welcome to the la nischelle where i get the real headlines with none of the mersey regular live in washington d.c. now tonight we're going to speak with chris hedges about his lawsuit against the obama administration over the and the then kevin zeese and bruce fein join us for our monday hangover panel we'll talk syria nuclear drones and a supreme court ruling on strip searches in prison and jordan flaherty found out that the n.y.p.d. came all the way out to new orleans to monitor him at a political event so he up a story from first hand while all that and more fit

a night including a dose of happy hour but first take a look with the mainstream media has decided to me. all right so there's a pretty disturbing story out there today that we've learned about thanks to the a.c.l.u. and it involves not better role agencies doing national security related investigations but local police departments hundreds of them tracking their cell phones. this study finds that numerous police departments across the country are now using cell phone tracking all thing without court orders to find suspects and then investigate criminal cases you see all you surveyed more than two hundred law enforcement agencies and most said that they use cell phone tracking the new york times also reporting this practice has become big business for cell phone companies charge surveillance fees to police departments they can top two thousand dollars. and

i think that a story like this is more than just mildly disturbing hundreds of police departments across the country tracking cell phones often without warrants and they're trying to hide it i was a seal you found not only does this information contradict the public statements that we hear from law enforcement officials but they also found training manuals once when i was city police department it says in code do not mention to the public or the media the use of cell phone technology or equipment use to locate the target subject and then you also advises not to put this stuff into the police reports so does that make you feel safe law enforcement is doing something that they know are probably cause public outrage which they know raises legal questions so their solution is not to stop doing it no of course not there is illusion is just to hide it from you and i have to give advice i've received some credit today because out of all the cable networks they were the only ones even touched on this story apparently fox c.n.n. they didn't find all that alarming but then take

a listen to what robert says at the end of this clip. some police departments routinely get search warrants they go to record they present probable cause and they get a warrant to track to do anything they want to do concerning suspects cellphone others just go out and do it as a matter of fact you can buy a police chief or they can and have software tracking programs for about a quarter of a million dollars where they don't even have to go to the cell phone company they can do it themselves so are they going to get a search warrant and present it to themselves to be able to do this these are that you know these are the challenges i think for law enforcement and the criminal justice system as technology gets ahead of our ability to actually deal with there's wiggle room over the oversight in all this in the schools of thought would be some people are going to say well i've got nothing to hide so who cares the other people are going to say well this is big brother just invading because they can. yeah maybe it's just

a little wiggle room right now the truth is that there are a lot of legal questions out there but it gets the answer the supreme court's ruling on g.p.s. devices is thrown this practice into question the specific use of cell phone tracking has been ruled on differently by a number of judges across the united states because that's the case and i think it's about time we get a definitive answer don't you that when you say that most americans say that they don't care they have nothing to hide i think most americans would care might feel differently or turns out that what the police were doing is illegal they're law enforcement and yet many departments aren't even bothering to get warrants because they can get the technology on their own and you know going through the court system getting a warrant all that stuff is just. but hello they're law enforcement are you supposed to be providing an example for the rest of us and should the mainstream media be expecting the same you know if there's another side or ever expanding surveillance state once being sold to the people as a buffer against terrorism but the truth is it's being used by law enforcement all

the time to track people that have nothing to do with a terror. or is a related investigation so we need to wake up and speak out about these practices before every shred of our privacy is gone but the fewer people to know about it the lower the chances that we can fight back and the mainstream cable media is not doing its part to inform the public good on m.s.m. receive for spending a few minutes on the topic today but out of a twenty four hour news cycle believe me it was just a blip and the rest well they simply chose to miss. last thursday we reported to you that a group of political activists and journalists testified in a new york court about why they are suing the obama administration over the national defense authorization act the n.d.a. and the seven plaintiffs including chris hedges daniel ellsberg and known chomsky they are given not only does the provision for the n.b.a.

that allows for indefinite military detention allow the us government to arrest of aliens all over the world searching process but a loosely defined keywords of supporter of terrorism or associated forces those threaten free speech i could even if i journalists reporting on the so-called war on terror now here's to me wolf speaking about this last thursday at a press conference held after the hearing. and you know you can look up here serious journalist who don't think they're going to come get it tomorrow they're think we're all crazy theory and feeling of that and infernally anecdotally i'm hearing it from many many journalists when they're honest you know across the country is how we do our work so that harms our legal standing and that's why i think it's important. so tonight let's speak to one of the plaintiffs in person here discuss with me is chris hedges pulitzer prize winning reporter and senior fellow at the nation institute he's also author of his latest book death of the

liberal class chris thanks so much for being back on the show tonight if you are you were nice looking about this before shortly after you first decided to pursue this lawsuit against the obama administration but now let's talk about this right you guys talking about how this is an incredibly troubling and really scary step that now you can allow for the indefinite military detention even of u.s. citizens despite of course a promise by the president that he wouldn't do it but this is a big deal so why are there only seven plaintiffs you know why isn't this the biggest lawsuit we've ever seen well first of all the has received very little publicity including by my former employer the new york times. it is. a piece of legislation that. was essentially supported by our two political parties by both parties and indeed the response was in the bill now carl levin a democrat and john mccain a republican there was no outcry within. the systems of power

itself and that of course meant that there was no outcry with in the media which allows those systems of power to set the parameters of all debate and that's why it is an extremely frightening piece of legislation because of as you pointed out these sort of vagueness of the language itself what is substantially supported me i mean what is supported mean what is substantially mean what is the end of hostilities you can seize american citizens who are accused of covered persons as the term of either substantially supporting al-qaeda or the taliban or what they call associated forces again a term that is not defined and i think one of the most telling moments in the trial on thursday was at the end of the day when judge forrest asked the government attorneys directly more than once several times would this legislation permit the government to detain any of these plaintiffs and in question after question after

question the assistant attorney ben torrance refused to offer those kinds of guarantees he couldn't answer the question right if you did the judge ask him to say can you define specifically what yes the charge for this is an al qaeda precisely and they would not define those terms because they can't those terms are expendable and i think when you referred to the president signing statement which he issued it's very important to realize that that has no legal standing and in the signing statement the promise is that his administration would not use it but there is nothing in that signing statement to prohibit the government from. and certainly most importantly for future administrations from using that mechanism to. carry out in essence acts of extraordinary rendition on american soil against american citizens let me bring up another example here too so we hear al qaeda and associated forces does it messes and we start asking about these very vague

definitions of what an associated force is let's talk about the enemy can't write right now we see really a massive campaign and e.k.g. listed off the state department's list of terrorist organizations some of the people that are pushing for this are former mayors former officials within the government they've actually taken money at speaking events and now we've actually seen an investigation launched into this because of a supreme court ruling that says you can provide material support to these organizations but could i make a be considered an associated force. is on the terrorism list. and it hasn't been lifted yet exactly and so it could be but i mean organizational is right well what's an associated force it could be any organization on the list and lots of other organizations that are not on the list that are considered associated forces this is the problem and as somebody i spent twenty years as a foreign correspondent and when we went through the terrorism list there were seventeen groups on that list including al qaida that i have had as

a reporter direct contact with and there is no provision in there to protect journalists at all or anyone anybody can be swept up under this and you don't want to him these kinds of powers to the state because history has shown eventually they will use it and i think finally it's important to understand what we're already seen which is an attempt to take occupy and us day of rage and other groups and this was when the release of the wiki leaks five million emails of stroud for the private security company we saw in those e-mails an attempt to link us day of rage directly to jihad groups and that's the route you're going to go when you create a. surveillance state of this size and this magnitude and i covered east germany i lived in east germany the stasi state they have to perpetuate themselves and they do it through enemies and absurdities and folds narratives and career ism and and and i think that those of us who brought this lawsuit understand finally that this

is not about the other it's not about them it's about us and that's why it's right outside everywhere when you talk about the us day of rage too it could be something as the last day of rage may have gotten posted on a website right that was trusted to harvest web site and therefore if they think if there's a tie between the that's dave grange and his web site and they can monitor the occupy movement it becomes this is this vicious circle already seen from the strat for the for e-mail release they've already done and and alexa o'brien who is one of the plaintiffs lost her job because after these kinds of accusations u.s. government officials went to her employer and made investigations or queries about her and she was pulled off projects and then eventually pushed out of her work that that is an example of the kind of world we are entering if we are not able to strike back against this legislation what do you think your chances are of actually winning as well you're trying to write

a you know read the mind of the judge and that's a very difficult thing to do i think based on national security i think we're going to see and i think you'll have a hard time denying standard the lawyers karl mayor and bruce would like her to impose a temporary injunction which essentially declares the section ten twenty one ten twenty two unconstitutional the government of course the challenge of whether she'll go that far i don't know from the questions i think that's the that's. what we're going to see i don't know and so then what happens if you do you. just have to give up and say that's it this is the scary state that we live in now well . i think what you can do is go back and find it depends if i have standing if i don't you know that's the first question you can file you can get more plain if you can file again. i mean it's certainly a blow if we lose. i don't think that there's any question that this law is you

know violates the most basic tenets of our constitutional right to due process i just don't see that you know that's an ambiguous whether the courts will stand up to defend the constitution not you know especially given you know what's happened within the u.s. legal system i really think we we don't know ok and lastly you know the beginning of the interview you said that part of the reason this isn't a bigger lawsuit is in the biggest lawsuit in the country right now is because the media hasn't given it a lot of coverage because it was approved. by both parties they were pushing for it but at the same time this element that you bring into your analysis could also be at risk because of what you because of covering this war on terror right and if you want to give everybody a voice then you're probably going to have to try to talk to some people at the government won't necessarily like so in that sense i would feel like the media would be covering it more like more journalists would be right if you know they could affect that there's probably not a lot of journalists my extensive contact with groups like hamas or the p.k.

k. . you're really talking about a very small handful. and so it's not a large pool to draw from and those who are still employed would need to get permission from their employers to do it and so far we have not seen within the major media organizations the kind of interest in this law that i think they should have shown i can't agree with you more on that one chris thanks so much for joining us tonight. i sort of contractors have made a whole new type of. the supreme court give their decision when it comes to strip searches. because we'll have your money every. story. think you understand it and. here's the part of it and realize that everything. is

a big. blow to the capital account mr. but in the alone or so we'll get the real headline with none of the problem with the mainstream media today is that they're completely disconnected from the viewers and for what actually matters for those viewers and so that's why young people just

don't watch t.v. anymore if they want news they go online and read it but we're trying to take those stories that people actually care about and transfer them back to t.v. . is the stage english speaking russian channel it's kind of like. russia today has an extremely confrontational stance when it comes to us. from. our guys it's time for our monday

hangover panel just because we had a weekend off in the studio doesn't if there haven't been more foreign policy developments more violence more money committed to projects that something haven't thought all the way through and the so-called friends of syria group of sixty countries have agreed to pay the salaries and other costs of the free syrian army and on still waits for assad to act on a peace plan that was accepted last week northrop grumman and sandia national laboratories have created nuclear powered drones they can increase flying time from days to months and the supreme court rules today that strip searches for new jail inmates are ok regardless of the gravity of their offense so with me today is fine former deputy attorney general under president ronald reagan and chairman of the american freedom agenda and kevin zeese co-director of it's our economy an organizer of the national occupation of washington d.c. . gentlemen thanks for joining me tonight so ok let's start off with syria tonight and first we have so last week kofi anan offered his peace plan seems to be that

assad accepted it and now the international community is still waiting for that to actually take a fact and here's hillary clinton talking about the the urgency as she sees it. there is no more time for excuses or delay this is a moment of truth. so yesterday the friends of syria what they did is they decided to pay the salaries. of the free syrian army i'm curious as to what exactly that means we don't know what salaries mean you think that they sign a contract and say we will do so many shootings that the syrian armed forces in exchange for ten thousand dollars a month it really i think is an effort to try to suggest to president assad that the international community is getting more serious but i think the underlying flaws this is sort of a second edition of live right now we're seeing the aftermath and you follow it there secessionist and then does the black immigrants are now held in detention and

torture chambers there is fighting in the south so we armed all these people too and now we have basically a state of nature as opposed to cut off and so we similarly in syria we have no idea who the people are who would be reset be put on salary and we should have learned from afghanistan when the united states charlie wilson's war was funding who the economy network asama bin wilbon hekmatyar but they ended up there we were funding them they turned their weapons against us and this is another example of the empire mindlessly going and say we have to control everything ok let's throw money at something that looks good and worrying about the consequences later what about those people that say for example if you are speaking about libya and so we saw there was not tribal clashes in the south of libya where one hundred sixty four people were killed in just over the last six days some would say well you know what do you expect democracy doesn't happen overnight where you are the go go syria and libya are part of your problems one is this whole concept of humanitarian war. you

know you get so much misinformation from our favorite your sources the corporate media and he was all the scare stories about living are going whiskers are about syria not on very reliable sources and different open question and humanitarian war is necessary what an oxymoron what the sec. but you know that's a big problem really is. is that we we now have created executive decides we go to war and we're totally certain to be constitution and medicine so the most important part of the constitution was the fact that not one person could bring us to war but the congress had to declare war they had to take the action they have to fund the war it's a clear the war we've lost there and we now have this you know super emperor of the empire and he gets inside and we go to war and that's i think a gigantic problem with the united states in a lot about bruce who you are here right after president obama actually did send us or you know there's an article the peace initiative race over over libya and what

happened there but so i'm still just curious you know if we can go back for one second so let's say that. this peace plan is accepted and basically what that means is everybody lays down their arms you know that the heavy weapons are taken out of the cities delivering humanitarian aid for even to journalists is allowed and so then what then suddenly happens to those salaries that we are paying to the free syrian army if everybody follows along with a cease fire it looks like we're taking sides in a domestic issue of who ought to be running syria but part of the real problem here is why is the united states involved anyway the fact is that if we have citizens who want to be great humanitarians and volunteer like we did in the spanish civil war that's one thing the united states has no national security interest is nothing happening in syria this threatens the security of the united states and it's going to invade the united states or attack us and this is an example of this entire mentality whether it's syria or chad or nigeria or

a broom or any other place there is the united states with the military didn't have that's literally on that's what's wrong with the united states we are not born as an empire we were born as a republic words of glory was liberty not domination we weren't supposed to be like other countries and now we've turned into the same old roman empire again empire rome and op amp are all. i'm an empire and that's what we need to back away from because it's ruining the entire country and yet we're in a very new very tarried intervention is just going on here in israel right on the show that you never hear on the corporate media empire both groups interviews that and it's a word that is hidden we are the largest empire in world history bar before and it's never discussed it's one reason our economies are working as we're going to bore you to satisfy your clients lutes so you have to give jobs you know so our common good solid out to please the emperor empire needs to be talked about well let's talk about you know one of the things that we see in this shift as well which is that we're not going to have probably these massive standing armies anymore in

the future afghanistan just might be the last example of that and we are switching over to drone warfare and we see this in the budgets of the budgets that it's put out for the pentagon we see this in what we're doing in yemen in somalia and pakistan and so let's talk about this next story that i have here which is that northrop grumman has been working on creating nuclear powered drones and so they this doesn't mean that they have a nuclear bomb. it's just means they instead of you know going up in the sky they can be flying around for months at a time without having to refuel and they put the project on hold because they think that the public might not like it and they might worry about essentially you know what if this thing crashes and it becomes a dirty bomb is this something we need to be developing well no we don't need to be developing that after all the united states at present spends more on national security than the whole other world combined does anyone really think the united states that anybody in the entire world even going to the moon like new cambridge

threatens our sovereignty no we have so much weapons so much ability to defend ourselves from any kind of aggression this is totally superfluous in addition it's further menacing because now you've got a weapon system being developed that enables us to kill other people without endangering any american and the united states under the state. department now has said in that circumstances we're killing others is not war it's not hostilities because we're not in danger so even further aggrandize has the presence power because then you can use these predator drones at whim without any congressional involvement not to mention of course the fact that it's the cia's drone program that does a lot of the dirty work and this program can't be confirmed nor denied and they refused to talk about it in a lawsuit that they still use bringing against the obama administration right now in terms of the assassination it was you know your love is not just an intelligence agency it's an operations of yours and you know the former general general petraeus the former general in afghanistan leading it is becoming operations centers agency

and that's you know just not what we need and i think we haven't done very well playing with the droid drone toy so for the predator drone has been misused our president obama more than any other president slaughtering literally slaughtering thousands of civilians why do we want to add to that mistake i think with the whole direction of robotic warfare is going to be a major boon to the military weapons makers but it's going to be bad quarter i mean is essentially that they're cashing in on this writer because they have a feeling that the pentagon at some point here president obama or some other administration you know five ten years from now someone's going to be interested in not follow the money is the exact and what else is so ridiculous about this is that all the generals say right now even with the use of drones killing civilians and some militants occasionally in afghanistan they say it's not a winning formula it's not getting us and it's not a strategy it's not

a method of success so what are we doing it is just props out there now to say ok we're flexing their muscle it's to say we we killed the number three and the taliban or. the end user let's just say you before we have to wrap it up here to our last story which is a little bit more domestic but you know also it involves our civil liberties and so . supreme court rules basically that you should just strip search everybody as soon as they get taken into a prison here in the case of albert florence he was arrested because of that he had not paid a fine and then he was strip searched turns out he actually did pay the fine but the court decided that it's better just have one policy for everybody no matter what your offense and this this one is part of this effort sanctity of a risk free society you know anything that you can do no matter how invasive of someone's right to be left alone someone's right to privacy if you say it could decrease the risk then we ratify and this is just one example where you know if you

didn't strip search everybody maybe somebody could smuggle something in the once in a thousand years and we don't want to take that risk and you cannot have freedom it actually takes iraq the supreme court was all about liberty and freedom we can even be forced to pay a tax for health care but everybody can be forced to you know if you don't you don't have the first floor is going to require you know prosecutors. we have in this country a massive criminal justice system one out of five of the world one of the for the world's prisoners are in the united states well into the free this is a gigantic bureaucracy that is undermining our freedoms one of thirty two americans is on prison probation or parole and so now we are allowing strip searches of those folks and intrusiveness is just incredible and we have to really stand up to this prison industrial complex that's really on everybody just as the think of that and compare it to the transportation security administration because now they take pictures of us you know is though we're all naked any cause you know you know you have got here are saying i see it is that we want to fly an airplane outta you

these are you know the water power is at home use against american citizens that's what we're seeing with these the t.s.a. the strip searches that importer of powers everywhere want to do the bride and you know they're taking our rights here at home and it's scary and i thank you both for joining us thank you. are coming out i'll respond to viewers and you said it i read it and the a.p. is revealed quite a bit of questionable surveillance by the n.y.p.d. so it's right we'll speak to one of the individuals who was under the magnifying glass after the break the celeb. let's not forget that we had in the park right we've seen britney on the. lead i think the rock the bombings the the and on the oil lead. we have the government says leave her keep you safe.