today on our t.v. putting so-called national security measures back on the back burner a new york city judge is a blocking key parts of the national defense authorization act it's a big boost to activists who oppose the law and we'll talk to one of the lawyers who is helping sue president obama. plus the obama administration is cracking down on hydraulic fracturing but it still isn't drilling into the heart of the issues so what's behind the delay in oversight we'll explore i am not a journalist i'm just a guy who cares. i'm sorry i'm just a guy who cares an awful lot about my country because a couple of. well it's no laughing matter major media

outlets are taking major hit in ratings this despite hang their personalities bloated salaries but the average viewer isn't impressed so does this mean the days of overpaid media stars are coming to an end. it's thursday may seventeenth four pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wall and you're watching r t. well a victory for opponents of the n.c.a.a. a federal judge has ruled that provisions of the controversial law may violate our constitutional rights president obama signed the national defense authorization act back in december the move has outraged activists that say the law is so vague it allows u.s. citizens to be indefinitely detained by the military without due process but a group of activists sued president obama yesterday the federal judge took their side. here is part of the court order issued by judge catherine forrest every it's

quote this court is acutely aware that preliminarily and joining an act of congress must be done with great caution however it is the responsibility of our judicial system to protect the public from acts of congress which infringe upon constitutional rights so the law has been blocked at least for now to talk more about the case and the implications of it i'm joined by carl mayer he's co lead counsel with bruce afrin representing the plaintiffs in this case welcome to the show carl so a huge victory for you your reaction to the judge's ruling. thank you for having me on this wall my reaction is that. in large part due to a district judge federal district judge for us america is more free today than it was yesterday this was a hugely important landmark ruling it's very rare that a judge will declare unconstitutional an act of congress and that's what judge

forested yesterday in a very sound very reasoned very persuasive and intricate constitutional opinion that held directly that when you have a law as vague as the n.c.a.a. or the so-called homeland battlefield act that seeks to put americans in jeopardy of being placed in a military brig or prison or in a military tribunal that this is a fundamental violation of our free speech rights it's also a fundamental violation of due process rights in this country because people should be entitled to know the standards by which they would be judged so this is truly a very important very critical ruling by judge forest yesterday and right now we're calling on president obama to issue a statement publicly that he will not appeal this ruling then what he will do is agree to enter into a permanent injunction so that never get will stay so this isn't ever have any concern that they will be placed in a military prison or placed in

a military trial system where they have no right to right to trial by jury of their peers such that they are freedoms will be forever guaranteed and this is what president obama ought to do the judge has issued a preliminary injunction which is indefinite it means the n.p.a. cannot be used to pick up americans that in a proverbial black a van or in any other of the other way that the administration might decide to try to get people into the military justice system it means that the government is foreclosed now from engaging in this type of. action against the civil liberties of americans but. the federal government is still the people they have the right to but we're suggesting that it would not be in their best interest because there are so many people from all sides political spectrum opposed to this law that they ought to just say we're not going to enter into

a permanent injunction and by the way romney should also issue a statement on this because this is such an important issue to the american people there are members of the republican party for example ron paul even rick santorum for example opposed the. so this is not a left or right issue this is simply what it means this is an issue about what it means to be an american and the bill of rights is something that our ancestors fought to achieve to prevent the british from exercising control sovereign control and authoritarian control over this country and it's incredible to me that we're even having this discussion today but i'm sorry you wanted to make a point now i was just going to ask you karl and because this is just temporary this is a preliminary injunction and you said that the government can still appeal at this point so are you confident that you'll prevail i'm very confident with that will

prevail even if they do appeal because judge for this opinion was the sixty eight page very well reasoned and sound opinion the relied on recent precedent in that in the circuit that we're in which is the second circuit for the new york area and supreme court precedent so very confident that we would win any appeal. furthermore a preliminary injunction is an extraordinary measure for a court to take and what it says in order to issue a preliminary injunction the judge has to make a finding on the record and there was a very extensive record on this case in this case the judge has to make a finding the. in fact we will prevail on the merits should the case proceed so the burden of proof is now entirely shifted to the government and they have an uphill battle and frankly i don't i don't see how they can surrender so i think it will stand and there are civil liberties will be protected all right now that we know what the legal standing of the says we want to take

a moment to talk about some of the arguments that that have gone on here and what has made the n.b.a. so controversial is how vague it as and the fact that it's vagueness critics say it opens up all kinds of scary possibility as the plaintiffs you know you fear that report even reporting on terrorists could be considered grounds for being detained under this law and the judge acknowledged the danger some of the language and this bill can you talk about that. sure absolutely. the leverage of the bill for example stated that any want to be captured under the law if they were considered to give substantial support to al qaeda or other terrorist organizations or. even giving support to organizations that were enemies of america coalition forces not just the united states so it is so vague terms like substantial support that even journalists or activists or citizens or protesters could be caught up with and

in fact the people there were in involved this place here were in fact former a former reporter for the new york times chris hedges the legendary whistleblower daniel ellsberg and some very young activists who were involved with occupy wall street and incredibly there were various security memorandums identified occupy wall street occupy london and other affiliated groups as in fact organizations. according to the u.s. government and for them to label these groups that are largely peaceful protesters as organizations. shows the assault that we're facing out of civil liberties and how important it is to stand up against it so. i just wanted to mention another argument that the government made is that the n.b.a.'s sensually just reaffirms a law that already exists that lobbying the authorization for use of military force

is a two thousand and one law but neither you nor the judges buy this argument why not a right that's an excellent question you've really done your homework as a question the judge would have none of that argument because the authorization for military force was passed right after nine eleven and it was specifically targeted to members of al-qaeda or people who participated in the nine eleven attacks. this law of the end goes so far beyond that as to make a completely different and indistinguishable effort it goes so far beyond that anyone who gives quote substantial support and that could include a writer and journalist etc could be caught up on it so really the day you have half was a total and there are lot directed at people who committed violent acts and were involved in nine eleven attack and in fact in the court were judge forrest cross-examined the lawyers for the government and it is plainly can you assure the journalists here that you will not be subject to the n.p.a.

and they were going to multiple times they refused to answer they refused to give those assurances they only said we cannot give those assurances we cannot give those as the sheriff says and therefore the judge found and the record supports that any journalist could have a reasonable fear that they would be prosecuted under this law and that's why i think it's so important not just to you and your colleagues who are journalists but anyone who considers themselves and activists and interested in the truth and i'll tell you a nother important point is that this really shows the the critic the critical nature of having a separations of power of government to have be able to have it you dish here we review what the executive branch and the congressional branch do in order to make sure that they follow the constitution because essentially it here in the executive branch in the congress have colluded to create an entire and entirely unconstitutional in play for us the minute anything to due process system that is

fundamentally anathema to american principle right under al so delighted we could we could achieve this victory and don't mean to cut you off there. definitely achieve something that a lot of people feared couldn't be a chance they very interesting thank you so much for coming on the show that was karl's marriage he's the cold lead counsel but for his half an hour presenting the plaintiffs in this case. well still ahead on our t.v. drill baby drill just so long as you disclose the chemicals you use first the obama administration has a new set of rules for i draw like fracturing companies but they still miss the heart of the controversy behind the practice we'll tell you how next. one of american power continues. things that are. might actually be time for a revolution. and it turns out that if you were drinking starbucks has

a surprising him really you. what drives the world is the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to break through it's already been made who can you trust no one. with a global reach where we had a state control capital in school back when nobody dared to ask we do our see question more. on the rolls over the controversial practice of fracking but are they enough last week president obama proposed national guidelines on fracking the technique extracts natural gas from the earth by injecting fluid deep into the ground the liquid mixture sometimes includes toxic chemical that may make its way into water wells so

the obama administration's rules require drilling companies to disclose what chemicals they're using and test wells to make sure they're not prone to leaking now fracking companies say these rules are too restrictive fracking critics say they don't go far enough in fact they say it only applies to a very small percentage of natural gas supply in the nation so is drinking water still on the verge of becoming hazardous as a result of fracking talk about what the frack is going on like a little egg reporter for truthout org joins us now welcome to the show mike. good star or too many holes to be effective. coming in. only covers. land management and. the federal government jurisdiction only covers about eleven percent of our gas reserves so most of the fracking operations in the country because. so what needs to happen now do they

need to be expanded to cover some of the this other land or how do they fix this. well there's a patchwork of regulations state by state actually the industry prefers that they don't want the federal government stepping in to make new regulations so they might have to follow rules that might overlap but. we're waiting on federal regulation to go beyond that and the e.p.a. has been doing a study but at the end of the year so in the cases where the regulations do apply but it seems like as you just said they don't apply to a majority of fracking sites here in the u.s. what is the likelihood that even in these scenarios they'll be enforced i think that the federal government can be enforcing these but as far as we know one of the big provisions of these rules is disclosure of the chemicals that the companies bring to the ground back industry has been trying to keep those chemicals some of

them trade secrets for years but they won't have to disclose these chemicals until after they're done drilling and that's one big hole in that in this rule that you know people who want to test their water before the drilling they get a baseline are nice of what was there before the drilling won't be able to do that so it sounds like it'll be too late the damage will be already done by the time people know what's what kind of chemicals are in the water the damage could already be done by then to be harder to hold companies accountable if you don't have a baseline data on what was in your water before they start drilling now on the other side there the drilling companies say the rules go too far and that natural gas tallit it as a great alternative to coal which comes with its own environmental problems so what do you say to that argument. i actually can be cleaner than call but co's also been regulated much more extensively than national and also fallen ministration has actually been working pretty closely with the industry their new interagency

working group to come out with these rules got praise after praise from the industry for doing that so actually courts are going to say they don't want to be regulated but so far i think they're pretty happy. now my many people are concerned about fracking including their breweries and here's one of the headlines that says fracking could poison your next to be here that's what it rains the founder of brooklyn brewery fears toxic chemicals are making their way into beverages so if the possibility of poisoned water is enough to scare you could add very drinkers push this fight over the edge the digicam i saw i hope that i don't take any for the bear but i think it might. take a bit more on the environmental movement than just microbrew fans right well i guess anybody to stand by the cars so what are you hoping happens next what needs to be done in order to strengthen these rules that you say right now are inadequate

as they stand the e.p.a. has been conducting a study on fracking for the past about two years and that will be done to the end of the year and they've been commissioned by congress to do that and the hope is that after they're done the come out on regulation that that process is taking a very long time and i think the for activists it's time to look at the state level states have a lot more power to regulate the fracking at this point in time to push your local and state legislators to take the kind of action mike thank you very much for coming on the show that was michael leunig thank you he's a reporter for truthout dot org. well a rough week for c.n.n. the network's prime time shows slumped in ratings the lowest c.n.n. has seen in fifteen years on tuesday piers morgan tonight drew only thirty nine thousand viewers not the best small compared to the host who slot he took over larry king as viewership started strong for years but pierce isn't the only one despite being paid millions and millions many stars are losing the ratings and the

viewers so what's going on we explored you know if you boy a ten million dollars chandelier you should have a house to put it fired from current t.v. keith olbermann compares himself to a multi-million dollar household fixture you're the chandelier and the. political commentator now suing the same thing network for a reported fifty million dollars blaming them for shoddy production and from liberal to conservative slanted media not too long ago fox said goodbye to their top political pundit captivating america with his conspiracy theories are you you will have the secret you're the answer emotional outbreaks i am not a journalist i'm just a guy who cares. i'm sorry i'm just a guy who cares an awful lot about my country even fox had enough of the antics and

oprah considered to be the most influential woman in the world. with the highest rated talk show for decades her own network isn't quite living up to the hype it was the usa today headline that was so oprah not quite standing on her own and it just did. the network reportedly lost three hundred thirty million dollars since it started airing last year former morning show darling katie couric rakes in fifteen million annually that's a page from my notebook on katie couric c.b.s. news but today she's not doing it in ratings you receive b.s. in the evenings and c.n.n.'s prime time silver fox once always found on the front line and scene of the crime. can now be found here i know all the real housewives of beverly hills despite millions in compensation why are stars in news who are losing their shyness because

big corporate they're going to dumb it down to the least common denominator and of course it will be almost like entertainment meanwhile recent statistics show you are leaving the mainstream networks and drove from march of last year to march of this year c.n.n. lost a staggering fifty percent of its viewers fox lost seventeen percent imus n.b.c. fared well in comparison with a three percent rise in viewers so where are they turning to instead social media and online outlets are giving the mainstream a run for their money whenever you have that huge gap between what you're reading online on facebook and twitter and what the evening news is showing you that some people choose alternative outlets well times have changed and viewers now have the luxury of options so they don't like what they're seeing they simply stop tuning in or if they don't like what they're reading. they're just one click away from many outlets that will report on the news they find important and washington liz wall

our team. to talk more about this i'm going to that christopher chambers journalism professor for a georgia town university. here to give us more in depth more in that some i now want to win their own. so badly for c.n.n. piers there i am barely is no larry king has he had the lowest ratings in fifteen years what's going on well you have to understand it. in terms of three when you call it factors or obstacles because basically saturation segmentation and sociology and the this can jump around among all these three but basically when you have somebody like oprah the saturation point is incredible when she's on once a day and doing her thing everybody wants to see her but entire network that doesn't even have daytime original programming that was you know that was tanking

and sociology aspect to a lot of younger women didn't find her relevant anymore and they didn't like the the the celebrity worship so you know you know there's gone to social media same thing with katie couric a lot of younger women don't find her a lot of them don't even know she is and then the segmentation thing might help people like bill o'reilly and sean hannity and people like that but you don't see them going off to start their own network which is which is what glenn beck did with g.b. t.v. now the segmentation health because his audience of lunatics followed him but it's not on prime time you have to order it you have to watch it on you tube so you know so there is some savvy there so i mean when you look at that interplay among those three factors it explains a hell of a lot of what's going on there was somebody like piers morgan i mean larry king was larry king it was an icon a lot of people like that a lot of people older people like me like tuning in but then when he was gone we

basically went with them and now where did we go i mean some people went to fox some people are why. you know animals kill each other on animal planet but they're not watching piers morgan because there's just something you know not very genuine about him and b a he's still trying to do the celebrity get for the latest murder or scandal and it really is wearing thin but these networks are banking and that they've always kind of banked on their stars and and best millions and you know there's many examples that we could point to. i guess these days the big salary doesn't necessarily translate to big ratings no i mean it doesn't it you know for certain like when you talk about segmentation it helps certainly when you're talking about rush limbaugh you know why he's making the big bucks why bill o'reilly is making the big bucks because of that maniacal following and because you know unlike certain shows i mean like maybe jon stewart jon stewart's not dealing

in fear and suddenly you know that appealing the other day he said attaining but he's also analyzing he's not appealing to the reptilian brain the medulla back there that always thinks about you know killing people and what somebody is trying to do to me which is what the other guys are doing so that does help but still you don't see them going off to start their own network rush limbaugh is not that stupid so you know there's that aspect of keeping that market and being renumerated being paid for it to deliver what they need to deliver to the sponsors but they're not going to overstep and overreach and i think that's what katie couric oprah has certainly done it c.n.n. has done it by putting their trust in piers morgan but making a reasonable bet with say soledad o'brien in the morning which is a reasonable alternative to the morning shows where you see the big salaries especially on n.b.c. with matt lauer but at least met lauer is he's kind of keep it in his comfort zone he might not be worth it in terms of the news and entertainment product but he's

worth it to them in terms of delivering to their sponsors. also in that story there we showed a test x. c.n.n. lost half of their viewers ducks last seventeen per sat so it's kind of happening across the spectrum here is this a trend is this. signify a big shift and where people are turning to the ball i think so i think so i mean you do have people scaping to social media now again the material in social media has to come from somewhere someone has got to be doing the original reporting the original riginal digging the original analysis some people are leaving because of that segmentation factor and they want to see the raw meat especially if they're right wingers i want to see all this stuff that nobody wants to cover that you know obama was born on mars or something like that so they're going to get a lot of people are leaving to get the news that they can pick and choose what news and when to look at it and they don't have to deal with these overblown stars i

mean when you look at somebody like jon stewart or stephen cold beer or even rachel maddow there's something understated about them as opposed to keith olbermann there's something original and interesting in the product as our t.v. or if you were to look at current with in the young turks i mean there's a certain continuity there with some of these bigger than life balloon here. i think it turns a lot of people off even in my generation so we're looking at news and other sources but we we still demand that the news on social media comes from a reputable source and they're in there in is the problem we are seeing the facts i guess of social media and i guess that's well that nobody but it's a social media. press thank you very much as christopher chambers journalism professor for georgetown university. well the capital account is up next on our t.v. let's check in with lauren lyster to see what's on today's agenda lauren what you have going on hi liz well the latest in whale gate we now know that jamie dimon has

been invited to the hill to testify we'll have to see how he responds in the meantime the new york fed is investigating how banks manage deposits in the wake of this two billion dollar possibly more trading loss this is a good opportunity liz to talk about regulation and the f. word on wall street which shall not be uttered but we can enter it here it's fraud and chris whalen our guest today he's an author an investment banker has been writing about it and the way the law might be stacked against customers trying to recover their money in bankruptcy even when they've been defrauded it's really interesting our viewers your viewers are not going to want to miss it that that and more coming up in writing and if you do not want to miss it that is coming up next on the capital account with our listener but that's going to do it for the news from around the stories we covered you can check out our you tube channel it's youtube dot com slash r t america you can check out our website as it's r t dot com slash usa you can also follow me on twitter liz wall well they're right back here

and a half hour. wealthy british style. is not on the title of. markets why not come to. find out what's really happening to the global economy with max cons or for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into kinds a report. 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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