for your immediate. relief. the polls are open the people are voting and in just a few hours from now wisconsin will know the outcome of a historical recall election record amounts of money have been flowing into the state many are calling this a litmus test for november so what does this battle in the dairy land say about the pork polarization year in the u.s. . and bigger maybe better but in america's case it isn't about being big it's about being the uncontested champion of the macho contest of limbs to bombers the u.s. military can't be outdone we'll introduce you to the newest vehicle to join the fleet. plus who's afraid of the d.o.j. there's a few good reasons why you should be with the flick of a pen the u.s.

government can strongarm their way into invading your privacy and the best part is you'd have no idea it ever happened so be careful what you say because someone is probably listening will explain. it's tuesday june fifth five pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wahl and you're watching our team. well if you tuned into any mainstream channel earlier today chances are all you saw were the lavish festivities the queen's jubilee apparently off the top story today are you sick of it all if you weren't born into the trappings of royalty and don't care about those that are and want to know the real news that affects you you've come to the right place r t will not be covering the queen's jubilee. we turn now to the historic recall election

happening today in wisconsin tensions running high in the state as the fate of governor scott walker's job is decided the rare recall election has polarized the state with some hailing walker as a hero and others demonizing him a villain behind walker are enormous sums of cash from his wealthy republican supporters his opponent milwaukee mayor tom barrett pales in comparison when it comes to funding but he has political leaders and unions behind him at stake in the state as workers' rights and what happens today could have huge implications for the rest of the country and set the tone for the upcoming presidential election joining us now for more is ann murphy editor for the buffalo beast dot com welcome and so things are very very tense in wisconsin is this just a sample of a very divided america. thanks for having me on i think you're right the queen's jubilee is very important and it's

a big issue in america right now oh what right the election wisconsin you're right . it's a highly divided state i've been i just fortunately i just came back from up a polling place in madison where they're estimating something like an eighty percent turnout so that is amazing for tom barrett and the democrats right now but the national implication is the writ if this race go i think even beyond november it's it represents really more of a corporate coup d'etat if you consider the citizens united ruling which the supreme court. kind of stupidly in my opinion ruled that both unions and corporations and billionaires can spend as much money as they want on these elections the point is with scott walker and some other state governors carrying out this corporate agenda to crush unions is there permanently trying to disable the democratic fundraising machine so right now we have something like an estimated

twenty five to one scott walker is outspending tom barrett and the implications go beyond november in my opinion that with walker having so much more behind him and his opponent paling in comparison does he even stand a chance when he is so far behind financially. well i think it does stand a chance and what's kind of fascinating really is. all the polls are basically fifty fifty well within the margin of statistical error and that's considering how much walker is spending so scott walker is highly unpopular and people do like tom barrett so the fact that it is that close with that much of a funding advantage is really remarkable walker's opponent mayor tom barrett released this campaign ad today let's take a listen. isn't it time to end the civil war in wisconsin scott

walker has divided our state and while he's pursued his ideological agenda last year was nuts and lost more jobs and any state in the country we can't afford to have a governor who says it's my way or the highway. so he says wisconsin what's going on there is a civil war and you know in congress lawmakers say that they've never seen a more divisive congress so could this be a preview of what's to come on a national scale well yeah it definitely is a preview and you know be unfair to say that we haven't already seen a divisive congress in this country pretty much sense two thousand and ten when the tea party candidates quote shut lacked the democrats those are barack obama's words we've seen in a trance and a transparent congress which has done absolutely nothing but obstruction and you know we're not that's not going to come to an end anytime soon i believe. and and

let's talk about what exactly is at stake there in wisconsin in terms of workers' rights. well specifically it no it's. people it's democracy fundamentally what it's take is democracy interestingly enough the right to collectively bargain for workers to decide to have a seat at the table with their quote corporate masters their their employers the job creators that began in wisconsin in one nine hundred fifty nine. and it's kind of fitting that wisconsin has become a test tube the sort of litmus test of the senate as you said to try to scale back workers' rights so if it if it succeeds here you're going to see it progress throughout other mr midwestern states these other republican governors and it won't be good no supporters of walker will say that he fulfilled his promises

he vowed to scale down the size of government cut down on spending and to his supporters this is a promise fulfilled what do you say to the argument well they're clearly just not paying attention and they have this sort of dogma with which just does not fit the facts if you go back before the two thousand and ten election you can find videos of scott walker saying things like he will sit down with the unions he will talk he will bargain with the unions you know as soon as he gets into office the story changes it's. collective bargaining rights have to go because it'll save the state money and then you know several months later he testifies before congress that it would save the state zero dollars so it's this ever changing justification for this right wing agenda and if people just can't see that there's just no hope for them in the in the l.a.

intellectual world so i have to tell them. as we had mentioned a lot of people are saying that this goes way beyond wisconsin that there's national implications as to you know whether or not whoever does win this race what could it mean for the upcoming presidential presidential race. well i don't know how. much of a parallel you can draw between this election and the coming presidential election . i mean the right is framing this rather smartly in my opinion as this epic that battle between good and evil the evil public unions and greedy government employees and so on versus quote freedom and free enterprise and so that that's the way they're framing the argument that's also because it's the r. and c. or excuse me of the republican governors association and a slew of right wing billionaires have a backing the hell out of this thing financially and p.r.

wise and every other which way. on the other hand the democratic national democratic party has kind of been out to lunch here and you're going to have to draw your own conclusions what that means but they're kind of presently stepping away from this they don't want to be associated with it they don't want to back losing horse even though they've barely backed him and really the most support the the administration has shown for barrett is a tweet last night that barack obama sent out that said he was standing by barry i mean virtually he was nowhere near the states as a matter of fact he was in minneapolis giving a speech to honeywell. gathering which is notorious for its current union busting efforts so this idea that the democratic party is pro labor is quickly showing itself to be a myth. and lastly and if walker does paul this off tonight what is

your fear. well first of all i i would be i'm leaving the states morrow and it's about fifty fifty in my opinion whether we'll know the outcome it could be three o'clock in the morning it could be months from now after all the recounts in the lawsuits the dust has settled from that that said my fear is that it's it's this kind of self-perpetuating process as i mentioned before with the citizens united where workers' rights will continue to be scaled back the democratic fund raising machine will continue to be harmed irreparably and it kind of tilts the scale permanently and in the words of scott walker he will divide and conquer eventually taking out all the unions making it a right to work state in a permanently red state arrival we are keeping a very close eye on how things play out over there in wisconsin and thank you for coming on the show that was an n.r.a.

auditor for the buffalo beef dot com. well still ahead here on r t up up and away the u.s. military budget isn't the only thing that's bloated so almost all of its toys from the blimp to the b. fifty two bomber to its newest drone is vegas is bigger really better that story next. we just put a picture of me when i was like no new years old and just you know lived through. i have a confession i am a total ghetto princess i love grabbing hip hop music and for. that it was kind of yesterday. i'm very proud of the world without you it's a place. where

even when i was. lucky to be alone and so you know get the real headlines with none of them are the problem with the mainstream media today is that they're completely disconnected from the viewers and 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. . well bigger is always better seems to be the case for the u.s. military back in the 1930's the u.s. constructed a seven hundred eighty five foot long helium balloon airship that was meant to rival germany's air fleet it was the biggest airship ever to be built in america at that point although it ended up crashing no one really knows why or how. moving

along the b. fleet is another testament to the bigger is better mentality the b. seventeen bomber was known as the flying fortress because it could survive massive damage and still land safely its cousin the b. twenty nine bomber up the n.c. it was used in world war two and the korean war and the famous b. fifty two strato fortress bomber made the us all the more powerful with its long range jet powered bomber but it doesn't stop there. take a look at this newest gadget they recently test launch a massive drone the biggest in existence you are looking at the phantom i launching from nasa as research center last week the military is hoping that this mega drone will be able to soar at sixty five thousand feet for ninety six hours at a time that's four days the enormity of this drone made by boeing would allow four hundred fifty pounds of sensors cameras and all kinds of nifty spying devices

onboard now that's a far cry from what the drone actually did during the test flight it was only airborne for about half an hour but it's the first step for the military sending the biggest spy a machine to hover in our skies one that could keep a close eye on cities for days at a time so what does this mean for your privacy that one of these drones loitering above earlier i was joined by john glasser assistant editor for antiwar dot com and asked him was bigger necessarily better. well you have this actually gets to the spirit of what the military industrial complex and imperial grand strategy for the united states has been for decades primary among those was to prevent any other peer competitor in the world from gaining their own dominance or independence from any american dominated system and that plays out in all kinds of ways i mean. take

take defense budgets the obama administration and both parties in congress have been lying through their teeth for years now about the doom that our national security would face if we decreased the rate of growth in the projected defense spending that's a key phrase because of course they talk about cuts to defense taking an ask x. to defense budgets but all that's being talked about is decreasing the rate of growth in projected defense spending and now when you think about these this drone war what we're facing now is that drones have become a tool for war but the war makers don't need to declare war and so again this is about total dominance nobody can face against us and that's the nature of what it's like to be in washington and the heart of the war party now that we've reported a lot on to around and plenty around but what exactly is this new magazine around

capable of. well this this mega drone which is far bigger than the type of drones that are now flying over pakistan or somalia or in the war zones for a war zone in iraq and afghanistan it's far bigger it can fly fly far higher at sixty five thousand feet the ones where only a few thousand and it can stay in the air without being refueled for up to four days so what this means is an expanded power to. spy on and perhaps drop bombs on people below. and the fact that these drones and they are unmanned they can hover and there for days at a time why should people be concerned about that it is there a possibility that this can be used the domestic lead to monitor u.s. cities. well people should be concerned about it because drones in general are already representing

a significant expansion of power that is unchecked government power that is unchecked goes on accountability without accountability no transparency it's secret we're not allowed to know about it but they have incredible behind power behind them essentially like i said the power to declare war without actually declaring it the reason americans should be concerned about it is that is that you know police departments are now getting more in touch with the drone technology and that's happening all throughout the country the f.a.a. is started to lease licenses for drone use and it'll get to surveillance and perhaps weaponized drones in some some amount of time already and i do want to go and to drones and the use of drones by the u.s. military has been controversial lately especially the way they've been used in pakistan anchor angering the people of countries abroad a u.s. official says a drone strike in pakistan's northwest tribal region has killed al qaeda second and

command what does this say about our a lot rocky relationship with pakistan as well as president obama's drone campaign for pakistan has repeatedly asked us to stop bombing their country they talk about their own sovereignty and we have not declared war on them and it's a non war zone technically and they've repeatedly demanded that we stop pakistan after these latest set of drone bombings in the tribal regions pakistan today some in the u.s. envoy to the foreign ministry to lodge a formal protest with him over the series of drone strikes that pakistan repeatedly has asked to be ended. and yes. you know as you had mentioned earlier john defense cuts are supposed to be put in place in order to adhere to a tighter budget but how can defense justify splurging this big fancy drone

and does the u.s. really need it no the u.s. doesn't really need it you could cut the defense budget in half and still and still the united states would outspend most of the world probably all of the world considering the vast amount of military bases we have across the world and all of the advanced military technology that we have and i would spend you know the rest of the world we don't need this stuff it's dangerous and it represents. serious legal problems when the administration starts to use them with no accountability. you know john to kind of put it from the military's perspective can you blame them for wanting to have the biggest and the best in wanting to be the most while he quipped. well yes i can again that this is part of the mentality behind

a foreign policy that is inherently expansive and inherently seeks to dominate the entire world and doesn't take into account stuff like civilian casualties in this drone war so yes i can blame them they should be held accountable for this kind of reckless behavior all right john thank you very much for coming on the show that was john glaser assistant editor for antiwar dot com. well how do you feel about the government being able to get ahold of mass amounts of information about you in complete secrecy well it happens in a law firm decades ago enables us to go further than you can imagine a recent study from the federal justice center reveals a federal docket that handles tens of thousands of cases each year and what you may find troubling about these cases is that it allows for electronic surveillance we're talking cell phone e-mail and any other information stored on your computer or when you do online this is all regulated by the electronic communications privacy act of one thousand nine hundred eighty six and privacy groups are saying

this law is a way outdated especially since the way we communicate has evolved drastically over the decades many privacy groups are now pushing for this law to be updated to discuss the privacy act and more kate crawford privacy rights coordinator for the american civil liberties union joined us earlier today. well i'm really glad that you mentioned that the law was passed in one thousand nine hundred six i was three years old in one thousand nine hundred six i'm sure the many of you remember that if you were you know my age at the time so didn't really exist if people didn't have cell phones they were about this big you know they would like bricks. people didn't use email in the way that we do now web chat didn't exist storing our information in the digital cloud was completely unheard of these are things that we are now every day we move most of our lives in the digital realm our banking

information chain is all online and increasingly our health records are online we communicate very very private important information via e-mail or direct message on services like twitter via web chat via skype. congress needs to update. i was three years old when the egg was passed it is now twenty twelve the world is a totally different plates and this magistrate judges report is incredibly important because it really illustrates an aspect of what's problematic with that we hadn't been aware of previously. judges are issuing these orders you know he said up to thirty thousand a year many of these orders are secret forever because if the government asks a magistrate judge for an order to reach your email under act and they never charge

you with a crime you might actually never find out the government agents were reading your email so we had the a.c.l.u. are part of a very large coalition it's called the digital due process coalition and it's not just civil liberties groups that are invested in changing in reforming act but it's also companies like microsoft and a.o.l. and apple because these companies want people to trust the digital cloud they want people to trust that when they put their information online when they store it with third party content holders like them that it's going to be safe from from government interference you know if it if that's improper so you know it's not just us there's a huge range of corporations and government advocacy groups that are calling on congress to reform act but in this report is just a very timely reminder and should shock congress into action to do that as the legislation stands now come the government obtain this information without a warrant. so

a part of the electronic communications privacy act is called the storage communications act and under the stored communications act those are a piece of that called subsection of section twenty seven zero three which basically allows the government to submit what's called section d. orders so it's actually it's somewhere in between a warrant and a subpoena subpoena as many of you probably know is simply a form that a prosecutor fills out and submit to you know the holder of some content but it wants information from the judge overseas that order a warrant is a much stricter standard there are probable cause requirements for warrants the the stored communications act do you order sit somewhere in the middle it's not exactly a warrant it's not a subpoena but what what this judge magistrate's report shows is that the rules that. are put in place twenty perhaps over twenty five years ago.

are woefully inadequate primarily because they don't allow even congress let alone the general public to know how many of these orders are being issued because there are gag sealed and blindfold provisions which prevent people from even knowing how many of these orders are out there so what can be done now and then what parts of this law need to be updated in order to reflect you know the times and the way that we communicate today. sure so the judge magistrate stephen smith who issued this really important report i encourage people to read it you can go to my web site privacy s.o.s. or the latest blog entry links to the report and i talk about it he basically is asking that congress reform act to mandate judges and judge magistrates to provide some kind of notice alternately to to the people who are targets of these of these orders because

a key piece of what we need to realize here is that you know it. my emails the e-mails that i sent to my friends to you know my lower my coworkers whatever i don't actually possess them you know if i use google or g. mail to send emails it's it's google or g. mail that possesses my e-mails so the government doesn't have to go to me it can completely ignore me if it wants information about what i'm talking about or one talking to and go to google instead so there are number of issues one is transparency we need to know how many of these orders are being issued another is accountability so that you know if if if if a magistrate agrees with a prosecutor and issues an order for my communications or information you know i should be notified at some point so that i can challenge that order under the under the under act but as it stands according to his report people do not have the ability to challenge these orders so you know we're this is a this is

a very troubling situation in which tons of people are potentially being watched by the government without our knowledge ever people might never find out so there needs to be transparency there needs to be accountability and we need to update the law to reflect the fact that many of us use third party content providers to spread our information around to communicate online ok and to kind of wrap it up here as you mentioned kind of at the heart of this is transparency the lack of transparency how does this pose a danger to us that ascends people like you and i sure i mean you know. it's pretty clear to us at the a.c.l.u. and frankly to many americans that over the past ten years since nine eleven there have been a series of laws including the patriot act which would actually reformed a key part of the story communications act for the worst from the worst that sort of a. a more complicated subject but many of these laws have essentially put us in

a situation where the government of the united states of america knows one too much about us and we know very little about what the government is doing so that relationship. we actually as citizens of this country and residents of this country should be able to know what the government is doing why the government should be held to account for its surveillance practices you know there's sometimes the government needs needs to surveil people if you will break the law there are there are dangerous people on board we need to be able to do its job but it's absolutely unacceptable for this kind of base of long term secrecy to grow their own country of law. kate thank you very much a very interesting especially in this day and age that was katie. craig craig crawford excuse me a privacy rights corner for the american civil liberties union. well that is going to do it for the news but stick around to be alone the show is coming up at the top of the hour tonight alona we'll continue our coverage of the wisconsin recall

election pertly under way and wisconsin and then on tonight's edition of total time by congressman jeff landrieu from louisiana wins the award for comparing the contraception history if you to t.s.a. screening that's all new and happy hour but for more on the stories we covered you can check out our you tube channel that is youtube dot com slash r t america you can also add to our web site that is r t dot com slash usa they'll find stories there that we didn't have time to get to on the air you can also follow me on twitter at liz wall we'll be right back here at seven of the a lot of shows up and a half hour. decline of american power continues. are things in our country so bad that might actually be time for a revolution. and it turns out that a popular drink of starbucks has a surprising him greedy.