and there's actually a public record of what they defended say in the courtroom wells that they turn out looking like average criminals fallible mentally unstable not by any means some kind of mastermind that threatens the existence of the united states and so it's interesting to look back and remember the very loud chorus of republican lawmakers that originally attacked the obama administration for the way they handled this case they couldn't believe that somebody like a bill with paula was mirandized they wanted him to be handed over to the military they called for enhanced interrogation techniques and they called on the obama administration to have this handled in a military commission and guess what he was mirandized he spoke without being tortured and now a civilian court has convicted him and he will be serving time and nothing more will happen you know it's funny how suddenly we don't hear those voices anymore crying out that our civilian system for terrorist suspects will be a danger to our national security just another example of the hypocrisy but while those that have been arguing all along the way that this works just fine we have an

example after example to prove that there's something else that should make us pause for a minute and unfortunately despite the proof the argument may still been lost don't forget of the n.b.a. the president signed on december thirty first of last year includes a provision for the indefinite military detention of terrorist suspects including u.s. citizens this was passed by congress signed by the president despite the fact the military commissions don't have the success rate the tested method their civilian courts do despite the fact that indefinite detention puts our devotion to human rights and civil liberties into jeopardy that will now apply all the time even when our wars in iraq and afghanistan are both over adam serwer mother jones wrote about this issue today put it this way he said you think that somebody who couldn't even bloom self up right now would be a joke a punchline instead and accidentally setting himself on fire went to all of managed to inspire panic that culminated in congress altering the law. all i can add to

that one is that once again we let fear when. i guide the time for a happy hour and joining me this evening is sam sax producer of the big picture with tom hartman and dave kat nice national political reporter for politico hello gentleman oh thank you for joining us to handsome gentleman very very lucky tonight ok let's first start talking about the movie i'm sure everyone's seen the trailer already but we're going to show you a clip again anyway because i believe it comes out on monday take a look. before she was captured morales was working up jobs so it could be why she was abducted. but you're a soldier from the north. all right

so the whole thing in this movie act of valor is that some of the actors are actual active navy seals and you know it just kind of makes you wonder what that about is that cool apparently the navy seals didn't get paid anything to do the movies it's not going to go support or watch the movie like support your troops at the same time i just said today that this is military right here and we just want to warn everybody that this is a military propaganda well if you're going to make any movie and you want the department of defense involved in it it's going to be propaganda they have to sign off on all the scripts and i think it's no big surprise as can be propaganda. but i'm sure it's going to be really that it's crazy almost like it's like it's an action movie right and i don't think usually for movies that they try to make real they bring in consultants to try to make it as real as possible as you know without the receipt is like you always if you're going to be using military equipment and the like they put a lot of rules on you anyway you're going to have to sign off and here it's just

but there's a piece on the right now it's just as real navy seal. in the you know because i drank yours in the video game i'm going to be ready for war crimes very well. anyway well let's talk about saggy pants. people really don't like pants specifically in alabama alabama house of representatives well they're taking this issue up but i guess the first just residents of what they say about it. love to talk to. you. you might remember that classic song by general larry platt pants on the ground it's exactly the message folks like nineteen year old jules. or what his peers to hear is just. is very very. big parts of the house in alabama has already passed the saggy pants bill which would make it against the law to wear your pants down low and this is only in

public don't worry about it but come on people really this is big government i'm guessing republicans signed on this but this is to me look the schools have to make their own rules i think teachers should be allowed some discretion but like owners where's the line i mean it's a girl who's wearing a really tight shirt is that offensive to some people and i don't complain about that but this is more the big government this this is generational warfare i mean this is a nineteen year old saying it's funny it was cool when i was you know in middle school to where i occasionally still see my parents. and. your pants while going to is that you know one of the people that are going for this says is it infringes on another person's personal right if a student has their pants hanging down and a person has to see their underwear so it's it's are now you know you're you're taking away my rights because i have to look at your underwear it's absurd what i mean but then the next thing i mean. i mean cut off t.

shirts if someone's got nasty arms with tattoos that someone has i mean come on i mean i think like you can't wear you know see through shirts and browsing and i've recently made a pretty sizable investment in drink go that are not going to get any returns on now because of this stupid law. it hasn't completely passed no it isn't there the house is going to set it nags to add now the people who are pushing it say that if it passes the senate they really want to try to make it a state wide very wealthy. ok let's talk about this other story that happened yesterday but basically we have no fly zones in our own country i mean out of that take a look. a fixed wing plane described as a cessna one eighty two like this one was brought down at long beach airport after flying in a no fly zone according to the secret service president obama was heading back to l.a.x. aboard marine one when a cessna entered restricted airspace fighter jets scrambled from march air base and intercepted the plane forcing it to land in long beach. so it was

a drug plane and it's like you just. going to be trying to smuggle drugs in a plane and you should probably pay attention to where the president might be that day grilling really do they have to consider that i want to thank you and you know check out take everything off make sure that sophisticated that you're flying a plane to do this i mean this wasn't just you know a sixteen year old transporting you know drugs in a car this seemed to be i mean if you're in a plane transporting it that seems really like a pretty high to get off as you just get operation should put out of land o. the president is thirty miles away may want to go south i'm saying that i mean it's pretty discouraged with you know president obama has been going after marijuana for medicinal marijuana use ignoring questions and now this i know he claims you know their eyes now going to drive planes are going by how many any a mile a mile radius of no pot in the area the waste in the air. ok. let's talk about the app that the f.b.i.

basically asking people to develop for them take a look. according to online requests from law enforcement and intelligence agencies they're after software that can sift through billions of posts and weed out those words and patterns the f.b.i. claims that could help prevent terror attacks here in the united states and it could help track four and uprisings like the arab spring. when l. feel like i can't help but feel like this make that be i just seems stupid if you want to track the arab spring you just go on twitter and i really think you're going to be i terrorist to have. but you need an entire i have to you know to have somebody monitor more than i am and i don't believe that i don't have something like this already i mean we can go on and make something i mean i'm kind of new to twitter but you can make a list and follow certain people and know what's going on guys or in this world and it may just be a signal to people that hey we're in the new we were in the online game like it here so late to it maybe just don't admit it and do it kind of on the fly that's

true but you know apparently i mean there had to be a rationale for this and i think probably it's they were were more tech savvy too i mean we put i mean a lot of the critiques that was the f.b.i. wasn't wasn't prepared there yet it was not a left the cia to they were specifically how did you guys not know because they're supposed to gather intelligence but i mean i don't know if i was the f.b.i. i would maybe not publicly advertise that now i really do not know what it is and that we should be proud of our guys thanks so much for joining me tonight that's it for tonight's show thanks for tuning in ad makes a comeback on monday perhaps sheriff richard mack on the program he's an oath keeper and a former arizona sheriff and he's running for congress against the law enforcement in the meantime don't forget become a fan of the launch on facebook follow us on twitter if there's anything you never miss you tube dot com plash the on the shelf and coming up next it's an.

any match once. to. ever. eternal fire is going to think about possibly. do we old wants to see the sun for ever. wealthy british style. sometimes tightly. guarded. tight. markets why not come to. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike's cause or for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into cars a report on our good are sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something

else and you hear or see some other part of it and realize that everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture. thanks.

hello i'm tom foreman in washington d.c. and this is the big picture tonight we take a look back at two conversations with great minds that are really worth revisiting today we begin with another look at my interview with jeff clements from just a few weeks ago is the co-founder of the organization free speech for people jeff is leading the charge against corporate personhood an issue that is now at the forefront of debate in america take a look. for

tonight's conversations in great minds i'm joined by jeff. jeff is the former assistant attorney general of massachusetts and has been fighting on behalf of people business and the public interest for more than twenty years currently he's the co-founder and general counsel for the organization free speech for people which is a national nonpartisan campaign with the mission of overturning the supreme court's citizens united decision and fighting back against corporate personhood this is a movement that is nearing a tipping point in america as tens of thousands of people rallied in front of court houses across the nation earlier this month on the two year anniversary of the citizens united decision to protest corporate personhood and too much corporate influence in our democracy and it is an issue that comedian stephen colbert has taken to its logical absurdity with his super pac including his most notorious

super pac ad about mitt romney the serial killer. i really believe. that. as a result as a result of corporate personhood and the supreme court decisions like citizens united our democracy frankly is in peril and jeff is someone who can help us he's the author of the new book corporations are not people and he joins us now welcome thank you tom good to be here great to have you with us before we get into the end of the book what what got you into the law and into the massachusetts a.g.'s office well it's a long story i'll give you the short version and i was actually out of college a canvas there with greenpeace really and i was going door to door in places of rural virginia to suburban washington d.c. and other places like that talking about environmental protection and the balance

of people and and corporate power even then that's really what the environmental movement is about how we make it a more just better society for all of us and i went to law school because i saw that's where the battles were taken the we could talk about it but in the meantime the courts and the law were actually creating the results we all lived with and i wanted to have a more tools frankly to be involved in that and that effort and so i went to law school tried to keep up the fight and when i was practicing law in my first few years i got him scott harshbarger an attorney general of massachusetts at the time was leading this effort to take on the tobacco industry with many other state agencies across the country and i want to be part of it and so i banged down the door to let me and i worked on the tobacco case in the mid ninety's in the a.g.'s

office there that's great because if so great. you know in your in your own words what is corporate personhood this you your book corporations are not people yeah you know it was quite well i start the book with some acknowledgement that do we really need a book to say corporations are not people i think most americans know that the reason it does is a few who don't and unfortunately five of them are on the supreme court and so what corporate personhood is is a notion that corporations have taken on. to really the rights that belong to the people and when the due process clause and the equal protection clause and other aspects of the constitution and use the word person the corporate lawyers have hammered away for years as as you know more than anyone to take the rights of people and so that's the fight against corporate personhood now it

shouldn't be confused with the state law of treating corporations with a metaphor of personhood so we we can sue them they can sue they can sign contracts and so forth but we the people make those laws the delaware corporate laws made it's made by the delaware state legislature and if if we the people decide a person metaphors useful one for some purposes that's fine but that has nothing to do with the constitution and so we confuse those two at our peril as the supreme court showed in citizens united the corporations along with other institutions governments churches typically it's been those three suppose you could throw in unions or non-profits. all the way back to the seventh century british common law have had a person who had status as you point out so they could pay taxes on property sue and be sued but it's always been a unique status separate from that of natural persons humans like you and me. when

did that start to break down or before. well you know. in my view it's constantly blurry and if we're not careful and so this has been a struggle in the american our american story back to the beginning and the revolution has of course the tea party from my hometown of boston was about throwing the india corporate corporate tea into the harbor exactly they had a special privilege from the british crown and the you know the settlers the cult colonialist wanted to be able to trade with whomever they chose the not have to deal with the corporate monopoly that the british were imposing on us at the time and that is a refrain throughout american history andrew jackson was fighting the first bank of america and you can talk more about the current iteration of bank of america but that idea that these corporations get special privileges from the government and then use those special privileges to leverage that advantage leverage the wealth

and try to get more power i think is a constant story it's one of the things that go with a corporate charter is a threat and i think we always understood that and occasionally we forget it or we lose some battles like with santa clara in the gilded age took away our constitutional rights because we didn't keep an adequate eye on corporate power but we pushed back with the progressive era the new deal again in the sixty's and seventy's we had to push back and now we have to do it again and i think this idea that the line gets blurred it will happen if we don't manage what in the book i call corporations or they're a tool that's where they're not a person they're nothing more exotic than a tool and they're like gasoline or guns you know they have purposes but if you don't keep an eye on them they get out of control i don't think most people understand what a corporate charter is or was i state charter law even what state charter laws are

you know setting aside all. the oddities of things like the charter modern era and of the nineteenth century or so but what is a corporate charter and and out of that i guess doesn't that define what is a corporation i think so yes and so the corporate charter is quite simple actually you cannot incorporate without government permission in effect there is no such thing as a corporation existing in nature a group of people cannot get together and form a corporation without government rules and the charter that comes from government anyone is free to associate you're free to start a business you can form a partnership we can do all kinds of activity we can organize as a church or a religious institution and there are nonprofit but if we want to be a corporation you have to go to the government by definition under the law and all

of our states have state incorporation laws and i'm sure you know many many people know that you when you want to incorporate you actually go down to the secretary of state so you do it online now and you get what is it a corporate charter and it's better to have a get a birth certificate i'm going to put it that way because there are people of course i'm an exacto you get you get what the state what the people of the state have decided are the privileges and benefits that come with incorporation and we used to remember they come with responsibilities and duties back to the public to and that's what we're losing in full and i mean what's the reason why we would even have corporate charter laws why would why would a state in the first place the corporations today are very different than they were in the era of jefferson and washington. we didn't have i mean the early corporations were created in the early nineteenth century to do things like degree

can now i mean the they were not you know was until after the civil war within. so so why would in the modern sense why would we even. have a corporation well there's there's good policy reasons for it and in my view. before i go there let me say that i have some debates with my libertarian friends about citizens united and corporate power and so forth and i tease them that you know no self respecting libertarian would go down and ask the government for all these privileges and some of them actually are saying you know you're right maybe we should abolish corporations and take you know you shouldn't have limited liability and all of the government favors that come with the corporate charter it's basically and i actually don't agree with that i think corporations do serve a useful purpose limited liability is it sounds like oh that's not good people get limitations on their liability but it does help bring capital to places where we

need it to bring investment where might not happen otherwise it does it is useful to have perpetual life so that when a president of a company is is fired or moves on the company doesn't have to disband and you know lay off the workers and return the money to the investors and start all over again that has some continuity which is useful so there are good policy reasons for it. but that's certainly open to debate that's what we should that's the kind of debate we should have if we are going to give limited liability should we give it to coal companies that are taking five hundred mountains and raided them in appalachia and dumped in the mountains into the streams for twenty five hundred miles of streams are gone now that kind of limited liability maybe is not such a good idea should be peace shareholders really be exempt from the disaster in the gulf of mexico no liability for when they got the profits for years of safety cut in there was a good debate haven't we maybe we should be exploring if we are going to have

corporations what are the rules that we the people right. for them right and seems that they've been writing the rules for themselves for a long time i think that's right through through lobbying and through corporate through influence of both politicians i think that's right in the worst thing about citizens united on this constitutional speak to corporate speech corporate rights is now when we try to write some rules they get struck down by the assembly the corporate takeover of our bill of rights so even when we're stepping up to say well no we're going to put some controls and and balance in the system we have this sort of corporate theory that allows the courts to strike those laws down i want to get into the modern iteration of this you track it back to lewis paul i think it's a brilliant analysis and let's get to that right after the break ok we'll be right back more conversations with great minds with jeff clements coming up right after this break.

any much one seat. to. ever. turtles are these thinkable possible. do we old wants to see this on forever. wealthy british style. time to rise. markets why not come to. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mikes concert for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into kinds a report on our g.

cultures that so much given to you each musician upright and find the mark left syria in the spiral of violence minus the west refuse to describe events being played out in syria as a civil war why is there such me. welcome

back to conversations with great minds have joined by jeff clements co-founder and general counsel of the group free speech for people and author of the new book corporations are not people let's go back to a brilliant book with a forward by bill moyers i should add and a blurb on the back from tom hartman. if i find myself in good company who was lewis paul lewis powell was really the father of the new corporate rights movement he was a lawyer in richmond virginia in the one nine hundred sixty s. he joined the board of directors of the philip morris tobacco company the cigarette company he was on the board of about a dozen other big corporations corporate lawyer and in about nine hundred seventy

after witnessing twenty million people twenty million americans come out into the streets to demand better controls on earth day april nine hundred seventy to demand better balance about air pollution rivers catching on fire toxic waste dump basically corporate corporations externalizing everything poisonous and toxic and keeping the profits american said enough and we got a wave of environmental reform the first e.p.a. clean water act clean air act endangered species act and so on the incredible wave of reform with richard nixon in the white house but lewis powell the corporate lawyer in richmond virginia looked at this and was appalled democracy was working he called it the attack on the free enterprise system and he wrote a memo to the chamber of commerce outlining a multi-year corporate funded organized corporations to fight back

and to fight back really against democracy work and put in some kind of balance into our into our system of economic system and into the amazing thing about this memo. talk about in the book how explicit and detailed it was from using activist minded courts he called it to create corporate rights to change the political legal and economic structure of america that was his goal and the amazing thing is six months after writing this memo to the chamber of commerce president nixon appointed him to the supreme court and he got his chance to do just that did did nixon in your opinion no the paul was all about this kind of stuff you know let's because it causes so many things came out of this away from heritage and cato and all these think tanks and federalist. or did nixon just think he was a because he had been asked before to be on the supreme court he turned it down yeah and at the time nixon actually had two nominations that had gone south.