today on r.t.e. may's right around the corner and that means another class of college graduates is ready to enter the workforce and they're armed with today's diplomas and debt neutral i dead line could send interest rates sky high to show you what some students are doing in retaliation. ever wonder what's in your meat or how the animals are treated before they're sent to the slaughter house well the answer to those questions are now a little harder to come by coming up we'll tell you about a new gag law that's helping to hide farm abuse. and coming to an airspace near you unmanned 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 seven pm in washington d.c. i'm abby martin you're watching our t.v. the american dream go to college to get your dream job so you can own a dream 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 coined 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 predatory student loan industry sallie mae america's largest private investor assigns low income students interest rates of up to twenty five percent let's take a look at some of the steps. to assure the costs have risen about 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 had an average of twenty five thousand two hundred fifty dollars in student debt. well the hot topic

on the campaign trail with obama and romney are agreeing that student loan interest rates congress and stated to freeze in two thousand and seven and the college cost reduction and access act should stay at three point four percent without intervention this year they'll jump to six point eight percent when the act expires this will add 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 in response to the crisis the occupy the student debt campaign is holding rallies and doing direct actions in at least twelve cities nationwide to respond to one tea to artie's honest church going to take us to a rally in new york. i think a. good thing here if you spend one dollar per second it would take over thirty one thousand years to spend one trillion dollars sound unimaginable not when it comes to college debt in the u.s. protests across america working college reaching got

a staggering one hundred dollars trillion dollars in debt like why is the burden coming on the students just the wrong way the one in the society i started out with seventy seven thousand dollars in debt and despite the fact that i pay triple quadruple the minimum payments and still twenty five thousand dollars in debt after seven years a national day of action taking place in about a dozen cities where people have come out onto the streets to say enough student debt is a crime and the fact that people are being penalized essentially for trying to get an education something it's a basic human right you know there's something you need to try and get a decent job in the society which even with that it's pretty impossible the fact of people being penalized for that is a crime in new york city in the crowds and march the streets to protest the fact that student debt is actually higher than credit card to find a country where when i'm in town and i. leave that. means people are chanting the system i don't like what's going on on wall street sleeping in the same bed know the us government what kind of change are you looking for you look like you're having a nice time with

a cast them out and i'm sally maine so it's my day to day it's a trillion dollars in debt and it's my party this is a revolution and don't wait for barack obama to do anything every year of college graduate in the united states walks out into the real world with an estimated college debt twenty five thousand dollars like an entire generation of debtors now for college tuition is said to have risen by over nine hundred percent over the last three decades skyrocketing the number of college grads sucked into debt slavery a type of debt that can almost never be written off in case of bankruptcy on to college grads for life the whole student debt system the whole big. system it's criminal an entire generation has now been enslaved by the burden of debt use in the us are traditionally told that good education will get them to live the american dream that was our to correspondent. bringing us that report. the protesters over student debt is new here in the u.s.

but over the last year and a half we've seen thousands of students coming out to protest tuitions hikes and university of privatization in london chile and just last week in montreal they've all turned violent earlier spoke with robert apple founder of forgive student loan debt dot com i asked him why we don't see students coming out in droves to protest the outrageous student debt crisis in this country why did it take the debt to hit one trillion dollars before seen actions like this organize on the ground here's his take unfortunately here in america i think there is a significant stigma shame and embarrassment when it comes to debt and student loan debt also there are very few recourses for people with student loan debt so you know taking to the streets and protesting about it won't you know it's a demonstration that people are upset about it but why aren't they coming out in droves because there are they know that there were no consumer protections on these loans there's no statute of limitations on the collections of these loans and

they're basically stuck with them for life so i think people in this country feel defeated and given the nature of our politics i don't think that they see an opportunity for anything to really change now but why do these people see the opportunity for change in other countries i mean it's the same issue the privatization the outrageous debt the raising costs of tuition i just don't see why why this country is so different. i wish i had an answer for you. there's just something in the american psyche about you know wanting to pay back what you've borrowed and not really wanting to admit that you're in such dire straits in terms of debt. i just think there's something different about the american psyche and i think it's yeah i think it's the american dream is still thinking it's achievable you know we go to college and get our dream job and i think a lot of people still think that this is the road to take and when it doesn't happen

in iraq i think there is an element of shame maybe to that and i absolutely it's they blame themselves. and we don't look self for not achieving the unachievable american dream we just saw on the campaign trail you know this is a hot topic romney and obama are both agreeing on keeping interest rates. lower and not having them double what do you think that the one that just put the the six billion dollars burden on the taxpayers though i mean if we absorb the cost of the interest rates not raising or doubling like they're scheduled to do what would that do is not just a vicious cycle well you know at a time when the biggest financial institutions in this country who nearly destroyed the economy four years ago can borrow from the federal government at zero percent interest i see no reason on earth why students who are merely trying to obtain an education should have to borrow at six point eight percent even the three point

four percent interest rate is higher than what the biggest financial institutions in this country have to borrow there's a vote this week about about this what do you think is going to happen with it. well from what i understand speaker boehner recently came out and said that there's going to be a vote however they're going to extract the money from payments on obama obamacare so you know it's just more political posturing and more political games ultimately if that's the stance that the republicans are going to take the nothing's going to happen because obviously the democrats aren't going to defund obamacare and the republicans obviously if in the last two years have demonstrated a willingness to really dig their heels in to the detriment of the middle class. and talk about political posturing do you think that what obama recently said about how you know he and michelle just got rid of their student loans six or eight years

ago and just finally got their debt forgiven or are expunged do you think that they have been sure that i mean or do you think it is just political hand-wringing to the student vote well i don't think they're mutually exclusive i think you could call it a clip and there and be truthful at the same time and i think it's a matter of record that he and michelle did take out student loans to attend both college and law school and you know until eight years ago he wasn't even on the national scene so i don't really have any reason to doubt that he just finished paying off his student loans eight years ago because that's just about when he made his famous speech at the two thousand and four convention. an aging john kerry when when he came on to the national scene. argue that he was on the national scene a little bit prior to that but i mean is there anything that he can legitimately do to curtail these predatory industries or i mean is it just kind of out of the hands . well it's out of his hands soli we need congress and the president to work

together to actually accomplish something the president can only do so much on his own without a congress willing to do the job that it was elected to do but what they can do is get behind a terrific piece of legislation that was authored by representative hansen clarke of michigan h.r. forty one seventy the student loan forgiveness act of twenty twelve that sets up a new repayment standard of tenure of repayment a ten percent of your discretionary income and the remaining amount is forgiven that is a piece of legislation that can really curtail the abuses of the student lending industry and really get a foot long way towards economic growth because right now as it stands with one trillion dollars of outstanding student loan debt we have a significant suppressive effect on the economy as a result of these debts those people who we rely upon to buy houses and to buy cars and to start businesses and start families aren't doing any of those things because

of their student loan debts. definitely going to require working together with the whole establishment to really. you know take this to the next level and give students a chance to really pursue their dreams and take back the american dream shift in the conversation really quickly you know looking at a university like harvard where tuitions as i don't know the exact number but about fifteen thousand dollars annually why are the universities why are these universities you know private and public given these tax exempt status is and they're just continually galligan students and tuitions costs just continue to raid year after year just seems counterintuitive when we could be having and pay kind of a portion to get us out of this mess. well you're preaching to the choir i completely agree with you you know and i think ultimately the root cause of the problem with skyrocketing tuition counter-intuitively is actually the existence of

student loans themselves because of all of the seemingly free money where anyone with a pulse who wants a student loan can get one the lenders don't have to engage in any sort of risk benefit analysis and the colleges and universities have no incentive to keep their tuition down because they know ultimately they're getting paid up front and the students going to be left holding the bag and a wrap of the segment robert half of every college half of college graduates in two thousand and twelve are unemployed i mean is it time to start reconsidering higher education where do you see this guy. absolutely i am personally a proponent of public funding of higher education the twenty first century equivalent of the high school diploma is the bachelor's degree and if we accept that premise is true then cutting off public funding of education after the twelfth grade is completely arbitrary and does not reflect the realities of today i was robert apple founder of forgive student loan debt dot com with mad cow disease on the rise treated beef and pink slime nuggets do people have the right to know what

they're eating and how their food is made all that's left up to big agribusiness and factory farms the answer is no and if you try to find out you could be charged with this third degree felony they're called agag laws and they make it illegal to conduct undercover investigations into the treatment of livestock on factory farms i when you talk of already passed a bill this year that ban the practice and missouri could be close behind so these laws protect farmers and their businesses like legislators kine or is this just a desperate attempt by the food industry to cover up their unsafe and inhumane practices i was joined earlier by matt rice director of investigations mercy for animals i asked him why if they have nothing to hide are they hiding everything here's where the say. that is a good question abbie and undercover investigations by mercy for animals and other groups across the country have exposed egregious cruelties unsafe work or working conditions unsanitary conditions factory farms and slaughterhouses nationwide and

in response rather than improve conditions for animals and make things safer for customers pro factory farm legislators in some states are working to criminalize these undercover investigations and prevent the public from finding out what's happening behind the closed doors of these facilities what exactly do these bills criminalize and what are the penalties. well there's a number of different states and each bill is a little bit different but most of them focus specifically on making it illegal to take photographs or videos of anything happening on a factory farm or slaughterhouse or other facility that raises and kills animals for food these are blatant violations of free speech and freedom of the press and thinly veiled attempts to keep consumers in the dark about how and where their food comes from you mentioned before about previous undercover investigations that have actually led. to some legislation passed and you know we saw there is an act passed

that actually unstated safer practices for hens and things like that can you talk about some of these investigations that have actually led to safer food practices and caused practices a change. well one of the biggest beef recalls in the united states history was prompted by an undercover investigation done by the humane society of the united states in california and this was at a beef processes. excuse me a beef slaughterhouse here in california and what they found was just not only agree just cruelty to animals but unsafe and unsanitary practices and downed animals as animals who were too sick or injured to stand being pushed prodded forklift hit and water boarded in order to get them on to the kill floor and into the human food supply and they found that this this beef was actually on its way to the national school lunch program and the scariest part is that there were u.s.d.a. inspectors at this facility and yet these things were going on and they were not

being stopped and in many cases u.s.d.a. inspectors have said that even when they speak out all that happens is they get reprimanded and sent to another facility so really there are no meaningful watchdogs at these facilities and so it's vital that we are able to conduct these undercover investigations and expose these practices and get laws in place and protect not only the animals who are being treated cruelly but also consumers who have a right to know where their food comes from that's a really good point you know a lot of consumers just expect that the u.s.d.a. apartment agriculture is really taking care of this and they really shouldn't care about it because of course you know they're being done safely why would these regulatory bodies allow these practices to go on package spoiled me abuse animals but really as you said it does go on and a lot of people are reprimanded for trying to expose that which is a huge problem who is backing these bills matt. well these bills are being backed

by the giants in the factory farming industry including monsanto one of the biggest ones and if you look at the legislators the pro factory farm legislators that are trying to push these through and almost every single case these are people who have been receiving massive campaign contributions from the agribusiness industry so it's a very thinly veiled attempt again to silence whistleblowers and keep the cruel and unsanitary in unsafe practices of the factory farming industry hidden behind closed doors with companies like monsanto and other huge agribusiness is backing and you know funneling thousands of money in a campaign contributions for these legislators how can the consumer really stop it well the exciting thing is is that as people are becoming aware of these issues in these ag gag bills across the country consumers have been standing up and they've been contacting their legislators in many of these states and in he says like new york and tennessee these bills have actually been shot down once the public spoke

and let their legislators know that this is not in their best interest and if you can think about it these this is an industry that's proven time and time again to be incapable of self regulation and no other industry has these kinds of protection if you could imagine these laws being passed to protect daycares so that people couldn't expose child abuse or sexual assault at a daycare or senior home that wouldn't fly but factory farming industry unfortunately has so much money and so much power they're able to influence some corrupt politicians to push this time legislation through often under the nose of their constituents but once constituents find out about it they're outraged and they want to know they want more transparency in food production not less and they're speaking out against it. that was director of investigations at mercy for animals. drones coming soon to a protest near you in addition to obama's expansive killing apparatus in the middle east congress passed a bill earlier this year that opens up the u.s.

skies to unmanned drone surveillance for domestic military and 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 currently three hundred active drone permits in the u.s. are held by varied institutions according to for your request that includes dozens of universities and smaller law enforcement agencies remember this story from north dakota. north dakota sure kill your keyboard looking for six missing. before but through your browser brothers chased them away now called the highway patrol what's the big one at a predator drone operated by u.s. customs and border protection the drug was used to surveil the property until the browser brothers were observed to be at our business what to do to make the arrests well the drone industry is a huge one already fifty companies are developing over one hundred fifty different systems ranging from miniature models to those comparable to airliners many of them

will also be armed taking the weapons the u.s. uses at war right here at home although the government claims that drones will be used only for specific cases and not wanting surveillance we see time and time again abuses of power within the expanding security and surveillance industries so are these drones essential to our national security or are they just the latest infringement of our civil liberties and we step off a niche is the national security council for epic she works on issues of national security government surveillance digital security and open government and is here to tell me why we should keep our eye on the skies. well congress passed this bill as you said earlier this year that allowed drones to well 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 the firm deadlines in place and if the skies are going to open up without privacy protections which would be very bad. 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. 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 the tank the news 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 in 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 the. and you can't see that flies and do you think that this would be detrimental to the growing discontent and dissent that you see in america i mean i know 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 or the air space i don't think people are going to let it happen i think people are going to come to 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 and 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 on the same thing at universities law enforcement all over the place being used for things that you just 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 for precautions what about the people who say they would have nothing to hide i don't care you know i could 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 is 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 on 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 these provisions were set in the place they were ten years ago and so many people 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 was 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 drones operating united states under regular law enforcement police surveillance and conducting just normal watching of everyday 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 a 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

a green juice 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 seeing what you can see i mean germs come in every single shape and size and the united states customs and border protection bureau opera 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 minute 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 actors and finally they're being used across the united states just increase surveillance of people and watch as people are going about just activity. it 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 deems necessary that was amy stepanovna step on of a church national security council for epic well that does it for now if you missed part of this or any show we covered today do not worry we post all of our interviews online in full for you to watch it as many times as your heart desires

just go to youtube dot com slash r t america or check out our website r t dot com slash usa there you'll find a bunch of stories we don't always have time to get to on air today our intrepid web team wrote an interesting article about the cost of cyber bullying but i'm not talking about the psychological toll this behavior takes on the victims i'm talking about cold hard cash a jury in texas just awarded thirteen point eight million dollars to a couple that filed a defamation lawsuit after being tegan eyes on the internet so is this the next step in cyber censorship and what does this mean for your constitutional rights read her article find out and we want to hear from you leave us your comments feedback and story suggestions we're always listening to find out what you think and if you want to know what i'm doing when i'm not reporting you can also follow me on twitter at abby martin we'll see you right back here in half an hour with more news and in-depth interviews.