today on r t the cyber world is getting smaller as congress tries to rein in the wild west ways of the internet with so many acronyms it's no wonder people are confused coming up we'll tell you why you should pay attention to all the legislation so it shows that it's the sort of turning a country that is of the people by the people for the people they're turning it into a country that is bought and paid for by the bridge it's total recall west concent edition for only the third time in u.s. history a recall election against a sitting governor is just a few days away protesters are using slogans as weapons while corporations are pumping millions of dollars to get their way we'll bring you a preview. and forget the freemasons today's secret society of the world shakers

and movers known as builder berg is meeting right now not far from washington d.c. why does the shadowy elite group insist on shutting out the world from its meetings and why isn't it the media covering it our teams abby martin is on the case. it's thursday may thirty first seven pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wall and you're watching our t.v. all lawmakers today discussing a bill that would extend the government's overseas surveillance powers the measure is called vice and it gives the government the power to monitor phone calls e-mails and other communications of suspected terrorists abroad it was a hot topic back in two thousand and eight critics argued it could be used to target american citizens the day of the debate today is over whether phase of powers should be renewed and beyond bias so we've already seen several bills aimed at regulating the internet to some degree there is the stop online piracy act

better known as sopa and its partner in this it's called the secure i t m. it's also the protect ip act and its brother pippa and the cyber intelligence sharing and protection act known as cispa you know the surveillance bill i just mentioned. and also the cyber security act of two thousand and twelve so it seems there is a clear attempt time and time again to regulate the wild west that is the internet now the senate is soon expected to vote on backers say it's necessary to ensure cyber security but critics say it is a dangerous bill that would wipe out internet freedoms as we know it senator ron wyden gave this warning on the house floor it creates uncertainty in place of trust it a wrote erode statutory and constitutional civil rights protections and it creates a surveillance regime in place of

a targeted nimble cyber security program that is needed to truly protect our nation despite these warnings it seems the possible threat to our online online freedoms is largely ignored or accepted by most people but with so much of our lives being conducted online why aren't people more bothered to discuss this and more i was joined by david seaman he's a journalist and host of the the else show here's his take. it is a combination of apathy and just a lack of knowledge i have spoken to some very intelligent well connected people who had never heard of says they had never heard of of the security checks and some of these other bills being rushed through congress it's not making here on the evening news so how would somebody know about this unless they're very plugged in and follow you know certain people it's interesting because in other countries let's take holland for example citizens became outraged that when they feel like their privacy is being infringed upon it was because of that public backlash that

an internet regulation bill called x. didn't go anywhere why or why the difference. like you said part of that is straight up. recently in new york the mayor there proposed banning really large sugary soft drinks and the outrage that was actually greater than what we've seen with. somebody coca-cola they get angry and they consider it considered more of a threat to their civil rights than since bush or the reauthorization of the patriot act last year or any of these things that are major issues and i said europeans you know me and they say what is wrong with you americans why aren't you out in the streets why aren't you at the very least calling the people who represent you and saying we don't want this even in canada they're proposing similar bills and the response there has been tremendous outrage and lots of media coverage so it is unusual like the soda comparison is interesting makes makes us

wonder what the priorities are we did however see some backlash against sopa and that didn't go anywhere many say because of this pub this backlash yet the man who actually wrote the sopa bell his name was representative lamar smith of texas. we actually let's remind viewers of how companies were opposed to this bill there was this blackout it was so controversial controversial that companies like wikipedia google rabbit yahoo and facebook took a stand against it you could see there what they did they blacked out their websites for a day in protest and they were that was back in january and today here we are representative lamar smith he just won the republican nomination he said basically guarantees him another term in congress and you know here in america we say that voting is our way of kind of having our voice and our say and things but what happened he was reelected so did americans forget. money is speech in america

that can be a good thing i think normally it's a bad thing lamar spritz reelection campaign for his. republican won the republican nomination he could still technically lose to the democrat running against him although there is almost no chance of that happening because it's a very conservative district in texas he has a lock on this it says. he received more than one point three million dollars and reelection funds the people running against him there were two people one person received about fifty thousand dollars the other one received only nine thousand dollars so if you're if you receive nine thousand bucks and you're running against a incumbent who has more than a million dollars in his campaign bank account the you just have no chance it doesn't matter how good a politician you are and sopa we saw a huge outrage because google was against it they received more than seven million signatures on their petition. you know the people on the internet aren't even trying i've had people say to me you know we don't have the same kind of money that

the entertainment lobby has how can you and i hope to over to hope to overcome somebody like lamar smith and you know i say at least try these people who talk to me they didn't donate any money to the campaigns opposing them are smith they didn't donate money they didn't donate time of the second we we heard that so it was done it was to show that that was it nobody cared and what it is will back to their american idol and they said this isn't my business i'm not going to deal with it it's really kind of pathetic the way things have turned out and how it will go people say we don't have the money but if you look on sites like kickstarter people are contributing hundreds of thousands of dollars to video games and to i phone apps so clearly there is money out there americans have a lot of money we're just not spending it on political issues so you think without the companies the big companies like google like facebook. taking a stand in for the fight that it's more likely that they'll be like. this without that backlash from these big corporations are more likely to go under the radar is

that that what we're seeing right now exactly was that's exactly what we're seeing because this time around congress was smart about this since but has the backing of big tech companies because it protects them it gives them things that they want so they don't care about abusing their users trust about handing over our private information to the government they don't care about that as long as they can get in trouble as long as they can't be sued and it's really our responsibility as citizens to get this news out there just yesterday i started a thing to raise of fifty thousand dollars anyone who follows me can donate if you just have a dollar donate a dollar that the system we're using except any contribution larger than a dollar we're looking to raise at least fifty thousand dollars to just put out viral videos and do a marketing campaign you know at the end of the day you can't lead a horse to water americans actually have to say no we don't want this but at the very least we should tell people what's going on because people just don't know it's quiet battle that nobody knows about it well kind of get to the.

nitty gritty of this when it comes down to it why should it people care about these kinds of legislation and what will it take for people to care. the potential for abuse if we don't stop these kinds of laws is absolutely tremendous if you ever say something that's negative about the white house or about your senator or anybody like that urf you come out and say i don't want a war in afghanistan i don't want my kids being sent to this war the government could potentially blackmail you by looking through all of your intimate online activities all the emails you sent all the late night google searches you made adult entertainment web sites you've been to your connections on facebook who you knew in the past who you knew ten years ago guilt by association all of this stuff is possible now and i think it will be misused just because other laws have been misused the patriot act has been abused tremendously it is not being used for what

it was sold on it sounds like there is plenty to be concerned about there they have it i'm going to switch gears now just a little bit to another internet related issue things are looking the best for facebook it's hyped up i.p.o. has hit a new low so if facebook goes down and some say it's only a matter of time to how many more people can sign up for facebook want to hit the billion mark what would it mean for the rest of the web that depends on ads for support. you hit on a very important point here facebook has value just because it does have so many users and that you know as i share people are looking at it all day long or you can sell ads on that platform the problem is once you have large advertisers like general motors they pulled their ad campaign from facebook because they said this just is not producing a solid return for us it's not effective so they're no longer spending money with facebook ads and if other large companies reach the same conclusion that lowers the value of advertising on facebook and at a certain point advertisers might say wait

a second we're just paying too much for these ads somebody is clicking on a link but they're not actually buying anything it's not be monetized so maybe that decreases the value of google ads maybe that decreases the value of ads on microsoft thing and if that happens you have a kind of collapse of the ad market because when you use something like google or use an android phone that is subsidized by the advertising market that keeps it alive you're not paying to use google you're not paying a subscription fee they're just assuming that they're going to make money off of you can say you're in a click on ads in some point and they're making far less on those ads it hurts the whole market it hurts the whole current ecosystem of the internet david very interesting thanks for coming on the show pleasure as always that was david seaman journalist and host of the the l. show another fight against internet regulation an update now until well into what's being called one of the biggest copyright infringement cases and history may go up load and its founder kim dotcom has taken steps to throw out the case the company

is accused of getting rich off the massive piracy of copyrighted movies and t.v. shows causing the movie industry over five hundred million dollars in lost profit but the defense is now arguing that mega upload can't be held reliable for copyright infringement by its users they also say the u.s. simply has no jurisdiction over this case since it's a foreign company. based in hong kong and mega upload says the u.s. should have known that basic fact before taking down the service and there owing the operators and jail the u.s. government is now trying to extradite dot com and the other defendants to stand trial which they are fighting will of course keep you updated on how this all plays out. well in just a few days a statewide election will take place that may set the stage for not only the november presidential election but the future of politics overall last year

governor scott walker took on unions in the rights of workers to collectively bargain then those workers fought back and took on scott walker's right to have his job or as a correspondent christine friends i will be heading to wisconsin in a few days to cover that election book but before she goes she reminds us now why what happens there is so important. all eyes are on wisconsin a crystal ball of sorts they could predict the future of workers' rights in america . on one side governor scott walker who had a three billion dollar hole in his state budget and decided to plug it in part by taking on unions and taking away collective bargaining rights for workers this is alternately about a commitment to the future so our children don't face even more dire consequences than what we face today but fourteen state senators all democrats fled the state in an attempt to block the measure meanwhile chaos erupted in the state capitol.

and protesters remained for four months sparking a larger discussion about inequality and the power of corporations but we're here because a wall street reckless gambling angry ok that is why we're all here people are suffering. recall scott walker organizers collected nine hundred thousand signatures when you take on main street and you take on the basic rights and values of everyday americans whether they be in wisconsin ohio florida or what have you there we're going to stand up and we're going to say enough is enough union leaders have been on the forefront of the recall effort and are working to raise money for walker's opponent milwaukee mayor tom barrett so far his campaign has raised about three point nine million dollars it's a sharp contrast to walker himself who's brought in more than thirty million dollars the majority of it coming in from outside of the state it's the koch

brothers funded americans for prosperity it's the republican governors association dumping tons of cash and then basically every far conservative billionaire from the country is dumping boatloads of money into this thing tuesday's election is much more than about the fate of scott walker it's also about governors in states across this country. who also wish to limit the role of unions and in turn the rights of workers and it's also about those unions and the strength and power they have today and finally it's about money and its ability to control a message and have an impact on what voters decide at the polls in washington christine for our party. the chamber of commerce getting creative at evading campaign ad laws earlier this year a federal court ruling was geared toward revealing who the donors are behind political interest groups but the chamber said this week that they can get around

this by clearly supporting one candidate over the other that way they don't have to dish the dirt on who the other donors are or who their donors are so why are these groups going to such great lengths to hide where they're getting their cash from and why such a strong fight against disclosure and transparency for more on that i was joined by chris chambers a journalism professor at georgetown university we first discussed of the recent campaign law is another win for corporations. that's a draw i mean you know people who are look who are advocating more transparency of obviously gone into the court system because the congress is not you know obviously hospitable place for that given the amount of money that these same sort of people are backing especially in the house of representatives with the recent republican freshman that came in in two thousand and ten so it's a draw right now it's a draw i would say a win for anybody but it looks like another loophole that i have found. as much

money as they want mark and of you know fund run campaigns kind of in the background well it's an interesting dynamic because you know you have you have the federal election commission. in this you have the the federal communications commission involved in this you have super pacs which are actually exempt from all of this stuff i mean they're out there like another supernova waiting to explode that we have to keep an eye on but these are just you know you're run of the mill garden variety political ads and you know it's interesting why they do not want these things disclosed i mean it's the same argument that we talked about before when the f.c.c. said put your campaign ad stuff out there in digitally rather than in a rusty cabinet underneath the receptionist office that is the average t.v. station and they they oppose that as if people were going to nationalize it you know take over their companies i think it's because you know they really perceive

that they're under siege for some reason that summary for some way some reason so but how someone you know malevolent is going to come down and take all their money away because it other than that which sounds ridiculous obviously but what other explanation is there is that they don't want to be told what to do i mean internally they're having a fight over this because you know you have stockholders shareholder groups which are supposedly for. enterprise a thing that they push you know as a religion at work you know they're owners of the company they get to have a say well these people are presenting ballot questions proxy questions to their boards everybody from wal-mart over the mexico scandal to news corp and rupert murdoch's problems and said look we need we need to have a different direction we want to have environmental sanity we want to do this we want to do that we want to get out of alec which you know wal-mart just left today

and now they're complaining about that too so i mean it really just comes down to control maybe just psychological control they don't want to be told what to do in the case of the chamber of commerce they claim to be not a political organization right but in this case and it's interesting the way that they're going about it because instead. of having these ads target issues now they're saying in order to get around this we're going to we're going to support clearly is a poor one candidate over the other so isn't that clearly a political yes it was clearly political a political before and the reason why this kind of regime was set up this advertising regime both the way the dollars are funneled in you know which of the f.e.c. e.c. is involved in and how it ends up on a mass media which is what the f.c.c. is involved in was because they really wanted to keep the donors anonymous and they cause they had an agenda you know now it's just going to be moving away from issues

to the actual candidates well it's it was about the actual candidates to begin with it was about who we're going to root for who we're going to pull for the issue orientation of this was just a reaction to the regulation now it's we have another evolution in another reaction so now they're just going to support whichever person they were going to support in the first place that's where they can do it outwardly and still hide who who the donors are because you know they don't want i mean imagine this i mean it's not just. internally with shareholders you might get i was a general counsel to a bank here in washington before i became a journalist and i know how that is once when shareholders are upset and they want to press their issues but that's part of our capitalist system that they say that they want to preserve supposedly from candidates that they hate now they want to you know fight back on two fronts it's very very interesting and all i can do is look at it and come to the conclusion that it's about control they don't want to be

told what to do so it sounds like shareholders are more important than transparency was shareholders that go with what they want to do there you go. you know chris this is a little election year is supposed to be the most expensive costly election in history. the a super pac then and how they're kind of playing into the mix now we have this other loophole i mean is this all just another sign that the elections have already been bought and sold oh of course i mean i think they were bought and sold back when justice roberts wrote the citizens united opinion but even before that i mean we saw just just money just pouring into this and it was usually by people on the right wing the conservative sort of now even almost extremist right wing situations i mean there are billionaires meeting now and there was a story in politico recently they're sitting there going oh my gosh you know stop

picking on and stop picking on us for being picked on for trying to buy an election . to laugh a little bit about but you know they really really feel be set and attacked for this and again it seems to just come back to perceived loss of power and control to whom i don't know but there's no other explanation for this so at the end do you think that the you know the average voter the average citizen is kind of kind of losing his power and. the power the money oh yeah definitely democracy is because been bought and paid for now i mean now it's just in your face it was always under the table probably for the last maybe seventy five hundred years it was deep under the table now it's up there for everybody to see so you know we have a problem here and i don't think the f.c.c. or the f.c.c. or any want to even internally in these companies with these kind of stockholder proxy questions are really going to be able to reform that i think it's too late the monster is out of the cave and we're not going to be able to put it back.

pleasure to have you on the show q that was christopher chambers a journalism professor at georgetown university. so i had an r t opening out village over book of secrets well senator marco rubio get the republican endorsement to become mitt romney's running mate and what will happen with the brass in the middle east rumor has it it's all been decided in a secret conference in virginia i'll bring you the details. next line of american power continues. things that are. might actually be time revolution. and it turns out that a killer drink a starbucks says a surprising him greta you. are

is the state run english speaking russian channel it's kind of like. russia today has an extremely confrontational stance when it comes to us. we just put a picture of me when i was like nine years old and just you know the truth. i confess and i am a total get a friend that i love brad because he is like the and. he

was kind of a guest today. i'm very proud of the all that she has played. 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 in view with a global missionary see where we had a state controlled capitalism is called sessions when nobody dares to ask we do our tea question more. secretive and the elite the builder group unites the world's most powerful people behind closed doors it's been happening for decades and this year it's in chantilly

virginia and the secrecy surrounding the conference has sparked many theories as to what exactly goes on in the meetings some believe it's a venue where the world's most rich and powerful conspire to carve out a new world order are to correspondent abbie martin was in chantilly virginia today it's a let us know what's happening outside of the belt of our conference. every year about one hundred thirty of the world's most powerful elite players. banking mining oil food media and defense and politics meet in secret behind closed doors without any official press coverage this year they're meeting in chantilly virginia at the westfields mary out it's called the builder group and hundreds of protesters are here right now protesting the secrecy coefficient. some of the protesters speculate on why it's so secret when you're discussing foreign policy you're you're talking about manipulating the prices of oil the price of gold when you're trying to select presidents and prime ministers and these sorts of things it has to be

done in secret because these are the things that the people are not necessarily for even though no corporate media was present there was a multitude of citizen journalists covering the event good works are done in light so it's done in darkness needs to be brought to light and something like this like the billboard media should be exposed and it's up to us citizen media to be iron exposes we don't want you to get my view oh is that what it is other independent journalists have confronted members of the build a bear group to try to get answers themselves sometimes they just straight up lie sometimes they catch themselves in line and it's very interesting it's very telling people can make up their own minds when you see a building member being fronted by a journalist about what they did here their reaction is very telling i have looks jones host of the alex jones show speculates on the policy that's being planned to build a big meeting this year they're trying to push a global bank as a solution to all our problems that they created their openly trying to push more

police state systems they want to internet freedom they want to bring in internet i.d.'s members of all of our group of shut this. other say that the billboard group is not so much in a farias conspiracy to control who manatee but just more consolidation of power the actual conspiring is kind of not a nature of there's a conspiracy for this or for that as much as a continuous nature of the superclass of the most rich and powerful people in the world. colluding to continue and perpetuate their own power i mean the simple is that regardless more and more people are focusing attention on the group which might have to build a bridge participants worried the people of the planet are waking up and getting past the puppets this is about saying hey the puppets in d.c. are just front me and we can't hold them accountable because they're backed paid for by these criminals that at these meetings die off it should be an interesting weekend as hundreds of protesters are expected to join those already here abby martin are to gentilly virginia. and that's going to do it for the news for this

hour and if you missed today any of today's shows just go to our youtube page it's youtube dot com slash r t america there we oppose all of our interviews so you can watch and re watch them as you want as many times as you want or you can also check out our web site that is r t dot com slash usa there you will find a bunch of stuff we didn't have time to get to on air today our web team wrote a piece about the new stove elements in a class action lawsuit against switzerland syngenta it's a company this company created one of the world's most used chemical herbicides and plaintiffs claim that the company knowingly poisoned drinking water and at least forty five states with its ultra zein weed killer this dispute has been going on for eight years now and you can find the details of the settlement on our top stories page of our website and to find out what i'm doing when i am not reporting the news you can also follow me on twitter.