this now senator marcia blackburn
republican of tennessee who serves on
the judiciary and
armed services committee senator good to
see you uh it seems
that the people of cuba and iran want
the same thing they want freedom
first let's start with cuba what should
the administration do after so many
decades to lift the yoke of the
communist oppression and persecution on
the cuban people
well first of all president biden needs
to come out and be very forceful
that we stand with the people of cuba
who are fighting for their freedom
we have to bear in mind they have
endured 62 years
of a totalitarian society they are
ready for freedom they are starving they
have no water no electricity
no jobs no hopes for the future so
they should know that we are going to
stand with them they are
90 miles off our southern core
coast and eric i think it is terrible
that the coast guard is saying to people
who want to do the armada
and take their boats near cuba shores
just to show support to let people know
that we're hearing about their fight and
struggle
that is so inconsistent with what you
see with the
openness of the southern border
and the allowance of people to
continually come across
our southern border yeah the
administration has said uh look if
you're in cuba and you
and you flee they're not gonna allow you
to be here should the administration
what specifically can they do uh
economic remittances the president has
talked about intervention
clearly not military intervention but
what other type of intervention do you
think there should be
in order to embolden the protesters to
potentially finally just like the soviet
union
topple the commies in cuba
well they need to know that there will
be an
increase of sanctions on bad actors
that are there in cuba and that the
sanctions are going to hold
they need to know that we're going to
continue to
provide them the ability to get onto the
internet
like we're doing with the sci-fi
technology
and we had 146 000 cubans that were
using that
on tuesday and as of yesterday it was
up over 1.3 million cubans
and the president needs to say look
there's a line in the sand
you start firing on your people all
options will be on the table
we're going to defend these people as
they fight for their freedom
you just said something really important
you know people uh criticize washington
a lot in politicians and the senate and
if you tell someone that
you supported you co-sponsored something
called the open technology fund
authorization act
people have no idea what what the hell
that means they think well that's just
who knows what that is well folks here's
a specific example
all that technical gobbly gives
freedom
to the activists now in cuba because the
cuban government
blocked the internet and that bill that
you co-sponsored senator
explain that you enabled those activists
to get on the internet
and call for freedom there is the
opportunity to use technology to
have internet censorship circumvention
tools
and there is one that has been developed
siphon
as i mentioned and senator menendez and
i in the senate
and representative mccall in the house
had been
the advocates for allowing the
development of these technologies
so that people that are in repressive uh
regimes who do not have
free speech who are being cut off so
there is a way to get those
messages out of the oppression that
they're enduring
and what they are facing and eric look
at the videos we're seeing from the
streets of cuba
look at the interviews the citizen held
interviews that we are seeing with
people
telling their story and getting this
message out correctly
and you mentioned you know iran they are
facing things of course we are seeing
the weakers
in china and we need to get these
stories out so
people know what these regimes
are doing to people that are seeking
their freedom well congratulations it's
called spice on it's an
internet censorship circumvention tool
funded by the u.s agency for global
media's open technology fund wow
and finally quickly can that be applied
to iran
because they're out on the streets in
iran demanding uh
freedom there it can be utilized
by other uh populations that are
experiencing oppression it can be
applied
anywhere that the internet has been
terminated
for access by that population and this
is one of those censorship circumvention
tools
and so pleased that the cubans have been
able to use this to continue
to get their message to us vicente
congratulations on getting that done and
spreading the word to the activists in
cuba and iran
to get freedom for those two nations
senator marcia blackburn always good to
see you thank you