vote details are while high school teacher faces serious fines after holding a pre-registration boding drive for her students. drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to break through it through the maid who can you trust no one who is in view with a global mission to receive where we had a state controlled capitalism is called sasha's when nobody dares to ask we do our t. question more.

welcome back to the big picture i'm tom hartman coming up in this half hour a florida high school teacher attempting to teach her students about democracy by helping them register to vote could now face thousands of dollars in fines so where is the democracy in that and with president obama's impressive record in foreign policy and what fear factor if the republicans use it in next year's presidential election now the terrorism bogeyman are being wiped out.

in our steal the vote news if you try to register new voters in florida be prepared to pay the price a new law pushed by republicans who took effect in the sunshine state back in july places a slew of burdens on people or groups who register new voters requiring them to submit paperwork to the state first and then to abide by strict new guidelines on how quickly the voter registration forms are returned to the state i school teacher jill sister ali who just wanted to make sure students or school could engage in our nation's democracy the hard way what happens if you don't jump through each and every who through. just her vote voters in accordance with the new law she's now facing thousands of dollars in by its currently the a.c.l.u. is challenging that law as unconstitutional and the league of women voters has suspended their voter registration drives in that state in the state of florida out

of fear that they could be fined too just like joe was so now we have red states around the country passing unconstitutional voter id laws to make it harder for people to vote and down in rick scott's florida they're also passing laws to make it harder to register people to vote what's going on here. now joins me now she's the president of the league of women voters in florida during their welcome to the program a time it's a pleasure to be really busy thanks for joining us first is this new law new law actually making it harder to register new voters. unquestionably it is and it's it's very unfortunate because your viewers i'm sure are very familiar with the year two thousand and difficulties that florida faced as really the poster child in the country not to run elections we've made a lot of progress since that year with new machinery a paper trail the expansion of early voting and then what we've seen just in the

last few years is that berry consistent efforts make it harder for our citizens in florida to get registered and harder for them to cast their vote just just this year in the legislative session they put into place a number of laws and the voter registration difficulties that you alluded to with a high school teacher is just one of several elements they cut early voting hours and days than have made it harder for people around the state asked regular ballot and they pretty much clamp down enormously with this new set of very burdensome very vague and as one supervisor of election put it i thought very eloquently a frustrating and an in we're supposed number of laws with regard to voter registration we have some more on the order of almost a dozen depending on how you count the states that have pretty much same day

registration and recollection is right it's in north dakota might be solved by mix and. you don't even need to register to vote you just show up the day of the elections say here i am. why all this folderol and in florida. well actually i think those states have seen a voter registration at the ritz you can go to the polls on election day but you do need to register according to to my knowledge we certainly don't have that place in florida but for years in our state and for seventy two years the league of women voters has registered voters all across the state and we haven't had any problem. voters taxpayers paid thirty million dollars or eighty state wide electronic database that is excellent we have independently elected supervisors of election like the woman and all that i mentioned earlier who do a really excellent job and we've seen so many good things take place in florida but

it's really discouraging and really quite outrageous to see our legislators take us back in time in this way it is one one particular reaches element that they also passed addition to the clamping down on voter registration and as you mentioned we have a moratorium we fight this in the courts is we had such popular early voting in florida that governor arrest in two thousand and ten mandated emergency extension of the hours well this new law will cut the number of days in half including ending the sunday before election day which is one of the most popular early voting days there is an in particularly and in particular very very popular with our minority voters if this law is not necessary and it's going to reduce the number of people who can vote particular minority voters why do the why was the push through the legislature and why did rick scott simon. well i'm the wrong person to answer that question

because what we were doing was encouraging people to study the law understand it and contact the governor's office if i didn't i understand you not can you not in politics but was there any indication that there was fraud in getting registering people voting or was there any indication of a need for this law. well what we've said is this was a solution in search of a problem the legislature and the governor were never able to come forward with any specific instances of fraud interestingly the secretary of state what i will note is an appointee of the governor and independently elected even he said we don't have a problem with voter fraud in florida and was i think it's prized by really this voter suppression bill that came out of the legislature it's his role as the governor's appointee to implement it and he did so with absolute deliberate speed

in an unprecedented rush where he didn't even wait for the department of justice to review it which is wired by federal law and he didn't even wait for the rules to be written in terms of how it would be implemented and we've never never seen an election law implemented before without waiting for those two steps so it's been an extraordinary year it's particularly disturbing when we are all in the throes of a major national presidential election and the league along with other organizations is fighting it we're fighting in the courts we have a temporary moratorium on voter registration we are hopeful that this can be worked out but it is absolutely unacceptable we feel to put our volunteers in the situation you mentioned the high school teacher like tim sons who graduated from public i was used to voters and i would tell them to be a doctor register voters they have to go down even as individuals to register friend and register as

a third party group take an oath of office and have to be possibly open to community of financial as well as simple charges that suits them here thank you so much for being with us today thank you joe. you know in in my opinion here the bottom line is that republicans realize that the only way they can win elections is if they can keep poor people working people young people and the elderly away from the polls thus efforts like this to criminalize voter registration. just. do the good the bad and the very very human ten plea of guilty good anonymous the hacker activist group took a break from rooting out and demonstrating against corporate corruption to take

down a child porn ring on the internet what they called operation dark net anonymous claims it took down a website containing over one hundred gigs of child pornography and made public the names of nearly sixteen hundred users on the web site anonymous is now targeting a company that alleges whether knowingly or not was hosting the child porn site as well as other similar sites company known as freedom host whether it's lending support to occupy wall street and covering corporate crimes or bust up child porn rings anonymous is filling the void left by other institutions we seem to have forgotten how to do their jobs. the bad the t.s.a. now we should the transportation security administration keep its hands to itself with all the growing checks but it needs to keep its lewd comments to itself to a writer jill filipovic arrived at her hotel room she found one of those t.s.a. notes in her bag informing her that an agent had randomly opened and searched it apparently during that random search the agent also found

a personal item of hers on that vibrates so the agent decided to personalize the t.s.a. notification letter with their own comment writing on the back of the paper get your freak on girl. philip philip of etiquette is called no wildly inappropriate just when you thought they couldn't be more perverse i'm sure we'll be hearing many more horror stories of the holiday travel season kicks into high gear next. and the very very ugly brian kilmeade almost war weary americans are thrilled to hear the troops are coming back home from iraq at the end of the year talking head brian kilmeade isn't today he has to president obama's decision could mean that the lives of four thousand plus soldiers who died there were we still. have all our blood and money have been wasted if we don't find a way to leave iraq in peace and that was one of the reasons why you owe it to those who are very lost their lives have been wounded in battle to try to win this

thing and we did it in the happened four thousand five hundred and forty nine americans have been killed in iraq could if this goes afoul could their lives be wasted absolutely i get it now so called news wants to deny president obama to the foreign policy achievement of winding down the iraq war that's fine that's what they do and you bring in dead american soldiers to say ending an illegal war might render lost lives wasted that's a new low. we should all be able to agree that bringing soldiers home is a good thing and losing one more soldier in a war that doesn't need to be fought would be a true tragedy box so-called news not realizing that it's very clearly. coming up big brother is expanding but the f.b.i. is new toys could mean for our individual privacy rights.

and drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to break through it through the plane made who can you trust no one who is you know view with the global machinery to see where we. had a state controlled capitalism and schooled satchels when nobody dares to ask we do our tea question more.

the f.b.i. doesn't know where to find you know. they will soon be getting in january and continuing over the next few years the f.b.i. will be setting up its next generation identification n.g.i. service in law enforcement an impressive new tool to track down criminals or just keep tabs on all of us this new n.g.i. system will expand the f.b.i.'s current database comprised mostly of fingerprints and mug shots with new biometric identifiers things like iris scans palm prints photos and voice data also with the help of new facial recognition software that will be up and running in all fifty states within three years running just about anyone would be easier than ever for law enforcement currently the f.b.i. has over seventy million subjects' that's what people in its master database and more than thirty one million sets of fingerprints that's as many files as roughly

one third of the population outing so as much as we all like the idea of criminals being phone quicker and easier and i think most of us do not this is new technology mean for the rest of us who aren't criminals. the f.b.i. has a new high tech rollout be disastrous for individual privacy yes that question ginger mccall joins me now she's the open government counsel and i p i o p program director at epic the electronic privacy information center to change what about thank you for having great great having you with us. first off what should people be worried about with this new and. n.g.i. program it's very problematic from a privacy standpoint and a freedom of expression standpoint as was mentioned in one of your earlier segments there's a real chilling effect on feet of expression when you feel like you're being constantly surveilled by the government and and. well but if people don't know i mean if

they're discreet about it is is that chilling effect still or oh it's still very problematic because the way that this new database will be set up it will allow for information to be input from state and local law enforcement that information could be brought in from commercial sources it could be brought in from covert surveillance as we know in the past the f.b.i. has had a bit of a problem putting in. they've been putting in peaceful protesters and classifying them mis classifying them as terrorists so you bear a lot of problems with the source of databases and if my understanding of this is right for example there are shootings across the square like crazy or any other year the n.y.p.d. this turns up in their database if you just happen to be walking through there on your way someplace boom you're in the database yeah you could be and this is a particular problem in combination with for that matter you shouldn't be in the database for being as you know legally in the first place but and that's the chilling effect on free expression i mean we already know there are cameras all

over now if you look around you in d.c. any street corner or south street corner standing on you can probably spot at least three or four cameras from that corner these surveillance cameras that covertly and sometimes. openly observe people surveil them record them. one of the one of the way is. historically i mean george orwell really wrote this large before but it's nothing new it's been going on since probably as long as humans and that around it and we we saw it with largely middle ages and we see it regards now with country countries like burma. that countries oppress their people it's quite basically creating lots and lots of very small was. criminalized things that people ordinarily do by moving around in those kinds of things jaywalking and and then build database on all the crimes that somebody is committed and then once somebody steps over a political line come down like

a ton of bricks and there's a very famous quote to that extent i believe it was coming out of russia many years ago you find me the mad i'll find it a crime yeah and there was a book written on this harvey silverglade i believe his name was three felonies that day and the theory is that for any of us out there trying to obey the law still every day we will have committed at least three felonies felonies yikes so that's you know you so i mean the man i'll find you a crime right so when the government has a database that includes basically all of us and should our government drift in in a direction you know if we had three three more george bushes in a row in my opinion is meant by personal politics. you know driving our country home or in a less civil libertarian direction so. that i guess that the question answers itself. why didn't we've already seen problems with this the f.b.i. has already been mis classifying peaceful protesters infusion center databases as

being terrorists and being classified that we can have profound implications on your life on your interaction with law enforcement your ability to gain employment clearances i mean it's very problematic and of. if the database is large enough and i mean it's it's kind of. watching c.s.i. or hawaii fiber or something like that you know one of these programs where they get high tech police departments and they say well our purposes you know and the face comes up but what if they were saying well our person who challenge the president today is true and and you know i mean it's like it could be written so easily to be so scary how do we should we and if so how do we push back on this. i think the court of public opinion i think that we need to push back on all of these national security so-called national security agencies push back on the law enforcement agencies push back on v.h.s. f.b.i.

joan we want criminals we do we do but we want criminals caught while our privacy rights in our rights to assemble and our rights of expression are still protected so this is is there any mechanism in place right now. that helps clarify that why. how do you mean so that you know were a judge or an individual using using the a law suit you know for it's kind of thing or whatever could say you've stepped over the line take it out of the database show me that i mean that database stop doing that kind of action there is nothing that we've seen it for this most recent database it may be subject to the privacy act but who knows i mean a lot of law enforcement databases for example the terrorist screening database are exempt from the privacy act that privacy act would normally allow a person to say to the government what records you have on it what information do

you happen to me and then if there's an error to correct that to petition for correction and in a lot of law enforcement databases people simply don't have that right ok ginger thank you very much for being with the same thing if nothing else you know it's like wait people live yeah. this is a curious state complex within our government is growing larger and larger and as i discussed earlier in this show where the right wing assault on voter was because ability for managing this new massive security complex is slowly disappearing that could be a recipe for disaster. there's no question about it next year's election will be historic and it will be vitally important but it will also be wholly unique unlike any election ever before and that's because neither party is going into it with its usual strategy the

republican bogeyman role played over the last sixty years by communists muslims since nine eleven is dead. when president obama killed bin laden it took the steam out of their bogeyman strategy and to make matters worse obama had earlier gone to egypt and said in essence tear down these dictators hoping to spark the arab spring and totally deflating the republican fear machine which now sputters along on the fringes trembling about bachmann's gaze and santorum is fertilised eggs and berries immigrants and heck throw in the likelihood of norman romney's presidential candidacy and that means republicans can even add god to their traditional gays guns and god trinity of g.o.p. terrors without someone or something to be afraid of republicans are truly lost laundering in the wilderness unfortunately so are the

democrats just as often as republicans of use the billion in strategy to win elections democrats have used the santa clause strategy as in give people stuff that they were not like unemployment insurance social security medicare the forty hour work week safe workplaces clean air and water the minimum wage but the american people needed they got and they got it from the democrats play in the world of sound but thanks to a strategy laid out by reagan advisor jude when in ski more than thirty years ago democrats are on the verge of shooting santa just as when he had planned as i've talked about on this show numerous times when is he encouraged republicans to play santa by giving people tax cuts and run a massive deficit so that when democrats eventually came into office there would be a so-called debt crisis and democrats wouldn't be able to give away any more stuff

. in fact the so-called debt crisis would be so bad the democrats would have to play scrooge and take stuff away start cutting the social safety net eventually they'd have to shoot santa reagan dutifully ran up more debt in eight years than every president from george washington to jimmy carter by herbert walker bush followed reagan's lead adding trillions more to the debt thrown in a war for good effort so when clinton came into office republicans went to phase two and began screaming about the debt crisis and clinton bought into it a dutifully shot the santa clause of welfare as we know it and kneecaps the era of big government then when clinton left it was right back to business as usual with george w. bush but when ski's program on steroids adding almost six trillion to the national debt and a couple more wars for three decades when is the strategy has worked brilliantly

for republicans and their rich donors with the added bonus of largely wiping out the once politically active and pesky unionized middle class three republican presidents ran the nation's debt up to such incredibly high levels that president obama is now talking about shooting santa claus cutting medicare and other benefits so that's where we stand today republicans are trying to gin back up any fear card they can find because to their chagrin nobody is really all that afraid any more of a cognitive or frankly even the muslims and democrats meanwhile are trying to revive cynical as the republicans in the house and senate are successfully locking their efforts to raise the taxes on rich people and corporations necessary to bring santa back to life so at least for the moment it's dueling straw man

republicans are already thinking ahead and have chosen their next looking at occupy wall street. and they're using g.o.p. t.v. a k. foxx news and a well funded pundit tucker c to push out the message but frankly i don't think it's going to work unlike in the sixty's when hippies were turned into a billion internet stock for a while republicans will have a much more time demonizing the occupy wall street folks that's because this isn't just about ending wars so that young people aren't drafted like it was in the sixty's this is about the economic livelihood of the ninety nine percent this isn't just college kids in the streets young people now are being joined by teachers cops firefighters heart ads unions wide swaths of the american electorate who collectively feel that they're being economically screwed and in fact are good luck turning that into a bogeyman as for the democrats they have

a strategy to their repeatedly but unsuccessfully bringing before congress proposals to revive santa with unemployment insurance extensions jobs for infrastructure teachers and cops and free health care for the growing class of the working poor via medicare but the election of two thousand and ten stripped obama of the electoral advantage he needed to actually pass any of the senate clause legislation so the only hope he has is that the american people see that at least democrats are trying to bring senate back to life and the republicans keep paul unplugged that's why president obama has been acting more like harry truman lately and running against a do nothing congress so far the polls haven't confirmed whether or not it's working so maybe that's why the electorate seems largely asleep and political discussions seem vapid the other side has its trusty go to platform to fall back on . another attack on america before november twelfth twenty four or the o.

ws movement turning brown and hopefully neither will happen republicans have lost their bogeyman. and as long as the tea party has controlled the house of representatives and that control remains unbroken the democrats have lost access so they're cynical meanwhile thirty years or reaganomics and clinton's insane free trade policies and seen are to destroy the american middle class as the old chinese curse goes we live in interesting us that's the big picture for tonight for more information on the stories we covered visit our websites of. free speech that organ argy dot com also check out our two you tube channels there alongside tom harkin. also tom harpur dot com check out all the different ways you can send us your feedback and don't forget to mark receive begins with get out there and get active tags. see.

the body of her.