heavily armed and dangerous the u.s. government is shelling out big bucks for bullets the whole point bullets to be exact but the pentagon is not behind the purchase next will tell you why the department of homeland security needs four hundred fifty million rounds of ammunition. and that's not all the government is doing and they're also signing away many of your rights thanks to the national defense authorization act a group of authors activists and journalists say there's more to the bill than security interests will speak to one of them. and the u.s. isn't the only one taking so-called national security measures the british government on the right to monitor well everything from cell phones to e-mail text

messages online shopping habits so if anything private anymore. good evening it's monday april second seven pm here in washington d.c. i'm christine friends out there watching our team. well the u.s. department of homeland security along with the u.s. immigration and customs enforcement office have placed a large and rather interesting order they've ordered four hundred fifty million rounds of ammunition to be made in the liver to them over the next five years the company alliance tax systems were eighty k. was awarded the contract to manufacture forty caliber ammunition high performance bullets apparently these bullets quote provide optimum penetration for terminal performance our first of the way the tip of the bullet passes through barriers and then expands all the while holding its position not getting ruined so this is

interesting because this is not the pentagon making this order for the military it's v.h.s. and ice and they give you a little perspective here there are only about three hundred eleven million people living in the entire country so begs the question why is such a massive order earlier i spoke with david seaman and journalist and host of the d.l. so i asked him why the v.h.s. needs four hundred fifty million hollow point bullets for the department of homeland security just to be clear with your viewers consists of the t.s.a. the transportation security administration and immigration services among other divisions so exactly this is not the u.s. military this is the domestic law enforcement agency and the t.s.a. you're basically glorified bag screeners and airport screeners that was that was their original congressional mandate was to screen passengers before they get on an airplane so the question the question really is why do they need four hundred fifty million rounds of ammunition and to be fair some people online who don't want to

believe i would say going on have said that this is just going to be used for target practice or also it could be that the government is simply stockpiling ammunition because they don't want to get into a situation where there's an ammo shortage and our law enforcement officers don't have any ammunition and those are both fair points but that kind of ammo that they purchased from eighty k. hollow point in unison as you would explained. it's designed to care through human flesh and that expands it's designed to kill people this is not the optimal kind of ammo you would buy for target practice it's more expensive and it's more precise i think that's a really interesting point you bring up and i'm wondering too i mean certainly there are a lot of layers here when we talk about the da just purchasing this there's not really been sort of a concrete answer as to why but i'm wondering if there's not you know a larger discussion to be had here i mean we're seeing gun sales in the u.s. i don't know all time high we've already seen the d.a. just again hiring armed security guards to protect federal buildings do you think

this is a sign that they're preparing for some sort of mass the little unrest. well the deal is just the people within it he is the agents they are not federal agents so they're not as well trained they're not as well vetted these are the kinds of people who think that grandmothers and little children are a threat to national security when they go through an airport and to give all of these these agents so much fire power it really does make you wonder if they know something if the american people do not know about this and to actually place they have an open did right now to get chess for even more ammunition four hundred seventy five million rounds of two twenty three caliber rifle ammo which some people non have brought up is almost identical to the ammunition used by nato peacekeeping forces so it's very interesting are they planning on some kind of widespread economic arrest in the u.s. that would require nato forces to help us out i really don't know but one thing i do know is that i don't want to inject my own opinion into these reports all the

time but if the founding fathers were alive today they would be disgusted what we're rapidly militarizing our domestic law enforcement officers and you know i think a lot of people are scared of t.s.a. is scary enough wait until they all have guns well i mean can't speak back when they're when they're groping you at the airport and t.s.a. i mean as you say they are part of the department of homeland security certainly the largest terrorist attack and our memorable history happened to get to our screening at airports i guess you could say but it is also a immigrations and customs enforcement i mean it is have you seen any indications that perhaps there's going to be a larger crackdown along this nation's borders i mean could that be part of it. certainly that's a possibility although i don't see hundreds of millions of people flooding into america from mexico or canada any time soon the jobs that were once here are no longer here i really don't understand it i keep trying to put my head around it you know if you try out different scenarios why do we need this much ammo and certainly

target practice is one option but even if they're burning through twenty million rounds a month to train their agents this is still overkill this is still too much so best case scenario this is sort of a waste of taxpayers' money and worst case scenario is as you said they're planning for economic unrest or violent protests or something that requires hollow point in unison on a wide scale and some of the largest protests that we've seen certainly just happened in the last six months or so the occupy wall street protests and you know like you david i was kind of reading up on this and there are a well a lot of theories as well that there's sort of a connection between v.h.s. and police forces in this country particularly in the occupy wall street crackdown o.d.s. at the gate as agents it's been confirmed have been involved in various ways and many of the occupy movements around the country but i'm wondering what's going on and terms of i mean is there a line is outlined now blurred between v.h.s. and local and regional police forces. i think there has been from what i've been

reading online there has been some federal involvement in the local police crackdowns on peaceful protesters and we're really seeing a shift where the government both in the court of public opinion and in our laws is trying to criminalize peaceful protesters and turn them into something more than what they actually are you know when you have a bunch of college kids banging on drums and you know asking for people to address issues like income inequality or the foreclosure crisis those people are not really a threat to national security and yet the department of homeland security as i've seen on on they might be involved in some of the intelligence gathering and it concerns me and i think it concerns pretty much anybody out there who's seeing what's happening certainly a lot of people concerned and again we still have no sort of confirmation as to exactly what these will be used for who knows if that will ever come out but it's an interesting discussion i think it's important for our viewers to see exactly what's going on here again that this purchase was made not by the pentagon but my

d.h. asked for four hundred fifty million rounds of ammunition david seaman journalist and host of the d.l. show. well the case against the u.s. government's national defense authorization act was made in court last week and today one of the plaintiffs in the case chris hedges stopped by our studios to talk about it because it's called hedges v obama and as a journalist and former middle east bureau chief for the new york times he says he is directly impacted by the law because it targets both terrorists and those who have associated with terrorists and other words it gives the government the power to detain and hold suspects without charge or trial suspending due process and hideous corpus for citizens now u.s. citizens are not exempt from this and his words chris i just as he is fighting along because the m.t.a. implodes our most cherished constitutional protections and he says it permits the military to function on u.s. soil as a civilian law enforcement agency chris is a columnist for truth pilger prize winning journalist and also the author of the

book the death of liberal cloth he gave us a rundown on his day in court. i think it went pretty well the object of the trial is for the government to trial and the standing of myself and the other plaintiffs there were three. of us who testified in court. and then a. statement was read by the icelandic parliamentarian who did not want to travel on the advice of the foreign minister she had been involved in the release of the collateral damage video on wiki leaks and all of her personal records had already been subpoenaed although she's not a u.s. citizen by the u.s. government the state department would not give or guarantee in writing that she would not be held so her deposition was read by the writer only warthe. from. aleck's o'brien from day of rage days of rage.

testified member of occupy london and then i got swallowed up about three arse i mean you know you write about this and you were talking about you know making sure that some of the attorneys had to make sure that you were fit up planes and if i mean what does that mean i mean it was surprising winning an award winning journalist or what's not fit well the question is whether you could be affected by this piece of legislation and when we went through the state department list of terrorism groups over the course of my career as a foreign correspondent i have spent time with individuals or with groups that are seventeen of those organizations and in close contact including so i think it was. i think would be pretty hard for them to deny me standing i would the most interesting exchange occurred at the end of the day when the judge was questioning the government lawyers and kept trying to press them for an assurance

that i or any of the other plaintiffs would not be. you know that they could government could guarantee that we would not be picked up by the n.b.a. which of course permits the government to strip us of due process hold us not only allow the military to hold us but hold us in a military facility including an offshore military facility and the government just repeatedly would not do that it was a really sort of frightening moment when it was clear that the nebulous language of the bill even in the view of the government offered no protection yes certainly that was one of the things that could have been you know at least something they could have done is to add language one sentence perhaps that said you know this will not affect the journalists who are doing their job who are american citizens i mean dianne feinstein had proposed that they insert into the legislation. that exempted american citizens and that was something that the sponsors of the bill carl levin and. john mccain as well as the obama white house decided not to do it

really really interesting about how can. we saw last week even though this bill has passed it was signed into law on new year's eve when a whole lot of us were you know out celebrating the new year. it we're starting to see both republicans and democrats in congress even as recently as last week sort of really take interest in this matter we take interest in the n.c.a.a. and perhaps talking about. doing some things in the future to change it but mark you all are already trying to to make an amendment to take out some of the controversial aspect of it that wasn't put into place why is it that these lawmakers are taking this up again i'm not sure why i mean i think that if you and we're really you know this is a long document the n.d.a. we're only talking about two sections section ten twenty one section ten twenty two which in essence allows the executive branch to strip an american citizen of their constitutional rights to due process and hold them in military facilities that's

what we're question a very very tiny part of the bill which i think you know you don't have to be a legal scholar to determine is clearly unconstitutional i mean the agree just violation of constitutional rights is really you know undeniable so that's your argument and it's a very solid and kind of simple one what is the argument of the government who says that this is in fact a viable law well the argument of the government is that we are not covered persons . and that's also part of the language of the bill covered persons or people who substantially supported al qaida the taliban or what they call associated forces which again is undefined what are associated forces what is substantially mean what is supported me. you know these are very very vague terms that encompass a variety of groups many of which did not even exist. during the attacks of nine eleven and i think it was telling to all. all of us in the courtroom that when

judge for us pressed the government on this issue the government would offer absolutely no guarantees that our constitutional rights would be protected because given the language of this bill or now war they can it is really interesting and it seems to me not accidental that a lot of this language is so vague that was put into the bell i know afterwards you guys had a press conference outside what is sort of the message that you're trying to get across now between now and the time a ruling is issued well i was being grilled so i wasn't part of the press conference that took place while i was i was while you were inside that i was actually in going back and forth with. u.s. attorney well the message is that this is not the kind of power we want vested in the hands of the state because eventually they'll use it. brian one of the plaintiffs from the state of rage.

spelled out or you know what were offered e-mails that have been released through wiki leaks of stroud for which i attempted to tie her organization with the hottest groups and i mean that's what they do when you build this so there isn't something that could happen this is something that is already out sprint and my fear is that if the occupy movement or an incarnation of the occupy movement rises again if there are more mass protests which i expect there will be since the government has done nothing to ameliorate the problems that push people out into the streets then it becomes very easy to link these peaceful nonviolent dissident movements with terrorism and at that point we're all finished and i think that you know it is for those of us who are fighting the spill it's an understanding that it's not about them i.e. those on the outside it's really about us and finally i used their ruling where it was expected sometime in may or june just based on your. in the courtroom what are

you expecting to come out of us i think it will be very hard for the judge to deny standing which means that she has to issue some kind of a ruling or lawyers bruce a phone and call me or have asked for a temporary injunction which would in essence put the law into against and that would force the government to appeal to uphold court but she has other ways to wiggle out of it. i think the standard be very very surprised if she didn't recognize standing whether she'll issue an injunction or not it's hard to tell i mean it depends on the briefs and i'm trying to read a judge who only saw for one day absolutely certainly sounds like an interesting experience because you keep us posted as always chris hedges columnist for trysting also author of the book the death of the liberal class. well the patriot act has made a law in this country about six weeks after the attacks of nine eleven while sounding quite patriotic it actually gave the u.s. government far reaching power to monitor citizens in the name of course of terrorism and the last ten years and then was renewed recently under president

obama and now there's a new proposed law that's likely to pass in great britain and looks a whole lot like the u.s. patriot act it would give one of britain's national security agencies the power to monitor phone calls texts e-mails and online activities all in the name of quote investigating serious crime and terrorism to protect the public and this is interesting because it means some internet companies will actually be required to install a special kind of hardware that would give the agency the ability to access who an individual or group is in contact with how long and how frequently they're in contact with them it would still need a warrant to gain access to the contents of the e-mails and phone calls but this is still causing quite a stir and take over so is a veteran of the u.s. marine corps an artsy blogger and also currently living in the u.k. jake what the sentiment where you're living about this proposed law the communications capabilities development program. hey christine thank you so you guys well basically this is this is really of top austerlitz attempt by the

government to expand its more powers and i live in lincoln living here and that it's like yeah there's been major expansion of government powers and that's exactly what they don't need here the government has cameras at every angle every street there's by and everything possible is absolute madness here so in the independent was reported today and blogs are going crazy british people are not very happy about this but if you read in the daily mail which i like to call the daily races you can find all sorts of claims about through the republicans but the conservatives here say oh it's a good thing because it's going to defeat terrorism i say well you know the best way to be terrorism is by getting your troops out of their country and stop making the rest of the world mad at you when you obviously everybody knows that the u.k. follows the u.s. everywhere it goes so basically british people aren't happy with the massive expansion of government and the scary bit of the u.s.

might be shortly right behind and i know that well but certainly right behind it but in many ways it the patriot act has already started in effect it is interesting take because i remember that when i was visiting london there are cameras on every corner it seems every do you think citizens are just sort of gotten used to that. well there really have and i would tell you what in some ways when you're major cities in major streets you know cameras is a good thing in major areas just public areas because you can see you know accident that happen or things like that but when you're talking about cameras that can peer into people's homes and zoom in that sort of thing open invasion of people space invasion of privacy and british people have totally gotten used to it and are sort of sort of see this in the next version of intrusion as a but nine act by the government however those of us in america who still value freedom and liberty to a degree see this as totally absurd don't have the government to do it and guess

what the government's going to do it american soon unless there's some sort of i don't know curtailing of government powers but i don't see that happening in time soon that certainly we just found out today the supreme court is going to allow for strip searches and it seems like liberties are being taken away more than they're being added lately with a lot of the things that we're seeing let me ask you take this law or a version of this law in the u.k. was first proposed back in two thousand and six and it ended up sort of being thrown out because there was so much opposition why do you think this time it's different. well since two thousand and six in the u.k. there's been almost three times the amount of internet access and also now with the development of smartphones more people are using the internet via smartphones not just them you know at their home or in tapping that sort of thing so there is a need by the government to control and serve it provide surveillance out of what everybody is doing and also the other thing is that the companies that provide in

that service your virgin media microsoft except they are making huge profits and huge dollars by being in bed with the government by being able to provide that information that we do we email to each other they're making money and are making profits of being able to do that yeah you know that i was going to ask you why these television companies and internet companies aren't speaking out against this so they actually have sort of a financial stake here yeah that's right that's right and the reason that they do so in the u.k. for instance everybody has to have half pay the government to have a t.v. there's a there's a government the to do that everybody in the u.k. who uses the internet and watches t.v. in the internet has to pay the government tax to do that there's no such thing as freedom of information or free access and the companies set that up with the government to make sure they can continue making profits so that they can continue

having i think control over people's lives. that's certainly interesting now from what i understand that this law will pass and go into effect in june of two thousand and fifteen you said a lot of people are not happy about it but they're sort of blogging about it now is there any are there any arguments that you've heard in favor of this law that are at all compelling that any of these people. well ok so the only thing to be true to to say that there's reason to look there is there are people in the world that are causing trouble there is crime there is terrorism there is all sorts of that sort of stuff. but the government as the government has a legitimate authority to protect the citizens from nefarious behaviors all over all that does not mean that somehow the government needs to be influencing every aspect of your life and the balance to the balance of power is how much power do want to give the state and in england people have subsided and they have given the

state every bit of power let's hope america doesn't follow. it is certainly interesting we'll be keeping our eyes on it. you keep us posted to job jake on everything that you're seeing because it is such a different different world in some ways even though the great britain and the u.s. also have so much in common i appreciate you being on with us are two bloggers yours former u.s. marine take over so. was move on to syria now where syrian president bashar al assad has agreed to a peace plan with an april tenth deadline for a u.n. supervised cease fire that said to include withdrawal of soldiers and heavy weapons from cities and the delivery of humanitarian aid this will only work however if the rebels put down their weapons as well and that may be difficult to do if they get outside support over the weekend several world leaders met in is stand bill to try to work out a deal with syria and part of that plan involves redefining or at least blurring the line between lethal and non lethal weapons are you correspondent there first

the story. as for the lucian's. during the friends of syria conference it sends a little bit of mixed signals the first mixing signal is that there is two. main streams of ideas one supporting arming the syrian rebels and the other one supporting. assisting the syrian rebels with non-lethal equipment and that is led by united states and western allies. the the qatari kuwaiti initiative going to be fitting the bill for paying the salaries for the syrian rebels. on the first

examining for the positive as it would provide an incentive for syrian soldiers to defect syrian army and join the. liberation of the syrian free syrian army which is consisting of the rebel forces on the u.s. administration is reluctant to provide arming for the rebels until a proper vetting process would be taking place i think that's an important point i think a lot of people wonder as we did with the situation in libya a lot of people wonder who are the rebels there and how do we figure that out when you start sending even when we're not talking about weapons we're just talking about communication equipment they're talking about sending night vision goggles and how can it be determined that these are going to end up in the right people's hands. this is this is the million dollar question kristie and nobody has

a concrete answer us administration is obviously reluctant to proceed was arming gravel in spite of. pressures exhibited. domestic. republicans. to. nobody wants to see the mistakes done in afghanistan in the eighty's or who is arming. the. rebels as it turned out to be useless groups. is not going to fall into a trap specially during an election year and i think it's really important to talk about sort of some other aspects here throughout the last year this conflict in syria which has claimed the lives potentially at least of nine thousand people it's been portrayed in sort of a simple manner it's been sort of you know assad the evil dictator and those rising up against him but i think it's really important to point out that this has really become a sectarian conflict

a war between religious groups with sunni muslims in syria in the majority but of course president assad is a shiite so so many sunni now view this violence as a campaign to sort of squeeze them out of their homes and their villages and i know the new york times did a recent article about this last week the writer and bernard said this she said they said they felt threatened as sunis and several said that they saw the military give out rifles to residents of neighboring alawite villages members of the same heterodox muslim side as mr assad and that their neighbors then opened fire on them so i guess i just want you to talk a little bit about. this is a little more complex than just those who support assad and those who don't. it is very complex but other than the secretary and the differences it's best make differences the other wives are different then the sunnis will have an arabic background syria is. of ethnic groups you have the arabs you have the.

could you have the sure people. and you have the sherpas who have turkish roots. this all makes this may launch makes it difficult to separate. who's who as far as this experience i don't think that if this sectarian but those who have started. the opposition in syria were predominantly belonging to the muslim brotherhood the american administration is playing it very very careful in syria the are with principles of freedom democracy and human rights for the syrian people but the have their concerns that if when and if they will supply weapons to the rebels it might be used against them exactly as happened in afghanistan when you

supported group. history made it and we ended up with september eleventh nobody wants to see that anymore as far as the. saudis get rich oil states paying salaries for the opposition. as earlier it's going to present an incentive which supposed to present a situation new situation on the ground. the syrian foreign minister have coffee and yesterday a letter stating that they are ready to suspend all military activities and was draw from the civilian centers by april tenth yet there is no trust in credibility for the regime we have to wait for this week to see where it's going to turn as far as the sectarian conflict partially.