and stephen colbert rallies such a happen at the end of this month but it's a fair to put restrictions on what employees can do when they're off the clock and is there even such a thing as impartiality we'll speak to the hill columnist. and be careful who you friend on facebook because it could be the government that's why the government has turned to social networking sites as an easy way to spy on the ever gay american i think it's creepy i thought so we're going to speak with jennifer lynch from the electronic frontier foundation who obtained documents outlining the government's nefarious plans then the french have passed a new law that could strip naturalized citizens of their citizenship if they carry out a violent crime against a police officer but how can a country pick and choose who they want to be citizens after well with citizenship has already been granted and may seem ridiculous but joe lieberman has proposed a similar law right here in america earlier this year so we have to ask could the u.s. really pass a law like that and she said what do party candidate christine o'donnell took part

in a senate debate last night and down in delaware and shockingly her comments were more unintelligent and entertaining than we could have ever imagined so we'll try to decipher her statements with the help of wonkette blogger sarah bening cause at the end of the show but now let's move on to our top story. here in the u.s. americans learn from a very young age that they have the right to civil liberties it's even stated in our constitution but a new report by the world justice project called the rule of law index shows that the country has shifted from those original values and they compared to our western european friends well we rank lowest in terms of justice league most americans without the liberties and representation they are guaranteed as citizens archie correspondent there has the story. of the united states of america land of freedom and equality a place where all citizens have equal access to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness or to try to make sure country mean change in liberty in the freedom that

you had in the past not if you ask the tea partiers and while many might wonder what exactly they've been complaining about it looks like they might be on to something according to a new report by the world justice project the united states ranks the lowest out of eleven developed countries when it comes to access to civil justice and less than one in five low income americans gets the legal assistance they need wealthier people get good lawyers private lawyers they get out of whatever they were accused of in the same accusation against a low income person of color will lead them to jail for lengthy periods of time and it looks like the good old u.s. of a doesn't stack up when it comes to other factories either out of the nine factories that the project looked into from absence of corruption to limited government power to an effective criminal system the united states ranked seventh or below out of eleven countries in all areas except for one but then we really

need a report to prove that the united states isn't all it's cracked up to be let's take a look at the justice system it's not just low income americans that don't have access to legal services many argue that african-americans are unfairly prosecuted too and you know in the states we have this terrible problem with american. bigotry racism bigotry class bigotry within the system a system not a next in the system a white capital supremacy where we still have a large part of the population celebrating the idea that white people are superior to black people every day americans witness shocking stories of police brutality and police departments across the country are shelling out sometimes up to one billion dollars as is the case in new york city to settle cases many having to do with brutality everybody interacts with the police and you think that they are there to serve and protect us but you know police officers need to understand that they swear an oath to the cost of tuition and the number one important factor they

should provide in their job is constitutional protection for the citizens of this country i think that's been lost and what about limited government powers the united states ranks ninth out of the eleven developed countries when it comes to that the national legal and policy center recently found that the white house might be spying on americans on facebook twitter and other social media websites and not too long ago president obama resigned the patriot act that allows the government to spy on americans and seize personal records and private data in the name of homeland security we now know that federal government has admitted that homeland security's main focus is not. caves in central asia the main focus and the war activists quakers conservatives libertarians land rights activist anti g.m.o. activist it's measurably everybody. and while the united states wages wars abroad to bring freedom and democracy to other countries many say it need not look beyond

its own borders to find problems to solve and here we are going around the world bombing and invading other countries to bring democracy to them when we really should be focusing on improving our democracy here at home i have an irony that may just contradict what the united states was founded on. preassure either r. t. washington d.c. . now the u.s. didn't lead the world on any of the rule of law measures in this index not a single one and a prius right if we look at our founding documents our pledge of allegiance and we hear those words freedom justice equality for all so what happened why is it that your access to justice now depends on your access to a healthy bank account you know we like to joke that america is a country full of litigation where you can sue for just about anything we have entire television shows dedicated to courts to take on frivolous lawsuits but clearly there are voices out there that aren't being heard all represented well

joining me to discuss that is jonathan smith the executive director of the legal aid society of the district of columbia jonathan thank you so much for being thank you for having me now i think you know one of the lowest rankings for the u.s. was coming to providing access to justice for our citizens in the gap between access for the rich and the for is really incredible i mean how do we get to that kind of point sure we have in united states we've established a civil justice system that requires people to go to courts to resolve their disputes we have abolished self-help this is a good thing in a civilized society people don't go out and solve their problems through force and but they go to courts and they ask a judge to make a ruling and then the force of the state forces those orders and we've set up a system where in order to actually navigate the court system you have to have a lawyer but we place the price of lawyers out of reach of most people here don't come cheap and. lawyers don't come cheap and the system is expensive to navigate and so what you have is this tremendous disparity if you can afford

a lawyer to go into court and resolve your problem for you you can get a good result we have was that i'd love to change but we by and large have laws that make sense but for a person living in poverty if you're facing the loss of your child if you're facing the loss of your home you due to foreclosure or to a vision if you can. get access to health services and you've got to go in front of a judge to get that dispute resolved it's a lottery he won in every ten at best the best numbers are one in every two out of every ten people who live in poverty who need a lawyer and actually getting a look at a lawyer what else can i do to change that because i mean if you look at perhaps those going to law school and this country those who aspire to be lawyers of course they want to be at the top firms and they want to make the big bucks nobody wants to be this civil servant because you get paid but we want we know how do you get the you also have you inspired people to want to take on those who are all sure i mean i'm going to lifetime legal services lawyer and i spent my career working

around issues of civil rights and poverty and ending in equality but i'm not everyone is going away i don't know why but i'm telling you i have a very happy comfortable life it is true i made vastly less first two lawyers starting law firms make nearly twice as much as. i make it is four times what a starting lawyer in legal services might make but there are tremendous other rewards to me about whether we are a capitalist society so in that kind of society we is it even possible for there to be equal justice for all yes i think i think i think that we have created a perversion in our legal system that is driven largely by money we have about a two hundred billion dollars legal industry to take gross receipts for private law firms about two hundred billion dollars we spend about one billion representing the legal disputes of the thirty five million people that live in poverty so one half of one percent goes to twenty percent of our population and the result their problems and the problems that those families and individuals face or those that go

to basic fundamental needs basic human needs or at least have the frivolous lawsuits that we're seeing on t.v. all the time like a reason america is now known for a spill a little coffee on the floor and somebody can see your point of view some of these are not as europe so much better doing well because there's been a long tradition in. and goes back to the magna carta there was a right to counsel established in civil cases that goes back to the fifteen hundreds europe has had a tradition of access to justice it has been much more meaningful even you go to canada you go to south africa in a land dispute in south africa if you cannot have paid for a lawyer the court will provide you wanted states' expense i want to talk about the need of justice in general because you know one of the things about this report to you is that in defining the rule of law the first rule of say to the little points is that the government and its agents and its officials are accountable under the rule of law and i feel i mean how can you even ask people like that when we have

a government that really abuses the state secrets privilege that decides to shield everything anything the cia does is out of the citizens' reach and it's it's as if the law doesn't apply to the government so how do you have a rule of law in a country where the government just doesn't have to abide by well i think we can have our system. in those matters has a way to address those injustices we through either the media through your exposing it through the media through the high level attention from from our supreme court in our courts of appeals pay attention to where is the line between what national security wires and and i would draw those lines in different places in the judges do but at least is a process to get those respects resolved if i'm living in public housing if i need to rely on the state because i can't get an income to pay my rent adequate to pay my rent because of the structure economic system or because i'm living with a disability and i have a fight with the government agency that's providing housing or

a government agency that's not giving my unemployment or won't let me have access to health care i don't have any remedy no one is going to pay attention and i guess that's probably why more people don't pay attention to the things that i played right into what i'm talking about the government is because their livelihoods are at stake and they have i guess you know bigger more personal problems to worry about jonathan thank you so. being here but you're right still to come on tonight's show there is no doubt of the chilean miner rescue how did massive coverage but one station risked their entire budget to get the perfect video we're going to have details on that later in the show and speaking of news networks several of them are betting their employees from attending the stewart call bear rallies on the mall in october so we're going to have to ask is it right to keep media employees from observing political events outside of work.

hungry for the full story we've got. the biggest issues get a human voice face to face with the news makers. on october thirtieth comedians jon stewart and stephen colbert are holding rallies in washington d.c. but since they are comedians and the telling of their events is satirical and it's not a political event right now according to many of the leading news organizations that is wrong n.p.r. a.b.c. news n.b.c. news the washington post politico they've all sent out letters to their employees reminding them that they are not allowed to participate in these events to use a stronger word unless they're covering the rallies they're banned but is that fair

or right where do you draw the line between observing and participating as well as satire and politics when joining me to discuss it is brentwood ascii columnist from the hill print thank you so much for being here i mean i think this is let me tell you this how n.p.r. didn't send out the similar notice to their employees when glenn beck has his restoring honor rally but when jon stewart and stephen colbert comedians decide to hold what they have to send out a letter i think they felt none of their people would be tempted to go to the glenn beck rally or would be invited to do it you know what's going on here it's quite interesting number one it is true that anyone in a news section of a journalistic organization that's supposed to win opinion columnist and opinion person they really shouldn't be participating in any other outlet is participating and what is observing because you see first on like myself i feel like if you are going to be reporting on a story then it's better if you were there yourself if you saw it with your own

eyes if you heard it with your own ears you know i went to the mall or when glenn beck was here when they have the new one nation united rally because you want to see it you want to know what actually went down while they were allowed to go to observe and to report what they're not allowed to do is to participate but that i feel like only the washington post did send out a memo where they're saying you know participation is if you have a pin or you're holding a sign yada yada but n.p.r. didn't really make it so clear they essentially made it sound like you're just banned don't be there well the story. the story. is is the major media is completely baffled about what to do with stephen colbert and jon stewart because they have tremendous ratings they are a whole generation of young people are focused on getting the news from them not a.b.c. not even n.p.r. colley fake news so i don't see how i understand obviously there are political undertones in everything that jon stewart and stephen called they're doing but

essentially these guys they are comedians they have no political credentials here they fake news and they make the news and they also report news but the truth is the major media is clueless about what to do so they're scared of them so because we're going to freaked out they just don't want to get what you get is young people god bless them are not reading the daily newspapers so much anymore they're not watching the network news because it's yeah any truth they're not watching cable except for the young right wingers may be watching fox but not even that so here comes jon stewart and stephen colbert and they are like the maid of major media is totally you follow old do you want to compete with them all we competing with them i mean now they have stephen colbert goes to congress and testifies and it gets more attention to my group workers and immigration than anything that the members of the congress or public broadcasting or even the television networks which are reduced to covering cold there before congress so you've got this whole. insanity

gets not only the right to march to restore sanity you've got the insanity of a major news media almost all of them are losing customers losing business losing young people particularly and so while it's true that it's like they're cutting the other guy down even though he's not really political is not a politician because they're scared of him they're just trying to wipe them off the map but i mean if we get back to. this issue that you know you're saying that reporters flat out should not be able to go participate in these types of events you know where do you also draw the line i mean let's say i wanted to go to a rage against the machine concert i mean this is a band that is very political and what they say if i go and i'm just observing and watching the concert maybe all you know it clap for something does that mean that i'm now participating in the employees going to tell me i can't go well if you are a straight news journalist you can go to the concert you can go to the steward

cobell rally you're not supposed to applaud that's true even at a concert i can't scream if they're playing might not if you're covering it as a journalist all these more flexibility but we're talking about art the movie talking about politics i mean remember there was a whole subject going on here some of us believe the news is an arm of the republican party right now we have the news did definitely didn't put out a memo you guys can't go to they already know what they're not going to be invited to the cobra rally and they might as well have been the glenn beck rally not only jon stewart did invite bill o'reilly to his rally when he was on the show he kind of refused basically you know they said no those crazy enough you might show up but the real point is that with fox you do have a very clear bias now conservatives will argue that the major media is liberal i don't agree but i think it and here are the washington post they might try to pretend like they don't have any bias and they don't have

a leaning but. i think it's obvious to everyone that they do so well they have a little good now there's definitely a more liberal leaning on some of the places like n.p.r. the difference though i would argue is that fox goes way overboard they have republican presidential candidates as paid news people on it but but the whole point about cold air and about and about jon stewart is they have to the major media completely befuddled and confused about who are they how do they that's why they're forty three now and then and they don't come and go i bet you know we got to we've got to cut it out but actually breath of fresh air they need to be challenged and i want you to i thank you so much are just ahead on the show be careful who you friend on facebook because it might be the government has details on how the government is using social networking sites to keep on americans so it's a new chapter in the fears of big brother we'll have that story after the break.

for the feast we've got. the biggest issues get voice face to face with the news makers. could you be friends with government agents on facebook and not even know it and very creepy news the electronic frontier foundation has obtained documents that reveal two ways in which the government has been tracking people online the first as a surveillance of social networking sites to investigate citizenship petitions which includes government agents going so far as to friending people to learn their online secrets now just to show how clueless the department of homeland security agents really are about what it means to be on facebook listen to this following

line from their member narcissistic tendencies and many people feels a need to have a large group of quote friends link to their pages and many of these people accept cyber friends that they don't even know this provides an excellent vantage point for afghan as to observe the daily life of beneficiaries and who are suspected of fraudulent activities so basically if you're a suspected narcissist because you have a lot of facebook friends you're also suspected of fraud give me a break now the second way they've been monitoring online is through a special command center they collected and analyzed online communications during public medications during obama's inauguration so sites like n.p.r. and daily coast were being watched now i see a number of political dangers in the government's sketchy behavior here so earlier i got up from san francisco with jennifer lynch a staff attorney for the electronic frontier foundation so we could delve into some of those issues i first asked her if that whole narcissism line made her laugh as much as it did me in terms of proof that whoever wrote it had absolutely no idea what they were talking about. it really did say that should we i mean i don't know

how many friends you have on facebook i actually don't have that many but i have a lot of friends who do have five hundred or more friends and i just. going to talk to them about their nurses. the the little ridiculous and the funny part to me is that later they contradict themselves because they say that within these networks people only talk to their friends and to their family and that's how we know that we can really trust what's online to me that's one of the biggest problems here i mean i understand the fact that you need to investigate of course especially when it comes to marriages when you're looking at candidates for citizenship but i think they make some really dangerous assumptions here like the fact that everything you put on line is representative of your true life as if some people aren't a little more private like they don't hold stuff out on their internet persona. i think that's definitely true you know i mean using example of myself i and my

husband and i both facebook pages and i don't think either one of us notes that were married on our facebook status and so i think well it's one of us words to a u.s. citizen to be a problem with the government be curious about me investigating me for fraud just because my facebook page doesn't know that i'm married well that's i wonder is anybody on this suspicions list i mean are they only you know anybody who's up for a first citizenship and automatically they start watching you monitoring you on your social networking site. i want to do that as well and it's really not clear from the memo what kind of suspicion the government is sort of starting with are they like you said are they looking at everybody who's applying for citizenship or are there certain people who are suspecting for other reasons it's not clear from the memo and when they are friending people are they also are they informing

them that hello i am a department of homeland security agent or are they just pretending to be someone else entirely. i think that's a good question as well i mean that really raises some ethical issues it's really unclear from the memo what the government's doing in that situation it could be that. you know they're only looking at publicly available information but the memo really seems to suggest that government agents are actually friending people online and like you said what are they oh we're doing to encourage people to friend them to accept their friend requests are they saying you know. i am an agent you want citizenship and immigration services and i'm checking your profile or are they just saying you know i'm. so joe schmo and i want to be friends with you or even worse are they creating fake profiles you know sometimes law enforcement will do

this or they'll create a fake profile that will encourage somebody to accept a friend request so perhaps they'll say oh i went to your high school or i went to the same college as you or we like the same bands whatever it is and it's not clear from the citizenship and immigration memo what the government is doing now you're an attorney jennifer is this is this legal i mean especially if we're talking about government officials i know that people create fake profiles online all the time but if they're doing this as a government official then i mean is there anywhere where the law applies to that says that no you can't just deceive people blatantly. well it's so clear certainly to be violating the terms of service for the different social networking sites so whether that's a violation of the law if anybody is the attorney but it's clearly a call and that's counter to what our ethical responsibilities is and it's all

attorneys. so it's not clear what laws are being broken but it is certainly creepy and it's worrisome that the government is getting into our lives on this level of creepy i think is a great word sketchy is like you know i don't i first heard this story i really just i was i was speechless to begin with but you know i also want to bring in the fact that there are two ways of even monitoring people one is on social networking sites and the other was during obama's inauguration they were looking at websites like n.p.r. and the daily coast and also monitoring it through a specific center there what is actually me i mean if i had gone on and i had commented on line about an opinion piece that i saw on the daily coast does that mean that they were collecting that and saving that to try to use against me at some later date. what's a good question it did appear that all of. that collection was tied to you know i.q. ration so perhaps they were looking for some sort of early evidence that there was

going to be a problem at the inauguration i know that a lot of people worried at the time that something might happen to obama and so i think it is logical for the department of homeland security to be doing some sort of monitoring and the question that we had from those slides was was the monitoring targeted real threats or was it targeted perhaps to certain racial or ethnic. you know. things that would distinguish people so why are they looking at n.p.r. why are they looking at black planet it's not really clear from those slides i think though that the department of homeland security does deserve some credit for the slides for indicating that at least there are that they were trying to preserve and protect people's privacy so they noted in the sly's that they were not

trained it collects personally identifiable information. becomes a little hard for for us to believe that anymore because it seems like no matter what the reason they're always going to come up with some kind of an excuse to be able to monitor and to you know to collect information on american citizens and really i guess anybody who's using social networking sites on the internet and creepy i think is the perfect word to describe it jennifer thanks so much for joining me. you're welcome. coming up our tool time award tonight involves a candidate who claims that his opponent will kill puppies if he's elected and i'm not making that went up and french lawmakers are moving closer to passing a controversial new law will strip criminals aboard in other countries of their french citizenship if they are convicted of carrying out a violent crime against police officers and politicians so could something like this happen in the u.s. it's been talked about before and we're going to have a debate on the issue next. seven

thirty am in moscow good to have you with us here on our team these are your headlines go chavez once again puts the blood to the u.s. but offers russia for eternal friendship as the flamboyant live in america leader arrives in moscow on the first day of a state visit energy defense and financial affairs will be on the agenda when the bellows where the leader meets president medvedev and prime minister putin.

hurries a report from a new york think tank based on interviews with former detainees claims of prisoner abuses continue at u.s. military secret prisons abroad despite pledges from the obama administration. that are revving up not content with just staging the olympic sochi signed a six year deal to hold formula one motor racing giving it the checkered flag and there were structures first ever grand prix. stay with us part two of the a lot of shows up next hungry for the full story we've got it for. the biggest issues get a human voice face to face with the news makers. well it's time for tonight's two all time award and it goes to the democratic governor of illinois just about two weeks away things are getting pretty fun the ads keep getting more.