today on our t.v. maze right around the corner and that means another class of college graduates is ready to enter the workforce armed with the two deeds diplomas and debt and in july deadline could send interest rates sky high we'll show you what some students are doing in retaliation. and don't count your delegates before the votes are counted it turns out ron paul actually one of the door to the delegates and iowa and minnesota looks like the oldest republican presidential candidate still have some fight left. and coming to an airspace near you unmanned the secret surveillance technology drones for short and they're not searching for enemy combatants but spying on ordinary citizens we'll tell you why you should keep your eyes on the sky .

it's wednesday april twenty fifth four pm in washington d.c. i'm abby martin you're watching our t.v. . the american dream to go to college to get your dream job so you can own a home with a white picket fence and live happily ever after however for many college students and graduates in the u.s. the notion of the american dream has become a full blown nightmare coin one t. day today marks the day that student debt has topped one trillion dollars exceeding the auto loan and credit card debt in the u.s. one of the biggest problems is the exploitation of the predator student loan industry sallie mae america's largest private investor assigns low income student interest rates of up to twenty five percent let's take a look at just some of the stats. tuitions costs have risen six hundred percent over the last thirty years average in-state tuition has risen by eight percent just last year and in two thousand and ten graduates have an average of twenty five

thousand two hundred fifty dollars in student debt it's a hot topic on the campaign trail with obama and romney a green that the student loan interest rates congress and stated to freeze in the two thousand and seven college cost reduction access act should stay at three point four percent without intervention this year they will jump to six point eight percent when the act expires which was another thousand dollars burden of debt per student loan with this mounting debt on the shoulders of those entering the workplace it's almost impossible to get a job or actually own a home and respond to this crisis today the occupy the student debt campaign is holding rallies and doing direct actions and at least twelve cities nationwide to respond to one tea day now over the last year and a half we've seen thousands of students come out to protest tuitions hikes and university privatization in london chile and just last week in montreal and they've all turned violent and joining me now is robert apple founder of forgive student

loan debt dot com robert why do you think that we don't see students coming out in droves to protest the outrageous student debt crisis in this country. because there are no consumer protections already in use and. there's very little work for anyone with debt if they find themselves in financial trouble there are no bankruptcy protections there's no steps limitations on the collections and they're basically stuck with these debts for life. you know we just saw obama on the campaign trail saying that just eight years ago him in the shell finally got rid of their student loans do you think that him and romney are just pandering to the student vote is there anything they can legitimately do to curtail the predatory student loan interest companies well i don't believe that. that's i believe that this is an issue that affected him personally as he spoke about yesterday and today that he just paid off its last eight years. that we've ever had so.

he has years of the problems issue. i'm sorry what was your other question i was just saying what can they do what can the politicians do to really curtail this predatory industry that preys on student students well there's a terrific piece of legislation out there right now h r forty one seventy. five. going to hold because. it sets up a ten year ten percent repayment where if you take what. looks like our connections getting lost there we'll try to pick that up later in a later show that was robert alba bomb founder of forgive student loan debt dot com everyone stop the presses seriously stop the presses republican presidential candidate ron paul just won iowa i know first we told you that romney won but it

was santorum turns out ron paul was right all along even though he only won twenty one percent of the primary vote he gained fourteen out of the twenty eight with delegates bringing him first place for the state don't believe me take a look at these headlines ron paul wins iowa and also minnesota or at least tied for first place. once again the delegate strategy paul predicted worked in the state where he got only twenty seven percent of the primary vote but gained twenty out of the forty delegates in minnesota even though the corporate press loves to tell it that romney has the llama nation nomination walked in ron paul continues to throw an interesting wrench in the narrative and the face of the growing military industrial complex paul's ideas of smaller government and non interventionism continues to prove its place at the table his base of grassroots support nationwide remains ever vigilant and the first quarter of twenty twelve alone paul reserve or ten million dollars most of which came from under two hundred dollars small donor

donor donations so the delegate strategy worked for paul and i won minnesota but could this an orthodox approach actually work enough states to win paul the g.o.p. nomination and joining me to answer that and more is volunteer organizer and roll hall supporter mary wilson mary could this strategy actually work yes absolutely ron paul's strategy has been brilliant all along the campaign didn't just start this year you know there was a lot leading up to it after his first campaign and the campaign for liberty began and the delegate strategy was quite brilliant and i don't expect to see him doing poorly in a lot of the states actually we've won now minnesota as well as iowa but i also think we've done incredibly well in colorado i don't expect to see anything. small out of nevada maine. washington there's a lot of states where the strategy is is paying off big but

a lot of ron paul supporters cite the nine hundred twenty warren harding strategy as really a means for paul to win is not really just an archaic interpretation of a system that's changed pretty vastly since then. i'm sure that rules have changed in the system it's changed but it's still a two party system the way that that the one thing that all delegates have in common what i like to say the one thing that delegates all delegates have in common is their patriotic they care they've gotten motivated to do something positive about the situation of things and i think no matter if you originally got on board because you supported santorum or michele bachmann or whoever you supported when you became a delegate i think at the end of the day when you get to tampa and you're there and you've invested so much and you come to realize that mitt romney is obama there there is absolutely no difference between the two of them and mitt romney has

already lost the general election he can't even debate he's never want to debate before if you put them on the stage together between obama and romney it's going to be a love fest they're just going to agree oh you win your obamacare here well you're the author of that so i think the delegates will realize when you have everyone talking among themselves and speaking out about why we all support ron paul i think that there's a lot of people who originally supported other candidates who are going to support ron paul it is interesting in the corporate press has already kind of locked romney in you know when you see ron paul kind of cynically getting ahead in this strategic way but you know every state has different rules when it comes to caucuses and their primaries and delegate strategies how i mean how many states can ron paul realistically do this in. well throughout the caucus states yeah the rules are different in every state whether they're bound delegates or on bound delegates but

like i said when you get to the convention that's when things will be to determine you can't say right now who's winning because these are these delegates are people they're people who care about the future of our nation and they're going to you know not everybody's you going to do what's right for the party they're going to do what's right for america that's who these people are so just because you know everybody has experienced it before they've seen what you know when the party chooses the candidate like john mccain you know we don't win and we one thing that every delegate has in common not only are they patriots the one common thread is that you know the motivation is defeating barack obama getting barack obama out of office and most people know already that romney is obama that they're both financed by goldman sachs we already know that goldman sachs and you know five other banks are controlling our federal reserve system where they know that the media is controlled by five corporations americans are waking up we have access to the

information now that's why they're trying so hard to take the internet away and censor it with their sopa and pipa insist on everything else because americans are a lot more informed now and the ron paul revolution isn't just about a delegate strategy i mean we've got a senator we got an ophthalmologist into the senate without a hick up and there's a lot more people on the ballots for the this election and i know that there's one hundred thirty liberty republican candidates on the ballot in my county alone who are you know becoming the new party so or or you know reviving resuscitating the republican party that's on its last legs so. it is meant it's true i reseated us so far we still have a lot of military support for ron paul a lot of the political action committees for you know obviously his his message is ringing loud and clear for a lot of people and a lot of people in. military active duty are giving him contributions and that

really does say something that the corporate media doesn't really like to talk about but let's just say this very let's say that november fifth comes along and ron paul for whatever reason his name is not on the ballot what then would you write him in. i believe as they will be on the ballot i like i'm like i'm saying there there's no chance of us having a mitt romney presidency it's not going to happen there's no doubt in my mind that ron paul is going to win the nomination i know but what if he doesn't win and i mean i mean let's just say hypothetically. that he doesn't would you write him in i mean would you say would you recommend that people do right and then sure absolutely i'm not going to recommend that somebody vote for romney or obama obama any night. you know in two thousand and eight mary a lot of ron paul supporters were pretty upset after giving him millions of dollars for his campaign that he didn't run as a libertarian i know that he was also going to run for congress again and maybe had

something to do with it and people like to you know put him in the box of you were a libertarian are you republican libertarian or what not but would you say i mean would you support him running libertarian you think that that's a chance that he would run as a libertarian if he does not win the nomination i mean it's his last horizon what does he have to lose. i really don't know if running as a libertarian is the answer i would definitely encourage him to run i will make as big of an support for him as i can no matter what the name of the party is or whatever but i really strongly feel our roots are in the republican party people are joining the republican party getting back to its roots and this is after his two thousand and eight election the campaign didn't stop there just because he didn't run as a third party that was just not winnable but he's very conscious of what he does

with the money that people contribute and the campaign for liberty began that's how senator rand became you know got into the senate and there are so many other people now who are also coming into the party and coming into politics i don't want to be in politics whatsoever i much prefer a real estate but i'm willing to do it because i care about freedom and mary last question a wrap of the segment would you support his son rand in a future presidential race quite possibly rand i think has you know a little bit more maturing to do on really a lot more supportive of ron paul but i like grant ran discreet i think he can you can use a little bit more experience and i could use a little bit more clarification about his positions but sure he's definitely better than the alternatives that we've got so far and he seems like a pretty great human being and i think i'm i'm really proud that somebody like him is actually in the senate now i think we've got a lot more people like him coming in regular hardworking americans who care about

our country not career politicians. it is great to see another politician really on the civil liberties front like rand i agree that he definitely has a lot of growing to do to embody his that in the ideals and that stands for that was volunteer organizer and ron paul supporter mary wilson. still ahead on our team it's a bird it's a plane actually it's a drone so what's the likelihood you may see of these flying over your backyard details after the break.

i'm lauren lyster. what drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to break through it's already been made can you trust no one. is your view with the global machinery see where are we heading state controlled capitalism is called fascism when nobody dares to ask we do our t. question more. we just put a picture of me when i was like nine years old she told the truth. i confess and i am a total ghetto friends that highly fragmented and pretty. but

it was kind of a yesterday. i'm very proud of the world with its place. drones coming soon to a protest near you in addition to obama's expansive drone killing apparatus in the middle east congress passed a bill earlier this year that opens the u.s. skies to unmanned drone surveillance for domestic and military police operations and a surveillance society where people are already accustomed to being filmed on every street corner the constant aerial surveillance of drones will make privacy even more obsolete there are currently three hundred active drone per permits in the us held by varied institutions according to foil requests that includes dozens of universities and small law enforcement agencies remember the story from north dakota. north dakota sure tell your key was looking for six missing. before

but through your browser brothers chased him away now called the highway patrol what's in the box one at a predator drone operated by u.s. customs and border protection the drug was used to surveil the property and so the grocer brothers were observed to be at our business what to do to make the arrests the drone industry is a huge one fifty companies are developing over one hundred fifty different systems ranging from miniature models to those comparable to airliners and many of them will also be arms taking the weapons to the that the u.s. uses for war right here at home although the government claims that the drones will only be used for specific cases and not just wanton surveillance we see time and time again constant abuses of power within the expanding security and surveillance industries so are these drones essential to our national security or that they are the latest infringement of our civil liberties and we step in opposite is the national security council for epic she works on the issues of national security

government surveillance digital security and open government and is here to tell me why we should keep our eyes on the skies. amy. congress hasn't really had a hearing talk about the implications of what on men drone surveillance would do in the u.s. why do you think this is and what do you think the implications would be well congress passed this bill as you said earlier this year that allowed drones to or will facilitate drones operating the united states and they did it without a hearing without really anything they passed it very quickly and it went through and nobody really heard anything about it two senators just recently have come back senator markey and senator barton and said wait a second there are privacy issues with this we need to have the f.a.a. and we need to have the manufacturers answer a few questions about what's going on but this kind of butts up against deadlines that have already been passed into law that the f.a.a. has to meet in order to increase stones in the air space so there's some tension there between if we're going to address the privacy issues which are very very real

and serious or if we're going to move forward with these firm deadlines in place and if the skies are going to open up without privacy protections which would be very bad yeah that would be awful and i'm glad you know the a.c.l.u. is really in the forefront of this trying to push for these provisions and really some congressional oversight on what this would mean for the privacy of americans and you know when i when i think of war technology being used right here at home it is a really scary concept i mean when you think of a tank being use out of afghanistan you don't really think of it being in a park nearby and what would that do to the psyche of the american people bringing this war technology that we're using right here at home well a lot of people believe a lot of researchers and security experts including ryan kalo who's on ethics advisory board believe that using drones the united states will actually instigate a privacy renaissance that people are going to look up and see these you know flying machines flying around catching them on camera being able to videotape their

every move and they're actually going to have a visceral reaction and a way that they haven't had before to persistent tracking most of which has been. done online and you can't watch an online tracker watch you from website to website but you can see a drone and you can see it in the air keeping track of you for the most part there are the ones that that you can't see that flies you and do you think that this would be detrimental to the growing discontent and dissent that you see in america i mean you're talking about this would cause kind of a retaliatory thing and do you think that that's the case do you think that these people are not going to accept this and that it's really going to or do you think it is going to stifle dissent and really create a chilling effect where people are going to say i don't want to do anything because i'm scared that i'm being watched i think that is definitely part of the concern we see in studies again and again reveal that when people are on camera and people know that they are being watched they're less likely to speak out they're less likely to protest actually in washington d.c. it came out that cameras were being put into place in order to watch areas where

protests were about to occur in order to stifle dissent which is a big problem and i think that that might be something that happens but i think that even more than it stifling dissent is people are going to come back and say no i think people really think that this might have crossed a line and less privacy protections are put into place before drones and of the air space i don't think people are going to let it happen i think people are going to come to go even know though it seems like a lot of people are so out of touch and detached from the surveillance state it's so you know we're so conditioned to just accept these small incremental surveillance provisions in our lives do you think that people really even know that they're being surveilled by drones well the studies show that after these regulations are put into place after these deadlines come in the f.a.a. allows drones in our airspace to actually tens of thousands of drones are going to enter our airspace in the next ten years and i don't think americans can ignore that that's not an incremental change it's

a huge change and you're seeing him like you said earlier in the seven and universities law enforcement all over the place being used for things that you do. i don't really think about drone aircraft being used for and they might have very positive implications they might be used to identify where forest fires are or one drone actually states was used to see that a plant was actually polluting the water however they also have very serious privacy and civil liberties repercussions what about the people who say i will have nothing to hide i don't care you know i can be surveilled and i'm not doing anything wrong why or why should the average american care well i think that whenever you come up against surveillance you find that any widespread method of surveillance is going to catch certain instances of bad actors doing bad deeds and miss instances of people who are doing anything wrong however when catching those bad actors comes at the cost of widespread near constant surveillance of the american public it's not in line with our constitutional values and son in line

with what we as an american country stands for and what of our you know hearing you talk about this makes me think of the patriot act and it's like these provisions were set in the place over ten years ago and so many people are just just accept them now it's like maybe you first will be up in arms about and say you know we don't want this is this really necessary to have this wanton surveillance of everyone just to catch a few bad apples or whatnot i mean how likely are we to really repeal this or do anything about it if you know these provisions are put in place that the privacy provisions well i think there's there might be a little bit of a difference i'm hoping there's a little bit of a difference first of all we're catching this very early on the patriot act passed very quickly it went into place very quickly and nobody really had a chance to say wait a second we need to stop and think about it we're catching this right after the actual been passed people have been talking about drone surveillance for quite some time now and i think people are on the issue quicker the other issue is that this isn't military this isn't for terrorism the patriot act kind of came into play under this very real threat that people thought that that we were going to be once

again the attack of a large they're the target of a large scale terrorist attack and drones operating the united states under regular . law enforcement police surveillance and conducting just normal watching of every day american citizens is not they're not out to catch terrorists they're out to catch just normal everyday people maybe doing something bad but it's the threat is very very different i think people are ready to know that after nine eleven it seems like there's this growing culture of fear and everyone are just like just do whatever it takes to catch terrorists and what on this is just seems like it's very random you know people or people know that there's drone wars going on they're going to detach from it was bring it right here at home seems like a pig's step for the political establishment to really play with it is really egregious and i was wondering if you could touch upon what kind of operations are we looking at what kind of drones are so many different rooms they're talking about there are so many different companies that are pushing the drones could you elaborate on any specifics of what type of drones are really going to be we're

going to be seen what you can see i mean germs come in every single shape and size and the united states customs and border protection bureau are actually operates nine predator drones which are the drones that we're accustomed to seeing in the battlefields in war time and they primarily use those to watch the borders however you also seeing those in north dakota being used to catch cow feeds which is a little bit out of the realm of what customs and border protection is supposed to do there are also drones that look more like helicopters or smaller and can be used for more new want security surveillance being able to watch people as they go about their lives just on a more my new level and those are being the ones that are being used by law enforcement and by private companies you're seeing those being used by real estate agents to conduct kind of surveilled property and keep an eye on what property they're selling they can give tours to people who maybe can't see the house in person they're also being used by paparazzi i think there's

a huge fear that in california specifically that these drones are going to be used to increase surveillance of after. years and finally they're being used across the united states just increase surveillance of people and watch as people are going about just activities that is truly frightening once the establishment opens it up to private industry and anyone can really take initiative to use these drones to do whatever they please do it's necessary that was a step in all that step on a bitch national security council for epic capital count is up next on our t.v. let's check in with lauren lyster to see what's on today's agenda lauren to day i don't know if you saw but the fed announced that it is doing the economy to zero percent interest rates likely until two thousand and fourteen end of the year now this is not unexpected everybody knew this but ben bernanke he did have a press conference lots of reporters trying to figure out if q e three is coming asking why the fed isn't doing more you know we didn't hear abby

a lot of the questions that we want to pose which is why doesn't the fed do a heck of a lot less we're going to make the case and give you the answers to the questions that weren't asked in that press conference including what the fed's doing setting interest rates at all and how this is a little like a dictator claiming fair elections in a democratic process when they score one hundred percent of the vote that does it for now for more on these stories we covered go to youtube dot com slash r t america or check out our website our two dot com slash usa you can also follow me on twitter martin. was that so much. i mean it's really. hard to deny something here in this happening in french politics with president nicolas sarkozy fighting for his

political life what is the future. the admission free accreditation free zones for charges free arrangement free. three stooges free. download free broadcast quality video for your media projects and free media. tom. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom hartman welcome to the big picture.

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