now in. ten years after the terror attack that changed the face of the us new york per se the n.y.p.d. is doing its finest if i find they mean secretly monitoring the muslim and local communities and in some cases forcing entrapment i'll tell you about the secret mind the n.y.p.d. . and it is might not have much faith in religion but they also don't have any in politics these days they rallied in d.c. over the weekend with a simple message keep god out of government states want to. be true it doesn't work it's made it clear you got all of. what's in

a name that well turns out lots and lots of money may look like a pizza but when you call it a vegetable hundreds of thousands of school kids in america get be counted as one too bad it doesn't lessen the calories or change the reality that supersized the lobbying firms often get to decide what our children eat show you how america's obesity industrial complex is fattening up their wallet. and good evening it's monday march twenty sixth eight pm in washington d.c. i'm christine and you're watching our team. let's begin a talking about something that's been going on for a while now in new york city it's a program you've probably heard about we told you about before but it seems to be expanding and also gaining a lot more attention this is a new york police department surveillance program which was created to quote keep the city safe from terrorism was ended up happening is that quite

a few innocent muslims have been targeted information about where they shop and you business is that recorded a lot of people are starting to look at the program and say in many cases what's going on is entrapment trying to get some of these people to take part in or help plan things that they wouldn't normally and then turn around and arrest them so a whole lot of new yorkers don't actually this is a problem when asked if the n.y.p.d. has been effective in combating terrorism eighty two percent of people say yes fourteen percent no and in the same quinnipiac university poll when asked if and life he has unfairly targeted muslims to combat terrorism just twenty nine percent of people say yes so at least when it comes to the p.r. war the n.y.p.d. appears to be winning now earlier i spoke with cyrus mcgoldrick civil rights manager for the council on american islamic american islamic relations and i asked him about the legality of the surveillance program and here's his take. it's a very interesting question i think because being born and raised in this country i

hesitate to conflate law with morality in the country were slavery and then segregation was legal but it's a question that we all have to deal with no when we investigate this program absolutely i think we're going to want to test it that's for sure i know that some people on the inside have started to come out including x. informant a man named craig until he came forward and basically said he was given the green light to do whatever it took he was working in california he converted to islam spent hours and hours every day at the mosque and recorded conversations on his key chain and even was told that it was no problem is fine to have sex with women in able to in order to be able to record their pillow talk so as a result of him acting suspicious members of the orange county muslim community in california actually reported him and got a restraining order against him what do you think it says that people are starting to come out and tell these stories about what they were allowed to do. i think it's

really important all of this because one thing you mentioned was the propaganda and another thing that's very important is entrapment when we look at the number of the over a dozen terrorism quote unquote terrorism cases that have happened since nine eleven that were foiled by the f.b.i. or the n.y.p.d. look at every single one of those cases whether you listen to craig or whether you read the transcripts from cases like the newburgh four from and for a case that's ongoing right now you can see that there radicalizes and this is a term is very common here now in counterterrorism work that radicalizes in our mosques are the n.y.p.d. and the f.b.i. informants across the board one hundred percent of the time is unbelievable and for them to be not just stopping crimes because this is not with this is about their manufacturing crimes they're manufacturing the idea of the muslim menace and it's translating into counterterrorism dollars coming to new york city i think one of the arguments that i hear quite often is that you know if people associate what

happened on nine eleven and they say well this happened in muslim countries that we need to do more investigating we need to do more intelligence gathering in mosques around this country do you think that that is just blanket wrong or do you think that that way that they're going about it is wrong. oh absolutely i think on all accounts there are many ways that they could have approached the issue of picking up the pieces from nine eleven i think the majority of the hijackers were saudi arabian was didn't seem to be the identity that was most salient to the media but i think the law here it's my understanding the law here says that you cannot open files on citizens or anyone here to be honest any law abiding people unless is specific evidence of a crime being committed specific evidence of a crime that's not what's going on here if you look at the n.y.p.d. documents that have led to the associated press reporting look at the demographics unit the powerpoint presentation from the n.y.p.d. describing this they were doing this based on twenty nine ancestries of interest twenty eight was some majority countries in the twenty ninth being the american black muslim they're looking for

a signifiers of religious observance political activity and i think even about evidence of a crime or leads being mentioned at all that's not what i pay tax dollars to the police to do this is obviously about criminalizing faith criminalizing dissent and control how it was made an impact in mosques around new york city i mean are people more worried to be frightened anyone a is this a really big concern still. absolutely i've heard this from a number of people a little bit more outspoken about my own views because i've got a committed to this but on the other hand there are lots of people who come forward and said that they're uncomfortable talking about politics that they're uncomfortable even talking about religion and their religious beliefs with people that they don't know with people outside of the family people even distrusting other family members who have worked for the police department or for the f.b.i. or the counterterrorism agencies because people don't feel safe we see people disappearing we see people being convicted of terrorism crimes when there's no evidence of a crime being committed whatsoever this is fundamentally devastating the fabric of

this country and is it's one manifestation is right here in the muslim community in new york city but it's happening not just us but many communities many of the active communities and political communities around the country as cyrus in my introduction to you i put up the results of a poll that was conducted and basically what we saw is that eighty two percent of people in new york think that the n.y.p.d. is doing its job talking and what do you think that's that. well on the one hand very glad that our constitution is not subject to a simple majority because i think the majority of this country supported slavery the majority of this country supported segregation even the in term and of japanese during world war two was supported by the supreme court and it took fifty years for them to get an apology and reparations from that but on the other hand i think that propaganda is absolutely a part of this work for the n.y.p.d. the headlines the steady supply of headlines that they're entrapment operations

have provided certainly keeps people living in fear every time that they are faced there on the court on their heels their face with another n.y.p.d. document another damning document about just showing that this is the definition of ethnic and religious profiling they trot out one more bogeyman they put up another picture of a muslim and they say that we're here to keep you safe from this and what they're doing is using the fear of islam and i think they're using the fear of islam to get to all of your civil rights to the rest of america civil rights and unfortunately it's working and certainly targeting muslims was the centerpiece of the surveillance program but it turns out it's not just muslims the associated press reported that the n.y.p.d. is also doing the same with a lot of liberals in new york city undercover cops sent to collapse information at meetings held my peace pole liberal activist apparently they're taking that information they've created a database on certain leaders and the protests across america that they're planning what do you think about it i mean how is this allowed to go on. it is really not

a big surprise i think a lot of the times this is treated as a revelation i think a lot of was already do this not just based on personal complaints but just based on common sense honestly the details of this program it would sound like cliche fiction if we didn't have the documents to prove it from the police department so amazing i think was bad enough when it was religious leadership it was bad enough when it was college students it was bad enough when it was elementary students who were being surveilled by a video camera but now that it has any peaceful protest group anybody that would dare challenge the violent status quo that exists in surveilled and there have files being kept on them based on nothing more than peaceful political or sometimes religious behavior i don't know how this is allowed to go on hopefully the report that came out last week will start to wake people up their mind then this is not about keeping them safe this is not about keeping the muslims at bay this is about control this is about criminalizing dissent not only do the ends not justify the means but the means don't even make sense for the ends that were allegedly trying

to achieve it i really don't know what it's going to take and it is interesting i know when the police commission commissioner ray kelly was questioned about it he said it defaults of the associated press the a.p. is targeting the police department it's always interesting to spin machine at work when you keep an eye on it tires mcgoldrick a civil rights manager for the council on american islamic relations thanks so much thank you christine. well over the weekend there was a large gathering of people here in washington out near the national mall by some estimates between ten and twenty thousand people members of the country's most secular organizations they were here for the reason rally and the goal was to give these people the opportunity to get together with like minded people to dispel negative opinions i held about people who don't believe in god president is by the way things come up even more often and election years but the rally was hailed as a success and included speakers and even a performance by members of the group religion r t sent

a crew to the rally to speak to some of those in attendance and to find out a little more about who are good people who are good with religion real. dirty in the sky looking over us to make sure that when we have other reasons to be good. we are a force to be reckoned with a great big ground zero of this cultural revolution where we're all coming out in massive numbers there's this climate of fear and shame most atheists don't even have atheist on their records they're told that they're not even it's not even an option because we're people too and it's cool again we're not trying to change you make you. well it's not every day this happens and so we wanted to talk more about it with david silverman the president of american atheists. hi david i guess just to start off tell me a little more about the rally what was the point well the purpose of the reason really was to make us so rare that the american a relation to this law has been growing and growing in record numbers we are seeing

it's growing but we just segment in all fifty states and the other part of the reason rally was to make sure that the media there the quadri it's new that they are not alone not only are they not alone but. they have a lot of good company you say are the fastest growing religious segment isn't the whole point of being not religious you know there's really no good way to give that they don't know really if you call it a religious dogma is there's just no good way around it atheism is the absence of religion and atheism is growing faster than any religious segment in all or let me restate atheism is growing faster than every religious segment in all fifty states and yet now let me ask you something you know i mentioned earlier it feels like at least in an election year there's so much more talk about god and religion than in other times i want to you think there is such

a focus on religion in the political sphere in a country that has as part of its come constitution that congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion you know this wall of separation between church and state as it often as it is often called i know it's still such a focal point. well that's because it works when you've got politicians who have nothing to say they bring in god and they say god wants me to run for president and if you're gonna be like me your vote for me and it works the politicians in this country are market driven and we want to let them know that every time they say god wants me to run for a come to run for president it sounds a lot like god wants me to take the country to war and we want to we want the politicians just not talking about god not to talk about atheism or religion but to actually talk about the issues what we makes them important beyond what religion the reason that we had in two thousand and twelve was to retract attention to the

fact that there is so much religion in politics that mr santorum says he will never say never go to the pope does not make the pope president if he becomes president does mitt romney actually wear underwear that he thinks is magic. and is up against what else will he believe let me ask you again because we're looking at pictures right now from the rally over the weekend. looks like it was raining and so a lot of people were there is there anything that people were protesting. oh we're protesting our own reputation we're protesting the reputation that atheist first of all don't exist second of all that we're not important and third that we're not moral or not worth the attention of the american political career arena and not worthy of recall it in the hearts and minds of america since we were talking those winds we're not looking for any sort of a civic legislation we just demand equality we demand to be heard and i think this

past weekend we were heard loud and clear and we were also just happen pictures of what was taking place sort of outside and around the rally there were some protesters who came who disagree with your message let me say really quickly what one person said and then we'll talk about it. and get this recent rally the reason i haven't heard any reason for emotion or anger and they said they were not going to bash religion. i'm not sure if you were able to hear but basically he said and i read on your web site i'm sorry on the web site for the reason rally that it said you know this is a positive event this is not a place to bash religion and some of the protesters outside say that's in fact exactly what happened. but they were standing there with really offensive signs we had blood all over the place diversity equality charity compassion we had good positive energy and good positive events you know some people were trashing

religion but not specifically not just specifically the religion but the negative that religion has on society and on individuals and it's real and it's bad and that's not what hate is this carrying a big stock in the ted god hates fags that's real pain and that's what some religious religion will get you the reason rally world the positive event we had a lot of fun you know we did talk about religious effect on and on american propriety and religious. because they're negative they're bad and we have every right to be angry that they are a lot of that religion has a lot to do negative things to well minded people especially well minded people. but the the whole concept that there was any it was it was no a student from the stage at all for the entire event or any person or any group of people really gosh were legit not religious people but now one of the things that

when you talk about religious groups whether we're talking about christian groups muslim groups jewish groups one of the things that they're often hailed for is to go into certain parts of this country going to other countries and doing good work now and a lot of times that is in the name of converting people or in the name of god but but a lot of you know the homeless shelters the orphanages. you know food lines the shelters these are run often by religious groups they're certainly not doing it to gain recognition they're doing it because they believe that it's what god wants them to do i'm wondering is there any plan that you know of by atheist groups in this country to continue to as you say protest that reputation by doing good works oh you know there's a lot of it because charity is the foundation beyond belief doctors without borders even the red cross is a secular charity one of the things that those charities yes they do good work and yes the churches are sometimes used as a vehicle for good work but they are also used as a vehicle coincidentally proselytizing their religion in making converts that's

where the baptist group religion is where you get somebody who's just water and desperate to meet his family and you say all you have to do is work to christianity and you can have steak dinners but they do it pretty quickly and it's very repugnant and it's awful and one of the bins that we think we should be doing is instead of spending the money on huge opulent churches right here in this country and in other countries as well we should be spending all that money to feed the hungry to. or you know god have. to do a lot more than just a little bit and say we're doing a lot which is what religion are and certainly an interesting discussion and one i don't mean it's not often had david silverman president of american atheists we do appreciate you being here on with us today thank you very much for having me. all right let's switch gears now and talk about obesity major problem especially for

many children across this country and there are of course quite a few people who spend time looking for solutions but recently the government has stood accused of turning a blind eye to a trend that's causing diabetes and heart disease about profit for giant from corporations are to correspondent. has more. it's a supersized crisis impossible for america to disguise an insatiable love for food and big portions has served up a nationwide majority of overweight children none of us want this future for our kids as first lady michelle obama attempts to tackle the epidemic by advocating more exercise healthy eating and penning a book about the white house garden u.s. lawmakers are getting kudos for stirring the how problem which i employed in a single woman tension fear will be given to the allure of. the recent decision by the congress to send pizza was

a vegetable you heard correctly the greasy cheesy cheap meal known as pizza is served as a lunch table to thirty two million public school children how because u.s. department of agriculture guidelines qualify to teach full speed of tomato paste as an official veggie survey in november u.s. congress rejected a request from the department that would have changed requirements and ultimately removed from school menus congress is really. schoen who controls them and that's the big corporations and the big three corporations companies like. these are the makers of the is frozen pizza and they have huge financial interest in that obviously we're going to publish reports food companies spend five point six billion dollars this year lobbying specifically to keep pizza friendly u.s.d.a. guidelines in cleats this social consequence of overweight kids has

a million skirt lee battling diabetes and millions more vulnerable to heart disease and shortened life expectancy we know that one in three children are obese or overweight in this country one in five four year olds are over are obese actually which is astounding and the fact that congress is not willing to change the food policy in our school cafeterias to benefit the health of our children is really appalling granted issues such as corporate control and obesity are not new problems for america but over the years a hunger for profits has compromised the health of an entire generation the u.s. department of defense says twenty five percent of young americans are too overweight to join the military and that would make it so that experts say the threats to national security.

our short but quite totally unscientific poll found americans picking logic over the world of their lawmakers like pizza. it doesn't work at the minute. which are true this story serves no that's not what this part. it's what the nutritional value of. whatever it is i don't like whatever they're feeding in. knowing that u.s. leaders have a hand in cooking up the radiance and also leave a bad taste in many melts. r.t. new york. and for more on how fattening up the american public and their own wallets as well earlier i spoke with christopher cook he is the author of the book diet for a dead planet and i asked his opinion about this relationship between food and

political and corporate control in america. well this is a long developing story for decades now corporations are beginning more and more control over the american food supply on the global food supply and we're now at a situation where for instance just four companies control almost eighty five percent of the entire meat supply in america today and across the board processed food shipped in work best for companies controlling forty to fifty percent or sixty percent of the entire market just around wal-mart itself takes in a quarter of every grocery dollar spent in the united states today so it's phenomenal level of control and therefore these really outrageous yet you know almost comical but really sad stories about the food lobby trying to pieces of it will really come as an extension of this corporate power and political power of

these companies yes certainly one of the big stories just a couple weeks ago was ground beef in this country and how lot of it was filled with pink slime why does that you know why is that allowed to happen well it turns out that a lot of people in washington are friends with the beef lobby i mean how common is this connection or is it well it's actually endemic to the political policymaking system so for instance you know explore the sludge in my book the development of regulations around like meat processing both on the on the food safety as well as the labor side of the workers who are its willingness factories these are things that are decided often by the lobbies that pressure the government to say we don't want to slow down the assembly line. because you know it's a low profit margin industry and the only way that we can make a profit is. lowering regulations eating up labor then we get all the injuries on the assembly line these rudely exploited workers and we get consumer health scares

you know illnesses coming out of poison need another poisoned foods you know we're talking about one hundred billion dollars a year and probably more now in medical costs coming out of criminally diet really diseases and so what's happening is the industry. you know both on a regular basis and especially in this case we're talking about pizzas vegetable schools. you know they're basically socializing the costs by passing of the costs. in their own costs that's what i mean you know i live here in washington the power of lobbyist is no secret and you know when we hear about a lobbyist for big oil companies for big tobacco i think that to me is a little bit easier to swallow but i got to say i'm somewhat surprised when we talk about children and children's how i mean most people have children and it just seems crazy that this can happen time and time again that more people are not outraged about it and turn away the money and turn away the campaign contributions

that they get to speak up and give a voice to kids that attend our public schools here but i agree i mean it's an outrage on the face of it and it needs to be some real real outcry about this situation and i think that it has to go beyond you know the pink slime and the pizza people are just. places. and the fact is they have made over the tree you know the food industry has become big business like anything else and they are deeply embedded in the political structure both with their lobby groups and your reporter talked about how much they spend on lobbying each year and also the regulatory you know in the in the guts of policy itself they have tremendous effect. things that end up costing all of us money stingers our future kids' health the future of the country never mind why can't people be in the military or not can people function and thrive in the society that

i was an interesting statistic that a fourth of people who want to be in the military are just too obese to to do so i want to ask you chris what do you think the biggest offenders are in terms of taking part in this and what can even be done to stop them yeah i mean i don't like to pick on just one or two companies i pick on the entire industry in my book in america but you know the big names in terms of the lobbying come down to companies like tyson foods cargill which is a multinational food export or grain exporter. you know kraft foods is high on the list. you know we think it's just pepsi but they are. all kinds of monsanto which controls the very beginning of the food supply with seeds so these are companies are going to have phenomenal control over the food supply the grocery store most of the products are anywhere from five to ten companies. you know and

when you have that kind of consolidation of power that's when the lobbies start to kind of influence in washington as well and just real briefly chris i mean what what's next what's the next scare that we're going to see the next scandal regarding food as a result of these lobbyists well just keep on the lookout for them to continue protecting their interests whether it's around junk food or you know they don't want whole foods to be in school lunches because they think it's more expensive anything that's going to further their bottom line in terms of processed food like pizzas readymade burgers things like that i would be very vigilant and this is all very i mean this is not just opinion this is fact that this is what they do they protect their bottom line the problem is that this is not in the interests of public health kids' health a few troops our country of course and so when you do you know. one of the most popular arguments that i always see especially when there's you know local

elections and things about. being in public schools and things like that is one of the arguments is always that we don't want the government telling us what we can and can't eat lots of interesting stuff here we appreciate you helping us get to the bottom of it christopher cook author of the book diet for a dead planet and some. thank you. well of going to do over the news for tonight but don't go away the big picture is coming up at the top of the hour now tonight host tom hartman will take a look at the case of trayvon martin the seventeen year old african-american teen who was fatally shot by community watch that number walks free under the protection of the stand your ground law the jury is still out over whether it was a hate crime but one time will tell you about another hate crime and one that's receiving far less media attention and asked the vice president for american progress in these two cases are consequences of a country that is just too fearful. but for more on the stories we covered here on the news you should go to youtube dot com slash our.