today on our team the national defense authorization act has passed the house albeit without some of the more hotly debated. next step the senate review for you good reasons why you should care. and it's a hard knock life for american and mates a new report paints a brutal picture at one of america's most notorious prisons is this a single incident where the nation's norm. plus get ready for the wrong call revolution supporters are expected to come out in droves this weekend for the minnesota republican state convention duking it out for delegates of the strategy can actually work. so it's friday may eighteenth four pm in washington d.c.

i'm adding martin you're watching r t. starting out this hour we continue our coverage of the national defense authorization act better known as the and a two days ago mark mark a huge victory for civil rights advocates federal judge sided with the lawsuit filed by journalists and activists against the president ruling that the provisions in the controversial law were unconstitutional specifically the provision that allows the indefinite detention of u.s. citizens without due process so this indefinite detention clause not apply for americans anymore well not so fast no vote this morning congress shut down the strike from the provision of the n.d.a. in a vote of one hundred eighty two to thirty eight congress voted against the amendment proposed representatives adam smith and justin amash that would exclude american citizens from the n.b.a. so what does this mean for u.s. citizens now and what a lawsuit gained traction or is the issue dead joining us now to discuss more is carl mayer attorney for the mayer law group. things are happening so fast in this

case those one if you can just give our audience a brief update of what is going on. thank you yes thank you ms martin thank you for having me on i think that the reason things are happening fast in this case is that we're driving me agenda here that wednesday's ruling really extraordinary ruling by judge forrest. struck down the provisions of the n.d.a. particularly section ten twenty one otherwise known as the home battlefield act that we subject u.s. citizens to military detention and nothing that congress has done has changed that so the status quo stays in place meaning we won the injunction the plaintiffs won the government cannot detain us citizens or even a resident alien and so far we have prevailed because this litigation while congress is around to twiddle their thumbs no wonder only two thousand and twelve percent of the american people have confidence in the congress in poll after poll

after poll because they're not standing up for the civil liberties of the people why do you think whatever that congress voted against as i mean it seems like it's pretty widespread that this is extremely controversial in this judge sided with you guys in the last what is the reasoning think congress is. putting a hold on it you know that's an excellent question ms martin the government had an opportunity to put to present some witnesses in federal court in the trial that we had before judge force and they declined they didn't put in one witness and i can't imagine why the congress is doing this other than they are scoring cheap political points they think with their constituents because they want to be seen as tough on terror when in fact what they're doing is undermining two hundred years of american civil liberties law and that's why we brought this lawsuit that's why we were victorious and let me bring home for you for journalists what the provisions of the n.d.a. that we defeated would have meant would be that if mr martin had done the story that favorably commented on a chair or

a muslim charity affiliated with al qaeda you could have been deemed to be giving substantial support to al qaeda and under the end. they could have put you in military detention without the benefit of a lawyer or trial by your peers they could have sent a black baby and in the middle of the night to take you from your home instead you were right to military detention and that would require to you any other u.s. citizen resident aliens in this country even people in other states it's probably the most if i could ever credit assault on civil liberties since the mccarthy or karl you're right i mean it does kind of fly in the face of the bedrock of this country haiti is corpus i mean the reason why we distance ourselves from the british government initially it is astounding that this went into place in the first place let's let's talk really specifically because it is really confusing to a lot of people now that this and the new n.d.a. just got passed in the congress it's awaiting a senate vote it still has these provisions. and well are they just and definite

i mean there's no there's no expiration. no there is no expiration but the provision that was in there in the prior one and it is in the current one was struck down as unconstitutional by judge force and this means that that provision is null and void and the government cannot lawfully detain american citizens or any other person without benefit of trial and this goes this goes back to the supreme court decision during the civil war called ex-parte the milligan where the court ruled that didn't work time as long as you're not a combatant if you're a civilian you are entitled to a trial by jury of your peers that's just basic democracy one on one and this entire indian process has been an assault on that and it's really it's not a fortunate but i'm glad i'm so glad to be part of the two lead lawyers on the

legal team that defeated this i was honored to represent these places who were journalists and citizens who spoke about. i think this fundamentally could start to reignite the fight for civil liberties the successful fight for civil liberties in this country carl it is a great example of direct citizen action taking it upon themselves to really challenge the power why you know just just out of curiosity what is your personal pain about then putting this provision i mean it does seem totally fly in the face of american democracy the bedrock of liberty and you know it really creates that chilling effect where they're bringing the war on terror right here at home. well unfortunately unfortunately ms martin it is it is an extreme part it extreme end point but it is part of a series of laws that have been passed since nine eleven that have expanded and

expanded the power of the federal government and it has diminished and diminished the civil liberties of americans for example the warrantless wiretapping act which was passed a while ago allows the government to. wiretap without warrants people's phone calls throughout the united states in the one nine hundred seventy s. even under richard nixon the government could not do that and it what has happened is by statute you have the usa patriot act you have drones now flying over american cities you have police in american cities that look like they're in paramilitary uniforms i never thought i would see any of these things the united states of america. in order for us to continue to call ourselves the land of the free we need to stand up for these liberties like our ancestors did and. enormous credit goes to judge force are all i can say i mean glenn greenwald cites the concept of the invisible line that there's

a chilling effect in the country that you know not to cross this line and when you do that's when you know the government after i mean do you think that with this whole ended indefinite detention provision is it really. stifling dissent and do you think that people are becoming increasingly scared to dissent against the government because of this. right well i think that is the intent of many of these statutes i think that has been occurring judge for us focused like a laser on this in her opinion where she wrote that these plaintiffs have standing even though they haven't been put in detention because their actions have been chilled and their dissent has has been. chilled and their activities have been diminished that is why they have standing to challenge this because of exactly what you said the net effect of this law is to is to brush back like a like a baseball pitch to brushback someone who's at the plate it's a brush back the civilians from exercising their rights unfortunately judge force

fought back on this and that's why it's so important to have a constitutional scheme that is a separation of powers karl i think what you said earlier is really important that this really goes across and it's not just terrorists it's not just a mess a terrorist i mean it's every american who could be affiliated with whatever the government deems to be terrorist activities i mean that is really the scariest part about this. and i just want to touch upon a lot of people that i talked about to say well obama signed a signing statement and he promised that he would in and activists i mean what does that signing statement really mean it when subsequent ministrations can enforce this i mean isn't that just kind of like a promissory note saying like oh i got your back like don't worry about it it's not even it doesn't even have the force of a promissory note it's what is not worth the paper that is printed upon for example president obama said that first of all that he was a really good to issue a sign of states then issues aside and steve he said he would veto the n.p.a.

at then he didn't veto the n.d.a. president obama said that he was concerned about the provisions of the idea but he signed it anyway so the president has twisted himself up like a pretzel about the n.b.a. there's no coherence to his position. there's no coherence to what congress is doing because if they really want to protect american civil liberties they would they would have sort of it would dissolve this law fortunately it's been blocked for now. permit and. i expect it to be blocked permanently by the courts but congress and the administration should right now that we're calling on the do this issue right now vitiate this law and get us back to a civil liberties regime it is but it is interesting karl you it really makes you wonder who is pulling the strings when the obama says one thing and does another and will definitely follow in this case it is essential to follow and thank you for your work on it that was karl made he would leave you counsel with bruce our friend

representing the plaintiffs in this matter he is the candidate that the corporate press and mainstream two party system love to hate as the other g.o.p. candidates can add to the drop like flies ron ron paul is still taking it for the long haul even though he suspended his campaign states where primaries haven't been held he's going full force of the convention and continues to pick up delegates along the way so what is going to happen at the convention and where is it all going from there senior editor at reason and the author of the book ron paul revolution. joins me from new york. to brian what do you think about ron paul his new strategy here in kind of halting in this primary campaigning. it makes sense that he's not going to spend a lot of money he doesn't have you know buying ads or sending his body around to these primary states though i do think it's a p.r. move the announcement was perhaps

a little misguided because it was spun by all too many people in the media as paul drops out and as if the ron paul story is over but it is very much not over even this weekend the state of minnesota is having the convention where it picks its delegation to the national convention and it looks almost certain that ron paul is going to win that state as well that will be a second state he's winning he's looking good in louisiana iowa and missouri as well and he is going to come into that convention in tampa not just a fringe candidate but a strong number two to mitt romney the last competitor standing in his libertarian wing of the party is going to make a splash and they're going to tell the republican party look we are here and we cannot be ignored so so at this point it's more of a symbolic gesture to kind of show their force and really create create this division within the g.o.p. to say hey listen we obviously have a lot of pull and we're strong force to be reckoned with but what do you think it's going to do to the g.o.p. divide i mean you have the neo conservative this archaic neo cons on the right and

it's extreme divide with these new libertarian. ron paul supporters i mean what do you think's going to happen there. yes i do want to say that while it is symbolic it is not just symbolic because another thing the poll people have been doing not just racking up delegates but also having their people take over positions of authority within state party structures in alaska now their state chairmen are both strong ron paul people so the ron paul people are going to be the people doing the sort of low level work of a party apparatus and that's going to be very important to the kind of candidates the party puts forward the kind of candidates they support how important is going to be really depends obviously on whether romney wins or not if romney is the nominee and he loses and we can see that one of the reasons he lost is that he was not able to keep the votes in the enthusiasm of the paul people that's going to anger the republican party in the short term but i do think it will scare them straight about the notion that we need to put forward the party needs to put

forward candidates that are serious about cutting spending that don't defend battle out that actually have consistent small government records and ron paul is the only one in the race who did brian you know in two thousand and eight my brother and a lot of other people i know voted for ron paul in the primaries and they were really disappointed when he didn't when he didn't go for and run independent and i know that you said he doesn't have a lot of money to spend and not might be the reason why he kind of made this decision but do you think that he has a he would possibly run third party or independent this time i mean it is his last her rotha. i will say what dr paul always says which is that he doesn't plan on it of course he also never says absolutely one hundred percent i won't do it the legal deadlines to do that are getting very close every state is different but basically through the summer if you haven't done the work to get your name on the ballot you can't really do an independent run i don't expect him to do it because his campaign has clearly made the decision that hey we're doing well enough within the republican party the republican party is one of the major vehicles of power in

this country let's try to move ahead and influence that party because third party runs never actually do well in the country i mean those are purely symbolic moves in the paul campaign feels that they are making headway in the republican party and it's not worth ruining all that progress by a failed third but what about all his supporters i mean they really i mean it's really ron paul or die for them i mean this has been going on since two thousand and they've donated millions of dollars to his campaign and money bombs he's been doing have garnered so many so much money do you think that's kind of taking the money and running. no not at all i mean he spent the money the campaign that he ran a campaign the campaign is down to around a million dollars it is worth pointing out that he raised nearly twice as nearly as much rather as both gingrich and santorum combined his people are the giving people in the republican party and if you wanted to raise more he could and his people are going to be extremely disappointed obviously that ron paul is not going to end up being the nominee and mitt romney cannot count on winning their vote my prediction

the people talk about where's the ron paul vote going to go as if the ron paul vote is the thing that has to exist in fact the ron paul vote was created by ron paul and without ron paul i'm going to guess that more than half of it is going to dissipate they're going to continue being active in politics but they're not necessarily going to cast their vote for president what about what about the delegates that they stand for what about the delegates at the convention notice on this up really quickly i mean he's he's already come out and said he is not going to endorse gary johnson and he's kind of held off on saying as endorsement for mitt romney which i find strange but i mean where do you think the delegates are going to do once they're there i mean they're going to vote for ron paul. all right i'm going to vote for ron paul that's what they're there to do yeah i don't i think it is extremely unlikely that paul endorse romney to do so would dissipate the goodwill of his fans in a really dangerous a way would be a very foolish move for paul to do that well it's an exciting time for the g.o.p. and really to see where this is going well it's great that there is a change and

a shift in policy and we'll definitely keep an eye on that was brian doherty senior editor of reason dot com the author of ron paul revolution the man and the movement he inspired so ahead here on our team it's a hard knock life for american inmates a new report paints a brutal picture at one of america's most notorious prisons and this is a single incident or the nation's norm that story next. what drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to break through it's already been made who can you trust no one who is human view with the global machinery to see where we had a state controlled capitalism it's called sessions when nobody dares to ask we do our t. question morning. papers when i. bump into the alone a fellow you know gets a real headline with none of them are the problem with the mainstream media today

is that they're completely disconnected from the viewers and for 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. . at first for a let's just burn your eyes right right i mean it's like a derivative of actual pepper it's a food product essentially. this is much stronger than anything it's used by a lot of. thousands of times and stronger than any kind of ever put you know. well it's something that's joked about in pop culture often but it's certainly no

laughing matter shocking or not so shocking poll reveals that one in ten prison inmates have been raped or sexually victimized to tackle the issue the obama administration has ordered mandatory screenings and prevention regulations and hope to reduce the sexual assaults there's been a lot of discussion about what goes on in private prisons but what about state prisons in two thousand and eight teen inmates in new york state's prison rikers island beat an eighteen year old inmate to death as guards looked the other way when it was investigated it was found that the death was not unique in fact it was an unfortunate casualty of an institutionalized fight club happening within records called the program where inmates violently fight each other to attain their place in the pecking order the scandal resulted in twelve inmates and two guards being sentenced for their complicity and that was the end of it or so we thought fast forward four years later the village voice's obtained hundreds of internal correction department documents that expose the program has never stopped in fact it's gotten worse take

a look at these photos. there of teen adult inmates at rikers island who have been slashed or beaten within the last two years these graphic images put a face into the type of violence that advocates say have been going on for years and that's just the tip of the iceberg officials now acknowledge that inmates fight three times a day and just over the last year records catalogue four thousand four hundred thirty five injuries so these documents finally bring much needed exposure to the cover cover up of systematic violence there and as it's happening across the country and more prisons joining me now to discuss more is the village voice author who actually exposed these poor conditions grammarian graham can you tell us more specifically about what the program is. well i just want to make one correction this is this took place in the city jails city jail of sister state prison there is a separate system but the program is basically guards there actively encouraging

or passively condoning. inmate intimidation. several though the there's a pecking order in in this hierarchy among inmates they'll be leaders who get extra privileges who get who gets you who intimidate other inmates to use the phone to get their commissary money to get the best seats to watch television they tell inmates when they can be in their cell when they can't and it happens very commonly in the teen jail on rikers island and graham you know one of the documents you guys got actually outlined the rules and that's kind of what you're specifying right now i mean this is this is actually documented that these are the rules of the program yes there was a document titled the with the program because what they do is they the leader in the leading inmates will ask you inmates are you with that meaning are you going to go along with what we tell you to do and if they don't they get beaten and that

document was seized in a search of a cell in the team jail at riker's graham talk more about the weapons and the drug rule mules i mean are the guards completely aware that people are smuggling weapons and drugs inside and are they complicit in kind of the cover up of this aspect of what's going on. well there have been there certainly have been cases where guards are either been charged or fired for bringing contraband in on behalf of inmates for example there was a recent case involving cell phone there was discovered there was a case involving a. guard was allowing inmates to use an internet can use a computer to search the internet. and as far as the weapons go go the inmates can be very ingenious one night one night if i found i saw it was a eight inch fan blade that image had been broken off and sharpened they also take

pieces of the radiator and turn them in and knives are pieces of plexiglas and sharp sharp in them. they can be very creative in terms of arming themselves graham do you think that this is systematic across all city state prisons i mean is this something that you think is happening and we just don't know about. i don't know i mean my expertise is in jails the city jail system remember you're dealing with teenagers which is a different dynamic than adults they tend to fight more. but at the same time i think that city jail system has has to take more responsibility in stopping this kind of thing i think if if you're a corrections officer and you know that you see this hierarchy in play and you let it and you let it happen then you're doing a disservice to both yourself the agency and the and the teens themselves do you think that the documents will halt this program once and for all or do you think it's going to going to be swept under the rug just like it was after the two

thousand and incident well my understanding is that is that the the jail commissioner here dora shiro is trying to trying to deal with that she has added some staff in in that jail and i think this this article sharpen the agency's focus on the problem. did anything change after two thousand and eight. well two thousand and eight chris robinson was murder it was was like the perfect storm of events. you know you had the guards actively telling the inmates control your control your fellow inmates and and his the the fact that he died was it was highly unusual it hasn't been a homicide in that jail since. what about what about that are the kind of go ahead sorry but the passive condoning of these practices has continued for sure and there's also been

a problem in that jail of of the warden covering up incidents of fights and injuries and discouraging inmates from reporting them which is still under investigation right now there's also a federal investigation into violence on rikers so we'll see where that goes i mean it just seems like you know regardless of whether or not it's a city prison or federal prison or a private prison i mean it just seems like a lot of people who go into the prison system come out more hardened there's gangs running things and they use more drugs and there's just so much violence i mean and do you think this is just an inherent thing within the prison industrial complex and why isn't this more talked about i mean the fact that we are not rehabilitating prisoners to assimilate back in society properly. well i think out of sight out of mind their constituency that doesn't have very much political influence. i mean you know if you're if you're a teenager and you've been arrested for graffiti let's say

a nonviolent crime and you end up in rikers. and you find yourself getting beaten up you know that's going to change your life i mean that's not a small thing you know you're going to come out either traumatized or over harden or you're going to or the next chance you get you're going to go after the people who beat you up so it is it is something to be also these are people who are not convicted of a crime there are still pretrial detainees so they should be afforded they are innocent until proven guilty so they should be afforded more protection than than say. a prisoner or someone in this in a state prison who is serving twenty five to life for homicide for murder it is a shocking story graham and thanks for publishing those documents and everyone should definitely check those out and you know hopefully it's not systematic across the nation but it is very shocking now is grammarian village voice writer capital account is up next on our t.v.

so let's check in with lauren lyster to see what's on today's agenda lauren i abby i'm sure if you looked up at any t.v. today you couldn't miss all of the hype or discussion about the lack of hype surrounding the facebook i.p.o. so we've already talked about the problems with facebook and with some of these tech companies on this show we're going to look now at what some of the benefits are of these kind of new business models as far as kind of allowing them choose your own adventure accounting privilege which could have you asking if they're cooking the books or could be so people that are that are looking at the facebook stock today are not going to want to miss this thanks lauren that does it for now for more on the stories we covered go to youtube dot com slash r t america or check out our website our to dot com slash usa and you can also follow me on twitter abby martin. see it five.

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