tonight on r t it's not a good time to be a muslim in new york city a new review says that not only can police cross state lines to conduct operations but that spying on mosques and infiltrating prayer groups is not breaking any rules the latest case of police prejudice and we'll tell you all about it. plus two u.s. lawmakers are ready to cut off the money supply to fossil fuel companies proposing a bill to one hundred thirteen billion dollars in subsidies over the next ten years giving money to people who actually need it but the one thing is for certain america's oil and coal luvvie isn't going down without a fight well tell you about this energetic debate. the first amendment just keep

shrinking in importance and souls profiteering corporations who don't care a lot about journalism don't care a lot about democracy has taken control well looks like having the most trusted name in news or being fair and balanced isn't enough cable news network viewership is plummeting along with current events knowledge of people who do watch so where are americans turning to for their daryl's daily dose of news some answers coming up. it's thursday may twenty fourth seven pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wall and you're watching r.t. . well is targeting muslims legal turns out it's ok in the state of new jersey this after a three month review by new jersey governor chris christie is administration muslim leaders demanded a formal investigation into the n.y.p.d.

after it came out the police were targeting and monitoring muslim businesses mosques and other places simply on the basis that the people they were monitoring were muslim so what does this mean for muslim americans in the state and does this mean racial profiling is acceptable there to discuss this i'm joined now by shahar is associate professor of law at texas lesley and university. so as a member of the muslim community what is your reaction to this well it is disappointing to say the least i think that there's a lot of patients finding first in new jersey citizens clearly need to pass a law that bar police departments from other states from snooping in spying on your citizens without any and if you want mission and without even knowing you knew your you who is department within your. governor so i think that it's clear that until

more needs to be passed to protect your you didn't and such overreaching because it appears based on the move who are one who think the attorney general is competent that. they did accurate legal maneuver you are the problem seems to be that the law law and no a new law needs to be to protect all that is in particularly muslim the point yesterday and so this review found that these cases where they were targeting certain places based simply on the fact that the citizens there were of muslim descent does this affect make racial profiling illegal. well well it's well first you should know that there is no federal law that makes racial profiling equal in and racial profiling that is currently being discussed and debated in congress so that hopefully will pass right now the only thing protecting

individuals from racial profiling is nonbinding guidelines and the equal protection clause me very difficult to prove a violation because you have to prove intent so the law is very weak from an individual rights perspective so just just to be clear on that but to send a message to the men and to the public that it is acceptable to profile people who engage in guilt by association. just because ninety not were happen to be muslims and they committed an atrocious terror attack so now we can go and look at all muslims and assume that they are suspect unless they individually can prove that they're innocent so if we're going to follow that line of reasoning i suppose all mormons need to be spied on for polygamy all white male veterans need to be spied on for blowing up at all buildings such as a woman in a beanie baby who up and all conservative christians were anti-war shouldn't they need to be under constant surveillance because they may bomb an abortion clinic and if that's the type of reasoning in africa law with even an underpaid american

criminal justice system then there are many many americans that are going to be adversely impacted and this sets a very dangerous precedent and so are you said that the law is flawed what exactly what part of it is flawed and what needs to be done to fix it. well at the federal level there needs to be a statute that needs to be enacted in past and present needs to sign it when congress passes it and it is currently as i said on the debate the end racial profiling act it got very close to passage right before nine eleven and in fact bush campaigned on an anti racial profiling five form and he had promised that he was going to sign it when nine eleven happened that law essentially just became buried and the government implicitly stated that you know we have to do we have to do in order to protect the nation and such a law could prevent us from profiling muslims from profiling other ethnicities and races and their communities got most adversely impacted by the failure to pass and

racial profiling act are the muslim americans and also african-americans and latinos there because they are also profiled in other criminal context and ultimately you'll start getting that spreading to other minority groups so that's the that's the first mission there is another one it's a bit more complicated than that i want to get into here because it's more without final analysis but unfortunately the case of law is also very weak on being able to bring forth an equal protection claim which is really something that only the supreme court can fix or again congress can legislate around which is what to do all right now as you mentioned after nine eleven a lot of cain has to place here in the u.s. and but you say that racial profiling of muslims is a growing problem and america today. well i think there's two levels of profiling there's a private and there's the public and i recently came out with an article called called caught in a preventive dragnet selective counterterrorism in

a post nine eleven america that just got published ansara of the law to come in the jungle are you in and i talk about how you have private and public profiling so what happens is the government profiles and and sends a message and my beeper example and then she saying if you're going to a mosque if you're involved in muslim student association if you're heavily involved in your community and engaged in mosul i'm based organization then we suspect to potentially being a parent and we're going to watch you which of course chill their freedoms and make them feel like a class citizens who really don't have meaningful first amendment rights that sends a message to the public of hey you guys should you know the government hand sanction is in my suspicion so then they start dealing with discrimination in the workplace they start dealing with bullying and school to the muslim children you start dealing with women who wear head scarves being attacked and i talk about that in an article i wrote at the terrace and so you have

a very broad implications that in the public sphere so you find are muslims are leaving second class a lot everywhere they go they're dealing with the adverse impact of the stereotyping but they are inclusive me suspect that they're most there presumably suspect as terrorists unless they individually can prove otherwise so the new you're finding is really a blow in the wrong direction in a i hopefully the citizens of new jersey also innocents will seek to amend the law and make that make what the n.y.p.d. is doing able to write so hard thank you very much for coming on the show that was the heart of the is associate professor of law at texas wesley and university. well we have an update for you on a story we've been following from the very beginning mass protests in canada have reached a boiling point in monterrey well last night police and some three thousand protesters squared off again this is the thirteen consecutive night of demonstrations the

students began protesting after an increase in tuition. well over five hundred people were arrested it's the highest number of arrests in a single night since the protests sparked an montreal was not the only city dealing with unruly ralliers there were also arrested in quebec city and sure brooke the arrest came just hours after the quebec government said it would be cracking down on striking students setting up strict conditions for any resumption of negotiations but student strike leaders already say as long as the protests continue there will be no talk of a tuition free and this case the police used a technique called cattle laying where they circle the protesters cut off the exits and then proceeded to arrest everyone they encircled also a new call backs for been sealed government voted last friday on an emergency law that would shut down some universities and impose harsh fines on protesters even

blocking students from attending classes it's the latest attempt at the local authorities to curb the unrest and cut the protesters the protest that is off at the source they also banned protesters from wearing masks demonstrations and want them to provide details of their protest itineraries beforehand to which protesters responded with this you could call it a protest rude or a vulgar finger to canadian authorities either way these protesters say they're here to stay until the tuition debate is resolved and of course we will bring you more on the canadian protests as it unfolds. it has been a rough what do we have next here. right where it's turning now to taxpayer money and if you think that giving away

taxpayer money to a multi-million dollar oil company isn't money well spent at least a couple of lawmakers are right there with you senator bernie sanders and representative keith ellison recently introduced a bill to put a halt to handing over subsidies to oil companies this would reportedly save somewhere in the ballpark of one hundred ten billion dollars over the next decade the bill also gets rid of tax breaks and loopholes that oil companies have been reaping the benefits of for years and it turns out that many americans are sick of fueling the fire and rewarding oil companies that are extremely profitable one of those organizations at the forefront of ending oil subsidies as three fifty dot org and their media campaign campaigner dan councilor joins us now welcome danielle so so i know that your organization is really fighting for this why well essentially we should be subsidizing things that we want more of the things

that we want. and right now what we don't want is for greater production of fossil fuels. we're dealing with a climate crisis and our government should be supporting the companies that are causing it especially most companies are making record profits. so ultimately what are you trying to accomplish. who were really standing behind senator sanders and representative keep thousands of bill to roll back all subsidies for fossil fuels that's months about one hundred thirteen billion dollars over the next ten years to kind of potential allies that it's about a hundred roughly about eight hundred fifty dollars per american taxpayer for that same period so this is money that we're going towards in our pockets to keep it going towards development of you know energy going towards education it sounds going into the pockets and coffers of the world's richest richest companies which right now the fossil fuel company it's you know last year exxon mobil made thirty billion dollars in profit that's more money than in the history of money at

a corporations that are made in one year it's ridiculous that our government is subsidizing that at the expense of some of the other projects that are going to still unfunded underfunded in this country so do you think are you proposing that this money is instead used to fund alternative or renewable energy source says well this bill doesn't call for that it just rolls back the taxes actions subsidies and tax breaks that will companies gas companies and coal companies now in the enjoy ideally though we do want to be subsidizing the new technologies they do need support from our government they're going to help us have clean renewable energy instead of fossil fuels so you know traditionally the way subsidies work it's you don't give money to mature industry is no oil industry for instance has been around for one hundred fifty years they don't need subsidies but wind power solar hydro the technologies that are now coming up they do need support so they can be more price competitive the government duties to the government should be supporting them as opposed to the fossil fuel interests and as you mentioned

a very profitable company it's. the ten most profit all come most profitable companies in america a few of them are oil companies so why get money it's a companies that clearly don't need the money in the first place. well that is that's the million dollar question actually in this case is the hundred thirteen billion dollar question that was that this bill would go back you know when you hear the arguments from the other side in the fossil fuel companies they say well the subsidies help us create new jobs they help us do more oil exploration. and they keep gas prices low all three of those claims are false you know exxon mobil for instance ninety eight percent of their employees are outside of this country so the idea that they're getting money taxpayer money to create jobs says patently false they also would be doing this oil exploration whether or not they're getting government handouts they're not going to pick up and start drilling you know you can move the oil to the north sea the oil is here we're going to have to explore here whether or not they're getting government handouts. daniel the the price of

fuel has gone down recently that's some good news and but it really the price of oil has a lot to do with just economics so does subsidizing oil companies do the average consumer and god knows the average consumer no good in fact you can argue that it actually hurts them. you know we need to be transit transitioning off of fossil fuels prices are only going to continue to rise as we supply to windows so we need to be transitioning right now giving money to these quote these companies that keep up business as usual is exactly the wrong way to go and expect the oil companies to put up to put up a fight to this yeah of course they have us out spence to figure that you can't even comprehend the one thing they have in this buckets of is money the one thing we have are people who are trying to work in a different currency to shift it out organise is dedicated to organizing a real climate movement around the world so we can fight back against that the

fossil fuel interest money with actually people power and what kind of support do you have over there in congress i know that we have these two lawmakers are behind it that are sponsored this spot what kind of support as a whole do you have over there. well there was a bill a few months ago and called them in the end as well this failed in the senate fifty one forty eight and i want to roll back subsidies for just oil companies so there's you know there's some support reality need to grow our numbers over the next few weeks we're going to be attracting we're going to be trying to attract co-sponsors to the bill going to street by district visiting office by office recruiting representatives and senators to join the sanders alice and bill additionally we discover no spam from the president and leaders of the other g. twenty countries because they they issued a statement last week that are meeting. in new hampshire and can't david saying that they think all fossil fuel subsidies should be and should be rolled back so no says this this would be just something that happens in the us it happened pretty much every industrialized developed country. very interesting daniel thank you very

much for coming on the show that was danielle casler he is the media campaigner for three figured out our thank you. well it's been a rough month for the mainstream news network c.n.n. has seen its ratings plummet to its lowest point in fifteen years and if you compare the network's viewership from this year to last year they have lost half of their viewers and it's not just c.n.n. that's feeling the pain a new survey proves to be an embarrassment for fox here it is when it came to international issues fox viewers scored the lowest when it comes to knowledge of current events viewers are less informed than those that watch other networks the come comedy news the daily show and even americans that watch no news at all and when it comes to domestic issues fox viewers were no better off once again scoring the lowest when asked questions about what's happening here at home interesting for

a station that consistently takes the top spot for viewership gratings so what's going on here and where our viewers turning to instead and could alternative news be giving the mainstream of run for their money or to correspond a marina point in iowa explores. he's the most trusted fictional name in news the lead character of h.b.o.'s upcoming series newsroom is on a mission to tell the truth in the face of u.s. corporate and commercial pressures are you aware of what makes the greatest country in the world i don't know what you're sending their lives and their work in the world of nonfiction morgan holding its annual shareholders meeting america's corporate owned news networks that rarely challenge the status quo might want to take some cues from h.b.o.'s fake show and i report warns last month cnn's readings dropped to their lowest in a decade hero nominees in march fox lost nearly twenty percent of their viewers and

four years and as n.b.c. has consistently remained least popular among all three if you went into the board rooms in the executive suites of these media companies they're in a panic about this. other peter hart is the activism director at fair a us media watchdog group he says an increasing number of americans are abandoning mainstream media for alternative independent or foreign news outlets once people shift and say c.n.n. is not for me fox is not for me on the sunday she is doing what i really want them to do or need them to do then it's hard to get them back how you convince somebody that your media system works when their experience tells them that it doesn't when last autumn's biggest global story was born in new york city it was largely ignored by most mainstream news outlets but it is. this organized a look quite as one of the protesting nobody seems to know until it became

impossible to suppress. this spring the fight against corporate greed is still being waged but at this event in times square demonstrators are surrounded by news tickers but no mainstream t.v. . amorous the occupy movement is it waiting for the almighty powerful networks to show up and report about their demonstrations instead the grassroots group has made immediate distribution all part of its campaign reading newspapers like this one which report about political financial and social stories that are either blotted out more rarely addressed by most in mainstream news outlets in the us like half a dozen giant conglomerates currently controlled mainstream media. critics say this leaves just a few companies capable of strangling the voice of america's free press the first amendment just keep shrinking it in for. a handful of profiteering corporations who

don't care a lot about journalism don't care a lot about democracy have taken control reporting the truth means risking all the dangers of digging too deep cost america's legendary newsman dan rather his coveted chair at c.b.s. the trust a journalist was forced to resign after reporting that george w. bush went missing during his national guard service to avoid being drafted to vietnam. you know because i had my team reported a true story it was a tough story a story where people didn't want to believe it it was subjected to repeat propaganda barrage to just put it to a case in which art imitating life is becoming. a life now seem more americans are turning to the alternative and this comes less than say you know if this if you were in a port ny r.t. new york city is a lot of talk more about what's behind the slump and ratings for the mainstream

networks sam seder host of the majority report joined us earlier today we first discussed how fox news remains profitable take a look. well there are there's a group of americans maybe two million three million a day who are really interested in living in a delusion that in some respects i mean it's pretty stunning where watching the news makes you less informed that's pretty shocking but i think these people are listening to what they want to hear and i think that's indicative of a bigger problem that we have with network news in general and what is that problem do you think that it has to do with the fact that the media is now more driven by business than by journalism. i mean i think that's always been a problem to some extent but i'll tell you what the real problem i think at the end of the day is that i mean you have these movements you have the occupy movement even to a certain extent a without outside the occupy movement there are other populist movements that have

a real problem with money in politics well just this week the f.c.c. was sued by the major networks because the f.c.c. is now going to require major networks to post on line these are records they already have to keep post on line how much political advertising where their revenue comes from in terms of political ads and so i mean just contemplate this for a moment the networks don't there's no cost to them involved in this of course they're already keeping the records except for they're in some file cabinet down at their at their headquarters they don't want it online because if they were to show the american public the american public had access easy access to these figures they would realize that all of these hundreds of millions of dollars these billions of dollars that are going to be spent on these elections coming up in november the vast majority of that money actually ends up in the in the coffers of broadcasting networks and so how can you rely on them to report the primary story that we have

in this country of wealth inequality and of politics of money being corrupted by politics. when in fact they're the largest beneficiaries of it so sam would you say and some instances that the media could be doing a disservice to the public well of course because you know when when when your average viewer dips into whether it's cable news or even network news they assume that the network doesn't have these other all tyria agendas they assume that they're getting the most important news of the day and so as it becomes dumbed down as certain issues become taboo the the viewer just becomes frankly stupider and less less knowledgeable about the real important issues that are affecting their lives on a daily basis but they're not capable of making that connection because the networks and the the cable outlets leave

a huge portion of that out and beyond fox and c.n.n. is also particularly has had a pretty bad month and they are the pioneer of this twenty four hour network a model and they are suffering the most what do you think is behind that. well i mean i think if you look at this network news i mean here it really becomes an element of laziness and groupthink you know the producers at all of these cable networks to a large extent then some obviously not so much but they're chasing each other and so the stories become stale they don't really dig at things. the hard sticks by which they're measured are really just their own their competitors but across the boards you know it's not the only one that's down all the cable news to a certain extent is down and part of it i think is because on some level the audiences are realizing that none of this is is terribly relevant to them you've

got to do major party candidates who are are backed by in many respects the same money and the same interests and i think the audience is turning off those networks that are just basically telling them. that there's something that's going to affect their lives here when i think people are are getting more and more a sense that this very well may not affect my life and sam it's not just t.v. looks like newspapers are in trouble as well many newspapers are going down under in the latest victim is a new orleans today and the new orleans you see it there and the new orleans times speck announce that they will add its daily publication and this paper has been around for a hundred and seventy five years and now new orleans will be the biggest city and the last without a daily paper are so it's not just t.v. and it's newspapers as well well i mean i think you know the reasons why newspapers

are suffering and particularly locally owned newspapers are suffering i think has more to do with technology frankly than it than it does with a sense that they don't have the readership or the interest in the local news i mean. i think you know simultaneous to. to all this happening from a political standpoint is this technological revolution and people are getting their news in different ways whether it's podcasting or whether it's reading blogs online or. other forms of media and i think you know newspapers that didn't see this coming and they didn't have the capital to make these changes quick enough i think are falling by the wayside and i think when it comes to local papers that's a huge loss for. you know citizens frankly and certainly they're seeing that over new orleans today sam do you think this signifies a shift in where people are turning to for the news these days. well i think to

a certain extent i mean you know you can look across the board let's like yours the numbers are up and on you tube and. pod casts and alternate forms of media blogs now we're starting to see actually advertising a head to those type of outlets because i think that's where where people are going and you know there's. people do what i think in those outlets for different reasons that within the corporate media empire because you know you don't you don't really have the same incentive structure there and so i think the quality of the work is different and sometimes it's better sometimes it's worse but i think the genders behind the work are more explicit and and i think people can find what they're looking for is without this sense of there's another stakeholder that is sitting down on the couch next to me as i watch this except i just don't know who that

stakeholder is and that was sam seeder host of the majority report and that's going to do it for now for more on the stories we cover and you can check out our you tube channel it's youtube dot com slash r t america you can also check out our web site that's our t.v. dot com slash usa or you can follow me on twitter at as well back here in half hour . we just put a picture of me when i was like nine years old and so she told the truth. i think yes and i am a total get of that rap and hip hop music and pretty. she was kind of a yesterday. i'm very of the world with its place.