move over jackson five these days activists are singing out against the transpacific partnership we'll give you five good reasons why you should be concerned about this international trade agreement that's being planned in secret. while american families tighten their belts in a tough economy the pentagon is a large and in charge and politicians are doing just about anything they keep it that way it's the pentagon versus the pork and this is one battle that won't take any prisoners. and the whole world might be watching the one percent but the department of homeland security is keeping an unusually close eye on the so-called ninety nine percent we'll tell you why the d.h.

and local authorities are spying on the occupy movement. it's wednesday may sixteenth five pm in washington d.c. i'm abby martin you're watching r.t. if you heard there was an international trade agreement between nine countries being drafted behind closed doors would you want to know the details well it's exactly what's happening it's called the trans-pacific partnership and it's a trade agreement between chile australia brunei new zealand peru singapore malaysia vietnam and the united states and what better way to explain it than a song take a look. that

is. now t.t.p. spokespeople have said that the t.p. people tear down previous barriers and raise international standards but critics will say it will compromise food safety create mom ballistic drug patents which will lead to more expensive medicine allow millions of american jobs to be shift shipped offshore because financial deregulation and impeded net neutrality were disturbingly there over six hundred corporate advisers on the t.p. the negotiations between corporations and nation states are all happening and secret all public and consumer advocates are left out in the dark but activists aren't letting the agreement go down without a fight take a look at this this is a team. that installed in the hotel bathroom is where the negotiations are being held a light reading for the bathroom it's just their way of saying that the agreement isn't even worth the paper it's printed on but let's look at the bigger picture

here i mean will this new agreement really break down needed barriers or the public's interest being the one who are traded away and what's with all the secrecy earlier i was joined by melinda st louis international campaigns director of public citizen on the subject of secrecy and trade talks i asked her if she agreed or disagreed with a response we disagree because this is an agreement that this deal if concluded would would have ramifications for the public at large in the united states and in all of the countries that are part of it and very little of it actually has to do with tariffs and trade there are two two of the chapters that have to do with trade in the rest have to do with other other aspects of our life public health environment. safety and so forth and so we believe it's very important for us to be part of seeing what is actually being negotiated to be able to provide analysis and to make it actually be a good agreement is this would you say that the trade agreement is more secretive than others in the past would you say that this is a growing trend to kind of hash out these things more secretively well there

certainly are examples of of agreements that are open are less and less secretive than this one in fact the the free trade area of the americas which was an agreement that was being negotiated in the early two thousand had a draft text release the world trade organization regularly publishes draft text so so it doesn't need to be the secretive and there is a lot of precedent for them to to make it much less secretive than it is so be clear you guys got a hold of a draft from last year and you guys haven't seen the new negotiations that they've been actually only there was a leaked chapter only on intellectual property that's the only chapter that has leaked in the whole process there are twenty six chapters being negotiated so it's actually much more secretive in the past there have been other types of leaks this is been locked down and in fact the negotiating partners signed a memorandum of understanding saying they wouldn't release any draft text until four years after the negotiations were completed or after the deal came into effect

which is which is absolutely appalling to us so let's talk about the problems with what's being negotiated let's talk about the drug and food safety aspects of the bill can you elaborate on why people should be concerned about the well well as i mentioned there was a leaked chapter and it was about intellectual property and what intellectual property in this in the tepee means the u.s. tabled a proposal that would expand patents for drug monopolies so this is really a wish list of big pharma of the pharmaceutical companies to be able to extend patents beyond what is currently agreed to an international forum like the like the world trade organization. so they want to extend patents beyond the twenty years they already have to make which would mean that generic drugs drug companies would have would not be able to enter the market which is what depresses prices so in a lot of ways you see this is actually not free trade at all in fact it's actually making more and more monopolies so that drug companies can keep drug prices high

let's talk about the six hundred corporate advisers that are involved in these negotiations i mean that is very concerning to know that there are these corporate entities working with the nation states to draft certain policies i mean is it just to increase their bottom line do we have any idea who these corporate people are and are they members of the pharmaceutical industry and we know who they are there are u.s. trade representatives website the u.s. trade representative has has cleared advisers that are able to view text they're able to provide input and the vast majority of them are our corporations there are a few public labor and environmental organizations that are part of it but it's six hundred versus thirty so you can imagine what we're actually looking at in the rest of the public is completely kept in the dark. and the lead chapter that you talked about dealing with intellectual property privacy laws and the encroachment of you know impeding the net and all of these things the intellectual privacy ad activists

are being concerned about let's talk about that i mean what would that look like i mean so open people didn't pass but it seems like this would almost open up a whole new international you know reaching government well well exactly and people were defeated in the u.s. congress because activists around the country saw what was actually being negotiated in the bills and said we will not accept this and so what you see now and that's what we're concerned about overall with the t p p and these trade deals it's a backdoor way of these corporations to get things they actually can't get through a democratic process so so we know through leaked chapters through through the leaks that what they're trying to push is. would would increase copyright protections for poor content owners and would would decrease the ability for people to have a free internet it would. it would police individual encroachers on copyright the same as if they were large scale copyright. and you know criminals and so i mean it

really and and the types of copies that need to be created on files just so that you can use them for personal loot use those would be banned through that so they would they would be able to start charging more and more for all the types of content that you can that you have access to on the internet and and in very concerning lee again this is this is being negotiated behind closed doors right. seems to me like a democrats and republicans across the board they keep urging you know buy american this has been this nationalistic kind of talking point for so long and you see it the buy american act in one thousand nine hundred three what happened i mean this this talk about how this is going to actually overstep that as well right there's a chapter on it's called government perk here. and what that means is it actually tells us what we can do with our our taxpayer dollars when our government is is buying goods and services for our schools for for for those types of things and

basically what it would mean is it would mean that we have to treat all of the t.p. countries the same as america and buy american so when we say buy american that would also be by vietnam it would also be by malaysia and so that's that's what we know is in these agreements they've been in past agreements and now we're actually trying to expand that to all of these countries and it goes directly in contradiction with what president obama is talking about when he talks about wanting to really reinvest in american manufacturing so obama has overseen this all happen well this is these are these are trade negotiators that many of them are carry overs from past administrations and they're just continuing the same line and with the with the corporate advisors that have been there all with so certainly with you know the overstepping of the buy american act we will see shipping of hundreds of thousands of jobs overseas and it's definitely something to be aware of and keep posted on thank you so much for coming on that was melinda st louis international campaigns director for public citizen in times of austerity it's the

bloated elephant in the room that no one seems to want to tackle talking about the pentagon budget a new survey shows that the public is ready for some deep cuts an overwhelming majority from both parties support cutting the defense budget here's a look at that survey two thirds of republicans support slashing funding and nine in ten democrats are singing the same tune but the seems to be at odds with political leaders but the headline saying it all take a look house passes bill undoing defense cuts house g.o.p. pits pentagon versus the poor and house votes to spare pentagon from automatic budget cuts trims domestic programs instead. so why is it that elected leaders and the american people don't see eye to eye when it comes to defense spending to talk about this i'm joined by retired retired arnie army colonel douglas macgregor hey douglas so it seems like everyone across the board can agree that you know we need to cut the pentagon why is it that the pentagon is not being cut were

a couple reasons the first is this sort of support for bloated defense spending is being a roading for some time the american people have simply walked away from these interventions so this new data is not surprising but there's a second problem and that is that defense spending doesn't necessarily equate to real military capability defense spending is really involved with a lot of redistribution of taxpayer income to various states and districts across the country so while collectively people say by all means cut defense when you begin to look at what's likely to go away people say well wait a minute that's going to cost me my job i'm not going to get reelected i will lose money in my district in my state and so that's the real rub at this point i mean isn't this just a vicious cycle though it's like democrats don't want to appear weak on national security so they have to keep saying you know we're strong on national security they can't appear weak and the other republicans mitt romney doesn't really have

national service in his family so he's like putting forward all of these crazy you know increases to the military i mean how is this ever going to end if it's just going to continue to grow and grow unabated it seems well here's some good news frankly it's going to end it is going to end over the next two to three years very profoundly because we're headed into a severe economic crisis what's begun in the eurozone what's beginning to happen in greece which is on the road to default whether it happens in the near term or it's postponed for another few months is going to reach the united states we're going to watch the eurozone implode we're going to watch the u.k. go down the united states will have problems and by the way we're going to see these problems in china korea and japan for all sorts of different reasons but they relate. and in terms of the fiscal crisis when that happens no one no one in the united states is going to care quite frankly about the size of the defense budget and that in my judgment is a real danger because how we cut defense matters we have very critical capabilities we need to preserve and then we need to build capabilities for the future and

you're talking about a three hundred billion dollar defense budget a two hundred fifty billion dollar annual cut that's very probable over the next couple of years we have pentagon officials saying you know they're kind of whining and crying about these proposed fifty five billion dollars i mean it's minuscule compared to the whole cause but i mean let's talk a little bit out of the box here and and look at the threat at large i mean you're more likely of dying in a in a lightning strike or suffocating accidently in bed than you are a terrorist attack in this country so why is this i mean these endless wars and just this and perpetual threat of turning or going on and you're asking a question for which there is a complex answer first of all the american people have enjoyed such prosperity and good fortune for the last thirty five forty years that they really haven't paid a great deal of attention to what is done with their money in washington that applies to many many things but it also applies to defense and foreign policy and when politicians stood up and said oh we have this terrible threat we're compelled

to intervene were compelled to bomb and by the way we're bringing everyone liberal democracy human rights and freedom the average american said well right reasonable doesn't affect me some my problem well it's become his problem we're broke we've lost trillions of dollars on these interventions they were not what they were advertised they did enormous waste of time money resources and blood blood our blood and everybody else's blood so we're going to get out we're going to deal with the defense spending issue because it's the biggest discretionary funding problem for the united states however it's not going to solve our larger economic problems it's not going to deal with the entitlements and with the best it requirements that we have to face up to that. it's happening in europe it's the collapse of this very lucrative welfare state we can't keep it up the europeans can't keep it up it's going to produce dramatic change inside our country so you're right there is no existential military threat overseas we don't need to be everywhere in the world we're going to scale back we're going to cut back from the outside in and then

we're going to deal with our own are always at home i mean here we see that the f. thirty five these fighter jets are perfect example of the pentagon to mine these outrageous toys that will exceed the job of spain i mean a proposal went by a trillion dollar program again and you have thirty five is tied to many different things that are unrelated necessarily to defense first of all there are a lot of jobs involved in a lot of states there's an investment in the technology there's a market overseas for this capability if we can sell it so as long as those things persist to the f. thirty five will die of very very slow and painful death again for the reasons that i said at the beginning it's not just about defense it's not just about threats that no longer exist it's also about domestic interests what about and now obama is pretty much a war president i mean he has these targeted assassination campaigns abroad now drone wars once you have both sides of the coin but we're presented with really two options i mean and they keep pushing and this war based on this kind of nonexistent

threat that you were talking about what do we do i mean do we just hope that congress will eventually cut. cut these programs or cut the budget the crisis that's coming we'll turn over the leadership in washington over the next two to three years you're seeing that happen now in europe. we're going to see many turnovers until there are people in power with authority who are going to be accountable to the american people that's what the europeans want that's what we want to take us a long time to get there but those things will solve this problem. and you know looking at what the pentagon's rhetoric is about how even shaving off fifty five billion dollars will compromise a national security but then you look at the budget i mean it's almost doubled since nine eleven i mean were you relieved that unsafe before nine eleven well i think it's pretty clear that we weren't and today if you look at real threats to the united states to the american people to our society you've really got to look at mexico forty thousand people have been killed in mexico of the last couple of

years the drug trade in the united states is bound up with illegal immigration our borders are not secure these are much bigger issues for americans than anything happening in afghanistan or iraq or anywhere else but i mean there have been cases a people coming out was the lawyers about nine eleven that said that they just ignored threats i mean it wasn't really that we weren't capable to deal with the threats is that they just didn't i mean they were either highly incompetent or criminally negligent and the case is well i can't comment on that as beyond those beyond my my level of expertise all that i can tell you is that we can reduce defense spending and we will how we do it is very important and that's to me the real question because what what mr romney has said what mr obama has said about defense and foreign policy those things most of it is fiction what about the lobbying from defense contractors do you think that that will have an influence where the defense contractor can only do so much i mean we have we have peut lots

of bad things to the defense industries we need a defense industry we need the scientific basis supports that defense industry technology is what it would confers tremendous power on our forces so that's got to be preserved the issue is how much of it do we need and how do we preserve that so to treat the defense industry is some of the culprit is ridiculous they have alternately been responding to the client and it's back to what i said before most americans have a bit attention to where the money goes. and how much money does it go to the defense of our income taxes well you know it's the largest portion of discretionary spending in the percentages are debatable because remember it's not just defense it also involves intelligence and it involves many other things that don't even show up like the cia's blackbody you know the cia but you know we have a lot of construction overseas it doesn't even show up in these budgets there are all sorts of things involved so it's who knows but i would not hesitate to say almost a trillion dollars that's going to be scaled back profoundly remember when did the

british leave india they left after world war two when they couldn't afford to stay they were broke they should've left india fifty years earlier was in their interest to do so they didn't we're going to leave because we can't afford to stay overseas where we've been you know makes one wonder when this endless threat will be over because we finally have to admit that we're broke and willing to stand it anymore have us tell us macgregor retired u.s. army colonel. time to check in with our web team and see what they're working on what's up andrew blakers our t.v. producer what you got cooking man and i got some stuff for you you ready for it you ready for it i'm ready for it man only took a couple of days but after j.p. morgan chase announced that they trying to goof in last a few billion dollars the f.b.i. is already ready to. ask a couple of questions they started up a limb unary investigation today into j.p. morgan chase over the whole blunder from last week that's one thing we did earlier today go to archie dot com slash usa and read about that no other good one let's

see had a couple for you today those f. twenty two is that multibillion dollar fleet of the military's most advanced aircraft well they finally decided that you know after you know one guy that they're going to have to kind of settle things so have twenty two's new restrictions on them and we got some information on the stop and frisk lawsuit in new york city against the n.y.p.d. so read about all that and more are t. dot com slash usa thanks andrew that was our t. web producer andrew blake with a preview of what's trending today on our web site so had on our cheat on the occupy wall street movement focuses attention on government corruption and economic equality and someone else is keeping their eyes on the group will tell you the department of homeland security and local law enforcement officials are keeping tabs on the movement. of one of american power continues. on things that are. might actually be time for

a revolution. and it turns out that a particular drug or starbucks has a surprising greedier. when you. look into the alone a sale you'll get a real headlines with none of them or see the problem with the mainstream. media today is that they're completely disconnected from the viewers and are what actually matters to 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. . all everyone in the mainstream from cork from corporate media to the government have tried to character assassinate and marginalize the occupy wall street movement as fringe well it turns out the government has felt very threatened by the movement all along therefore

your request to the partnership for civil justice fund has found that the department of homeland security is working with local law enforcement agencies to conduct massive surveillance and information sharing and response to occupy so since police can't silence the movement are they now trying to tarnish the group's reputation maria very very haydn hillard executive director at the partnership for civil justice fund joins me to discuss this sorry if i butchered your name tomorrow for hayden who are. so mara doesn't this confirm what we knew all along that there is this federalized crackdowns are really coming from the top down and tell us more about these documents well in the fall of last year when it was clear that there was a coordinated assault an attack on the occupy movement all over the country we filed a series of four demands with various federal law enforcement agencies as well as local municipal mare's offices police agencies and what we're trying to expose right now and get our hands on is the communications the documents that show the

nature of federal and local involvement in the occupy crackdown i don't think it comes as a surprise to anyone that the u.s. government is keenly aware and paying a lot of attention to a movement that's really inspired the country particular time of great social and economic injustice where people are standing up for themselves and as we've demanded the documents we've received waves of documents most recently a series from the department of homeland security. it seems like a lot of occupy activists aren't pointing fingers at the obama administration and mostly just local law enforcement agencies cracking down and what we've seen happen i mean these documents pretty much show that the da just was directly facilitating these these spying programs on occupy well there's a couple different elements here one is you have the actual folks that carry out you know the handcuffing the arrestee and the sweeping people out of our public squares and that's always the local police usually that are almost always that are doing that and then the question becomes how involved is the federal government now

we've seen so far from it is clear when mamma. occupy movement across the united states we have documents showing that they were entering into federal databases basically fusion center collection databases information like the names of people who were arrested demonstrated the bank of america in dallas now why is that going to be important to the federal government shouldn't be and they should be collecting that information and they should have these folks who are arrested for what looks like completely bogus and certainly minor offenses we have the department of homeland security reporting up to the highest levels in d.h.s.s. and all across the country with regard to the planning of the occupy movement in advance of the demonstrations at the ports last fall and they are reporting there they are getting reports back on what plans do you have in place what are you going to do with regard to the occupy movement when they come out on that day so we have that as well as issues of cord nation with local police it did seem very strategic

all of it happening kind of you know. one right after the other and really kind of the same method that we saw i mean i we know that there was a mayor all coal with some of the federal government kind of court navy needs can you talk a bit more about the fusion centers what are they sure the fusion centers are basically a mass spying apparatus that the department of homeland security is put in place in the united states and it is they exist on sort of the regional local state level and the way they operate is it's a way to sort of integrate all law enforcement to become basically folks that are conducting domestic spying so that it's not just federal agents what they do is they do what's called suspicious activity reporting which means anything there's basically no criteria to limit what gets reported and put into these data centers there in a way sort of informally deputized in the hundreds and thousands of local law

enforcement people all over the country to report back to the federal government and to include information about anything that they deem suspicious well apparently that is not focused on what one would reasonably consider to be suspicious which would be something looking like criminal or threatening or violent terrorist activity it's people engage in political protest. would you say it's safe to assume that there is really. infiltration let's say of police pretty much every large scale occupy group across the country at this point well the partnership for civil justice fund we have litigated demonstration cases for you know well over a decade some of the largest demonstrations in the united states where it's very clear to us that demonstration after demonstration local law enforcement goes in just as plainclothes but as undercover that they place people within the movement that they have people who act as protesters but we also think it's very important for people not to focus on and turn all their attention to you know if the guy next

to me and comes. you know you're not focused on what you care about in the things that are coming out the street for what you should do is recognize that exists and to be very conscious of it and to not get set up the way the f.b.i. are setting people up all the time where like you know most of the so-called terrorist plots of the last ten years have actually been created orchestrated led by the f.b.i. people need to be aware they need to be conscious but they need to stand up for what they believe in and and if people get scared then they're going to go back inside and the most important thing that can happen is that people come out in the street to fight for fight for social change and yeah one has to wonder if this would create a chilling effect or if that's what they're intending to do by you know this information getting out everyone's kind of skeptical of who's who's in the group who's an informant etc but let's talk a little bit about black bloc provocateurs i mean it's been noted in the past that there have been black bloc provocateurs i have turned out to be cops yes for certain and certain cases i mean do you think that it's likely that some of the

violence that's been instigated by occupy oakland when there is a cop watch a video that showed policemen dressed as occupy members in there and that's where we've seen the majority of this violence in these pretty aggressive crowd control methods on the activists do you think that's a possibility for them to be actually instigating the violence themselves oh absolutely and i think that's a very. important point i think that i mean i know from our own litigation that we have seen undercover officers come into peaceful protest groups and in one instance that we litigated they they were actually telling completely peaceful group that they should consider planting bombs on bridges calling in bomb threats that was coming from the police and certainly when the police are able to conduct a violent operation or provoke people or engage in a violent operation then they're going to be able to justify repressive tactics and they're also going to be able to demonize a movement so i do think that you know we've seen that happen i wouldn't be terribly surprised and then as you said a lot of activists have their own evidence their own videos of these guys that turn

out to be cops why is the federal government so afraid of people getting together in a public space to talk well you know their history of social change in the united states has really come not from a not because there was a beneficial all you know benevolent elected person who then sort of looked down and said i'm going to do right by the people it's always come because there's a social change almost revolution happening from below and the people have come together to fight for what they believe in whether it's the labor struggles women's rights civil rights and the vietnam war and that's what's always happened there at the same time we've always had police repression we've always had demonization and you know now we're in an election year and every four years the people the united states are told go to the ballot box and that's where you're going to find your solutions but we're really seeing a time in american history where people believe there's something else to do and do and it always has come from the grass roots i was mara very hayden.