of wanted
fraudsters on my desk. I ran them through Clearview AI and I got hit after hit after hit. And he said, I'd be their spokesperson if they wanted me.
SREENIVASAN: Is this leap forward that we're seeing now, is it that the technology has gotten better or is it that essentially the ethics have
gotten looser?
[13:40:00]
HILL: The technology has gotten better. But one thing I discovered while I was doing the research for the book is that both Google and Facebook
developed this technology internally, as early at 2011. Eric Schmidt, the then-chairman of Google, said that it was the one technology that Google
had developed and decided to hold back because it was too dangerous.
Facebook engineers, at one point, rigged up this smart phone on baseball cap. And when you turned your head and the camera zoomed in on somebody, it
can call out their name. But Facebook too decided to hold it back. And these are not companies known as being, you know, privacy protective
organizations. They've pioneered many technologies that can change our notions of privacy, but they felt it was too dangerous.
What was different about Clearview AI, it wasn't they made a technological breakthrough, it was an ethical one that they were willing to do what other
companies hadn't been willing to do.
SREENIVASAN: Wow. You know, I had a chance to interview the CEO of Clearview a couple years ago. And at the time, he said they had not had any
sort of falsehoods, any misidentification. And yet, what you're talking about and writing about in "The Times" these days is a serious of instances
where people have been misidentified for crimes that they didn't commit by facial recognition software and had to, well, suffer because of it.
HILL: Yes. I discovered one case that appears to involve Clearview AI, a man named Randal Reid. He lives in Georgia. He gets pulled over one day by
the police and they say there's a warrant for his arrest. He is arrested. He is held in jail for a week. The crime was committed in Louisiana, and he
never even been to Louisiana. And so, he's sitting in jail waiting to be extradited. He has no idea why he's tied to this crime. And it turns out
that the detectives had run Clearview AI on surveillance footage and it had matched to him and he was arrested even though, you know, he lived, you
know, hundreds of miles away from where the crime occurred.
SREENIVASAN: And what eventually happened? How was he kind of exonerated? He was sort of guilty until proven innocent by this technology.
HILL: So, he got a good lawyer. And that's what happened to these people who are falsely arrested, they do have to hire lawyers to defend them. The
lawyer went and actually went to the consignment stores where he was accused of using a stolen credit card to buy designer purses and he asked
to see the surveillance footage. And one of the store owners showed it to him and he said, wow, you know, that guy actually does look a lot like my
client, but it's not him. And he called the detective and the detective revealed to him that they had use facial recognition app in the case.
And so, he got a bunch of photos of his client, of videos that his client has made of his face, gave it to the police and they realized that they had
wrong person and the case was dropped.
SREENIVASAN: There was a recent case you wrote about, a woman who was eight months pregnant who was taken to jail after a misidentification.
HILL: Yes. There's a woman named Porcha Woodruff. It happened on a Thursday morning in February. She was getting her two young children ready for
school. Police turned up at her door school saying she was under arrest for car -- for robbery and carjacking. And she was just in shock. She couldn't
believe it. She said, well, is the person who committed this crime pregnant? You know, look at me. And she got taken to jail. Spent the day in
jail, you know, was charged. Again, had to hire a lawyer. And it was all, again, a case of mistaken identity.
She was arrested for the crime of looking like someone else. And after she spent the day in jail, she went to the hospital because she was so
dehydrated and stressed out from being accused of this crime. It is actually the third time that this has happened in Detroit that -- that's
where Porcha Woodruff lives. And all of the cases that we know about where someone has been falsely arrested, the person has been black.
SREENIVASAN: You know, we have heard about kind of algorithmic bias and bias in the structure of systems. How does that work when it comes to
facial recognition?
HILL: yes. I mean, facial recognition technology for a long time was really flawed when it came to how well it worked on different groups of people.
And the reason was that when it was initially being developed, the people who were working on it tended to be white men and they tended to make sure
the technology worked well on them and people who looked like them. And so, they would train it on photos of white men.
This was kind of pointed -- you know, this was kind of realized and people ignored it. Facial recognition technology was deployed in the real world
with this basic flaw in it. But, you know, the vendors had taken the criticism to heart and they now do train their algorithms with more diverse
sets of faces. And so, the technology has come a long way.
But as you see from these false arrests, there are still, you know, disturbing outcomes, racist outcomes that we're seeing in the way the
technology is being deployed and misused.
[13:45:00]
SREENIVASAN: I've pointed out a couple of the cases where it's been used and it's come out with horrible outcomes. What are some cases where facial
recognition has been used to actually catch the correct bad guys, so to speak?
HILL: Yes. I mean, facial recognition technology is a powerful investigative tool, that's what police officers told me. They said it can
really be a gamechanger in an investigation when all you have somebody's face. Particularly, it's been a popular with child crime investigators who
are often working with, you know, basically photos of abuse, and they have photos of not just the abuser but also the child who is being abused. And
they have been using Clearview AI to try to solve these cases.
And, you know, I have heard of many success stories. One of the crazier stories I heard from a Department of Homeland Security agent was he had a
photo. He's trying to figure out who the abuser was. An agent friend of his ran it through Clearview AI and found the guy standing in the background of
someone else's Instagram photo.
SREENIVASAN: Wow.
HILL: And that was -- you know, that was a crumb that led him to figure out who that man was, lived in Las Vegas, and he was able to arrest him and
remove the child from him having access to her.
SREENIVASAN: This is one conversation about how it's used in policing. But you've pointed in the book multiple situations where it's beyond policing.
It is in grocery stores, in the U.K. right now. It is in department stores, in America today. You know, tell us a little bit about what happened when
you tried to go into a Rangers game with someone -- well, tell me that story at Madison Square Garden.
HILL: Yes. So, I went with a personal injury lawyer to -- it was actually Nicks game at Madison Square Garden. And, you know, we put our bags on the
security belt to go through the metal detector. And as we were collecting our bags, a security guard came over and pulled this personal injury
attorney aside and he said, oh, you know, you've been flagged. We use a facial recognition system here. And my manager is going to come over and
he's going to need to talk to you.
And this attorney was one of thousands of attorneys who have been placed on a ban list at Madison Square Garden, enforced with facial recognition
technology because she works at a firm that has a case against the company. She's not working on that case, but this something that the owner of
Madison Square Garden, James Dolan, has decided to deploy to kind of punish his enemies.
And so, the manager came over and said -- he gave her basically a note kicking her out and said, you know, you're not welcome here until your
firm, you know, resolves that litigation, drops the case against us.
SREENIVASAN: Interestingly, you point out that, for example, the owner of MSG could not use this tool at a facility that he owns in Chicago. How
come?
HILL: So, he can deploy the technology against lawyers at his New York venues like Madison Square Garden and Radio City Music Hall, but not their
Chicago theater because Illinois has a law called the Biometric Information Privacy Act, presciently passed in 2008 that says that people have
basically control of their biometric information, including their faceprint. And if a company wants to use it, they need get consent. And if
they don't, the company would need to pay up to $5,000 per, you know, face or biometric information that it uses.
And so, yes, Madison Square Garden has a ban list in Chicago, but it does not enforce it by scanning people's faces as they enter the venue.
SREENIVASAN: So, if this is happening in Illinois because of regulation and there's also European countries that are also following suit, right? I
mean, when it comes to Clearview AI, it's banned in several countries on whether it can be used.
HILL: And after I first exposed the existence of Clearview AI, a number of privacy regulators around the world announced investigation. And privacy
regulators in Europe, in Canada, Australia all said that what the company had done was illegal and said that, you know, they can't operate in their
countries anymore and needed to delete their citizens information from the database. They also were issued some fines.
While they haven't been able to get their citizens information out of the database, they have effectively kept Clearview AI from operating in their
countries. And so, yes, we do live in a world right now where your face is better protected in basically some places better than others.
[13:50:00]
SREENIVASAN: I mean, so let's kind of fast forward five years out. I mean, we seem to be at an inflection point where we ought to be thinking about
the impact and the ramifications this technology has on society and maybe, you know, in a best-case world, creating policies around it. But at the
pace at which technology is changing and the pace at which legislatures are actually responding, where do you see this going in five years?
HILL: Yes. I think unless privacy laws are more uniformly passed and enforced, I do think we could have a world where facial recognition is
pretty ubiquitous, where people could have an app on this phone and it would mean that when you're out in public, you could be readily identified,
you know, whether you're buying, you know, a hemorrhoid cream at the pharmacy or when you go into a bar and you meet somebody you never want to
see again and they just find out who you are, or you're just having a sensitive conversation over dinner, assuming you have the anonymity of
being surrounded by strangers. And if you say something that's interesting, maybe somebody takes a picture of your face and now they understand what
you're talking about.
I think if we don't kind of reign it in, it could really change what it is to be anonymous.
SREENIVASAN: Did you speak with Clearview AI about it? I mean, because in the beginning of the book, what was interesting was just literally how they
knew you were working on this story. But did they eventually talk to you?
HILL: Yes. Originally, Clearview AI did not want to talk to me. They were not happy I was going to be writing about them. There were strange, you
know, red flags about the company. They had an address on their website for a building that did not exist. They had a kind of one fake employee on
LinkedIn. They didn't want to talk to me. And I ended up talking to police officers who were using the app.
And oftentimes, the police officers would offer to run my photo to kind of show me how well the app worked. And every time this happened, the police
officer would eventually stop talking to me. And -- or two of the police officers they said, you don't have any results. There's no photos in the
app for you. It's really strange.
And eventfully, I found out that Clearview AI was actually -- even through it wasn't talking to me, it was tracking me. And it has some kind of alert
for when my photo was uploaded. It had blocked results for me. And one of the officers I talked to, minutes after he ran my face, got a call from the
company telling them -- telling him that, you know, they knew he had done this and he wasn't supposed to and they deactivated his app.
And it really freaked him out. He said, I didn't realize that this company would know who I was looking for, that they know who law enforcement is
searching for and that they can control whether they could be found. It was really a pretty chilling start to the investigation.
SREENIVASAN: So, when you eventfully did speak to them, what did they say about these cases of misidentification or the possibilities of that?
HILL: So, at the time that I first started talking to Hoan Ton-That, in Clearview AI, they didn't know of any misidentifications yet. And they
said, you know, it's a risk, but our technology is never meant to be used to arrest somebody. We are just trying to, you know, give police a lead in
a case. And then, they have to do more investigating, they need have to find evidence. And so, he kind of distanced themselves from the
responsibility for when this goes wrong.
SREENIVASAN: And has this changed how you do your reporting?
HILL: Yes. I mean, the first time that Hoan Ton-That ran my own photo through Clearview AI, once the company has stopped blocking the results, I
was really shock by the photos that came up. Photos of me walking in the background of other people's photos. A photo of me actually with a source,
somebody I had been interviewing at the time for a story that I didn't realize was on the internet, and it made me think, wow, I might need to be
more careful in public, you know, you can't just leave your phone at home and meet at a dive bar and assume that no one will know it.
And this something the federal government has realized as well while I was working on the book. The CIA sent out a warning to all of its outpost and
said, our informants are being identified, you know, their identities are being compromised by new artificial intelligence tools, including facial
recognition technology.
SREENIVASAN: The book is called "Your Face Belongs to Us." Kashmir Hill from "The New York Times," thanks so much for joining us.
HILL: Thank you so much, Hari.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: And that sounds really chilling. And finally, tonight, after a seven-year voyage in space, the largest sample ever collected from an
asteroid returned to earth. A sample that could reveal the secrets to the origins of life itself.
And playing a vital role in NASA's team one unexpected member, Dr. Brian May, graduate in astrophysics from Imperial College London found time
between touring as the legendry guitarist of Queen to indulge his other passion, stereoscopy, making special images to help locate a safe spot for
the spacecraft to land on the asteroid. Here's Brian May's message.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[13:55:00]
BRIAN MAY, MUSICIAN AND ASTROPHYSICIST: I can't be with you today. I wish I could. I'm rehearsing for Queen tour. But my heart stay with you as this
precious sample is recovered. Happy sample return day.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: And that's it for now. If you ever miss our show, you can find the latest episode shortly after it airs on our podcast. And remember, you
can always catch us online, on our website and all across social media. Thank you for watching and goodbye from London.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
END
