tonight on our team called the transpacific partnership maybe it should be called the transpacific train wreck that's what it could mean for president obama's re-election bid we'll tell you how this trade agreement says more about the president's broken promises than his negotiating tactics. and a drone is a very very powerful way of snooping on behavior and i don't want them monitoring every every bit of my behavior just days after a drone crashed on maryland's eastern shore rand paul's rally against their domestic use but as he quickly makes his point the kentucky senator started backpedaling so why is the drone conversation in the u.s. so taboo it is an outbreak. of a. war that the free press should be throwing throwing reporters in

jail looks like press badges might be as useless as the paper they're printed on the u.s. might cry to itself on the freedom of the press that's not necessarily the case anymore i'll give you two good examples to prove this point. it's june thirteenth two thousand and twelve eight o'clock pm i'm having martin and you're watching our team. the tepee p. flip flop no i'm not talking about a dance move at the back peddling of rhetoric from obama regarding the power of multinational corporations controversial portion of the t.t.p. so-called free trade agreement between nine nations has now been leaked it allows foreign corporations operate in the us to appeal regulations to an international tribunal that could overrule u.s. law so what does this mean and why is there so much secrecy surrounding the

agreement tom tucker research director for public citizen joined me earlier to explain the details of the leaked document take a listen. what president obama campaigned on a few years ago was a pledge to make sure that u.s. trade agreements would never allow multinational companies to challenge public interest regulations like environmental protection laws or consumer protection laws but what this latest text reveals is that president obama has adopted wholesale the president bush agenda of allowing these kind of corporations to attack u.s. laws so this is of grave concern to consumer groups and environmental groups and really all americans who believe that the u.s. court system is adequate and the company should need to go to an outsourced tribunals to attack laws we wanted to read actually the campaign promise that obama made. directly from his campaign sheet it says will not negotiate bilateral trade agreements that stop the government from protecting the environment food safety or

the health of its citizens give greater rights to foreign investors than to u.s. investors require the privatization of our vital public services or prevent delap developing country governments from adopting humanitarian licensing policies to improve access to life saving medications so how is this pretty much everything that he stated here t p p pretty much a limit it's all of these things that's right it goes absolutely against a campaign promise and is a complete extension of the kind of failed policies that in the past have allowed zoning policies and landfill policies and other policies that countries like in the united states and elsewhere have used to improve the environment that allows all these attacks to proceed with us taxpayers on the line if companies don't like the regulations that our congress passes to talk a little bit about the secrecy that's been surrounding this bill we know that senator wyden has been in the senate saying you know you're not even showing us anything about this bill that they tried to start a bill that would force them to show them more of the legislation that's going on

why is this so secret from even the congress and the senate will you know the u.s. constitution in visions that the congress is actually going to be there. body setting our trade policy unfortunately the obama administration has put itself in the driver's seat and is holding all of the text very close to their chest they've in fact said that the thing is so controversial that if it were actually to be public that no one would want to support the bill so that's how they justify keeping congress and consumers and others in the dark so do you think that the secrecy had to do with this leak provision because of the implications that it could have. well i think that you know this is this is a clear example of you know this is exactly the kind of stuff that the administration should be putting on the table for members of congress to debate for consumer and environmental groups to debate so that we can make sure that it's a good deal because after all this is going to be the framework for trade. among all asian pacific on of these it's theoretically open to anyone that wants to join including china or other nations so it really has profound implications for the

next century really of how we regulate trade internationally and the fact that they're unwilling to even debate it publicly is really worrying and this goes beyond just the sleep provision i mean this bill covers so much and this agreement talks about so much privacy we're not privacy rights but copyright and all of these things that we saw with the sopa legislation i want wondering if you could elaborate just on how exactly you know the implications of the bill in the broader sense and what else it covers that we do know about sure when you look you know twenty thirty years ago when you had trade agreements it was really about trade about what kind of tariffs are charged on good does it cross borders today's trade agreements including the transpacific partnership deal with the price of medicines that seniors face at the at the hospital they deal with internet freedom access to free access to information on the internet they deal with environmental legislation they deal with so much more so this is just one of per of over twenty chapters in

the agreement only one of those chapters really has very much to do with goods the rest is how we regulate our domestic economy which is why so many different groups are so concerned give us a hypothetical scenario really quickly on how most like national corporations could really overstep legal bounds with the t.t.p. just so people can understand that it's a really complex issue and people kind of can't grasp what this would really mean and do sure well if you look at you know a few years ago with the b.p. oil spill you know b.p. you know thankfully we didn't have a trade agreement with some of the countries that b.p. is incorporated in besides the united. states edged the u.k. if that had been in place then when regulators went to try to correct some of the lack of regulation and they actually tried to reregulate that sector if b.p. felt that that interfered with their future expected profits they could challenge the environmental regulation outside of u.s. courts and pick one of the judges that would hear their case then they could ask the residents of louisiana and of all of the united states to pay them compensation

for the new environmental protection law and who would would comprise of this international panel overseen this these are international trade lawyers that sometimes serve as as counsel to the companies and then the next day they're in a different case as judges so this is would never happen in a domestic court where judges are just allowed to rotate out of serving clients and then serving as judges the next day and misc in this investor state system as it's called this is what regularly occurs and it's a tight knit club of just a handful of lawyers mostly in d.c. new york and a few other cities that operate sort of outside of the scrutiny of domestic debate why do you think there's been such a reversal in the rhetoric and also the policy by obama and i read in an article i don't know if it was you or someone else from public citizen that was saying this isn't even this doesn't even equate to bush's policy it's actually worse i wonder if you could just elaborate on that sure yeah i mean in several respects especially

with access to medicine issues this is worse than the deals that president bush was passing near the end of his term. you know why is this happening it's a very good question you know there's so much money in politics now that both political parties are influenced by it but you know i think that you see if you ask a lot of the democrats in congress for instance they're not on board with this policy that president obama is pushing so he's kind of going out there and freelancing and partnering with the u.s. chamber of commerce and other multinational companies to push these laws and what is happening right now to kind of try to expose the bill in congress and in the senate right now if you can just talk about that. sure well as you mentioned there are a number of senators and representatives that are pushing for not only this text to be released but for the entire agreement to be released so that people can debate on both sides of the issue the ones that are favor in favor of the t.t.p. and those that are opposed so far even if that very basic request has been denied and as i said it looks from the infamously text and from some other leaked text that we've seen that the green is going in

a very bad direction very quickly with this threaten the sovereignty of this country it would absolutely threaten the sovereignty of this country and also of other nations it would subject an additional layer of review outside of our domestic court systems for any domestic law that it is politically popular that needs to be passed to address urgent public needs it is indeed it is an outsourcing of justice it's creating a two level justice system where companies out multinational companies play by one set of rules and other companies and citizens play by different side and you're saying the two tiered justice systems that find something to explore could you expand will but on the other leaked provision or section of this bill that regarded the rights to copyright and things like that sure you know a lot of a lot of folks here domestically have been resisting some of the some of the proposals put forward in domestic law by the entertainment industry to basically make google and other search engines responsible for any kind of content that's on

legally responsible for any kind of content that's available on their search engines. all of that domestic legislation that has been so controversial like so like others that have been talked about is really embodied through the back door in this international trade agreement so even though the forces that wanted to push couldn't get it through the u.s. congress this is a way of getting it through the back door through international trade agreements so what are people's was a do i mean here we are you know we down soap and everyone's so excited we're like yeah we can you know prevent this legislation from happening and then at the same time there are these backdoor agreements happening with all these different countries that put in place the same measures i mean what are people supposed to do when they see this and how can this be stopped sure will even seem you know there's a nine different countries that are involved in this trade negotiations citizens in australia have been absolutely outraged about some of these provisions that allow multinational companies to attack australian laws there's been a lot of mobilization and there's a result australia has resisted a lot of these u.s.

proposals and what we need to see is exactly the same kind of resistance here in the united states contacting a member of congress contacting your you know reaching out to your family and school members and neighborhood and actually educating about this because there's not an internet sufficient media attention to it right now the more attention the more sunlight that we see on this proposal the less popular it's going to be and the more difficult it will be for the administration to get it through and there are two hundred corporate advisors and how many political players and citizens are involved in the process of negotiation hardly any we have over six hundred corporate advisors that are actually have access to all this text they don't need to see the leaked text in fact they can just go and see it directly for themselves these are the ones that are driving the administration's trade policy and this is why sort of citizens and really need to be the first demand needs to be that the text is released immediately absolutely thanks so much for coming on and explaining that i really appreciate it i was told tucker research director for public citizen robot drones the stoping future of america just days after forty four foot unmanned

surveillance drone crashed on the shores of maryland senator. and paul is proposing legislation that would curb their domestic use called the preserving freedom from unwarranted surveillance act of two thousand and twelve great well they someone's trying to stop the surveillance state from expanding into the sky but is this bill really do anything at all to halt their use to explore the issue and more i was joined by jefferson morely staff writer for salon dot com and author of the book snow storm in august washington city francis scott key and the forgotten race right at eight hundred thirty five. i think that those exceptions could be broad but i think that the problem rand paul is going to have with his legislation is that this apparently and i was just reading the law myself this apparently excludes the military use the military's use of drones in the domestic air space and that is going to be a huge problem for the pentagon because the pentagon is actually one of the leading

forces behind this drive to integrate drones into the domestic air space the military wants to bring drums home from the battlefield and use them for training at home and in my reading of rand paul's legislation there is no room for that so i think on a political level he's going to have a tremendous problem with that from the pentagon. yeah. do you think that he has a lot of support as the bill stands or do you think that there is a lot of lobbying effort from defense to push this now to not push this through well i think we're i think we're early on and i think that the recent coverage of drones in domestic airspace in the last two months is driving public opinion on this and civil libertarians on the left and right are trying to come up with a response but i don't know that something like paul's legislation and there's a companion bill in the house can get through given the strength of the domestic

drone industry especially in the house. covers and you know i think there's sort of a cognitive dissonance between the people living in this country and the fact that they're already are drones flying around in the sky as we know one just crashed why do you think it was that they're already was a surveillance drone flying in domestic areas. the drone that crashed was not i see no evidence that that was a surveillance drone that was a navy drum i think they were training the pilots to handle that aircraft and we don't know what happened i just talked to the navy today and they say the investigation is still going on but i think that that incident points that if the military succeeds in getting this legislation through which would bring many more military drones into the united states you would have literally thousands more. unmanned aviation vehicles in the in the united states airspace that were slowly controlled by the military now the military will say existing law covers this

there's nothing to worry about them but i think that the capacity of this new technology for surveillance is what's driving the type of opposition that you see in the impalas bill doing that people should be worried about this drone crashing and that there's a risk for other unmanned drones to be crashing one till you know one save our enemy lead yeah i mean there's going to be a much greater risk of crashes because there are going to be many more of drones like this the military plans to bring home from the from the afghanistan and other battle zones probably about five hundred predator of these of these predator or global hawk drones the global hawk is the one that crashed so right now the navy only has five of those craft that that they are using when you bring home five hundred more you're going to have more of a risk of more of a risk of crashes now. the people in the military say well drones are very safe

there are not that many crashes these are these these trainings conducted in with restricted areas where there isn't where there isn't a danger to people even if they do crash but i would note in the case and it's all very maryland earlier this week after the crash they had to they had to seal that area off from boaters so there could have been boaters in the area where that drone crashed so i think that a lot more attention to detail is needed here both on the safety and the privacy front. covers and i wanted to show you a map really quickly of the amount of drone bases that already exist and the u.s. as you can see there pretty much covering the whole united states we already know that the twenty state and local governments and twenty four universities are already authorized to fly then do you i mean is it at this point where you can also accept drone surveillance as an inevitability of the surveillance state well

i mean the. drones that are being deployed by the universities for example they're not being used for surveillance they're typically being used for. weather observation. proper observation and the police departments i wouldn't i don't by my count there's not there's not twenty more than twenty i think there's about a dozen law enforcement agencies that have received permission to fly and i've talked to representatives of those and those police departments almost uniformly disclaim any interest in surveillance how do we know that the house doesn't know they're not just going to blanket the surveil people. we don't know that and that and i think that's why especially united states we have very weak privacy legislation that at the national level and and so we really are vulnerable to to the possible abuse of this also our laws governing surveillance our

laws that were developed around hilla copter surveillance primarily and the drone is just a very different and much more powerful technique and our laws and our judges haven't really addressed the privacy problems that are created by drones so i think that the law is lagging behind the technology right so i wouldn't say it's hopeless . the problems can be addressed. but but we don't have the structure to do it yet but it is kind of the same rhetoric as we heard with the post patriot act and pretty much the post nine eleven mentality for not doing anything wrong there's nothing to worry about and you have to admit that drones an. unlimited amount of drones surveilling the skies does create sort of a chilling effect in this country. well right and i think that's why we need that's why we need the protections written into the law before we have widespread adoption

of this i just i don't see the signs of domestic law enforcement using this for surveillance right now that capacity is there but i don't see any sign that that capacity has been exercised in that way what did you think that there is really a chance for accurate privacy provisions to be implemented in the legislation i mean lots of countries lots of countries have much more effective privacy protections than the united states so effective a strong privacy protection at the national level is probably the most important solution or a second solution which some of the pallets are are pursuing is is a area specific prohibitions against surveillance and i think it's in seattle which is one city that is thinking about adopting drones they're also talking about adopting a meanness of the law in order to ensure that privacy is protected and i think those are the two real solutions to what the problem now is very specific local

legislation to control a specific use of of drones by a police department and then also national privacy protection on a on a much broader level it's much broader than just drones right now we don't have either of those that's what we need. seems great yeah we should we should implement privacy protections that it seems like and a state of national security where privacy is so eroded and this country it just doesn't seem like the push for them is really there i mean i could be wrong let's hope you're right jefferson i want to get your pen in really quickly on just drone warfare in general it seems like right now. that there's two options there invade and occupy countries or use drone warfare abroad do you see a third alternative here or is this really just the way things are going to be this is certainly. drone war is going to be the preferred mode of the us military intervening so the question is. since there's very little appetite for big ground

invasion big ground intervention like we had in iraq and afghanistan if we're going to pursue a policy of intervention it's going to be via drones but the repetitions of that the implications of that i don't think it's been thought through very well because we are imagining that this is a low cost policy for ourselves but in the two countries where drone war has been most intensive in the obama years yemen and pakistan those countries are notably more unstable and more anti-american now than they were when the drone war began so we're seeing the negative effects of drone war already in the countries where it's practiced most intensively that's a warning sign for the future very interesting point thanks so much for joining us that link up your son morley staff writer for salon dot com and author of the book snow storm in august washington city francis scott key and the forgotten race riot

at eighteen thirty five. have you ever wondered how the police and military know that the rubber bullets are safe to fire in a crowd of protesters but loud piercing sound can and they used to break up demonstrations won't do damage but they pay humans to be guinea pigs yes you heard me right and a warehouse building in morris county new jersey residents can make twenty dollars an hour to be abused you might get hit with tongs or fired at with rubber bullets but i guess in this economy head job is a job well let's examine this just a little bit closer. veteran was hit by a police projectile oakland well taking part in an occupy wall street protest and we've played this footage before but take another look what's your what's your. scuttles and suffered a fractured skull and brain swelling after being shot and still recovering i wonder if those new jersey residents understand the dangers of having an army fire rubber bullets or projectiles at them and again this is just for

a measly twenty dollars an hour and let's not forget another occupy protest in california where law enforcement went overboard i remember this from u.c. davis. after seeing that i wonder what would make people agreed to be pepper sprayed and how many times for twenty dollars an hour after all pepper spray most police agencies use these days is military grade oh but that's right it's just a food product right so you can have we as a society decided that twenty dollars an hour is the going rate to be abused look i know unemployment is high right now but where is the dignity and self-respect of these volunteers who sign up and just remember the army makes you fellow consent forms acknowledging that you may sustain permanent serious energy injury or even death likely so far that's not happened although we may never know considering those that volunteer are not allowed to speak. the press. whistleblowers are not

the only ones targeted for trying to expose injustices credentialed journalists in new york are also prevented from doing their job if you don't have specific city issued press passes you could be arrested for simply reporting and put to a legal quandary as a result of these occupy wall street as an example dozens of reporters were arrested while tending to cover the protests others claim to have been roughed up yet the n.y.p.d. says only one was officially arrested are to correspond stasia churkin a report on how not even a press badge protects journalists first amendment rights. dramatic unfolding in the us a must cover bands for journalists that the idea i showed them and apparently that wasn't enough for the new york police his press pass feeling to pass the test this reporter got arrested while covering the occupy wall street protests no muss no fuss officer just puts cops on them. and i

just. try to tell him that i'm a journalist. people out my state department cohesion. whether i have or new york police one unfortunate that's one expires t.v. rights or daily russian newspaper and has worked in the us for the last three years i will prove how they don't really care that it's just just business and you credentials can't really protect you sent through a whirlpool like legal system the seasoned journalist was treated as a protest participant under arrest twenty four hours behind bars a quickie trial six hundred dollars in fines were his punishment for doing his job covering the news of the day and then there were the two days of community service they would you even bring right away here this any patients station give you brooms trash cans and child and you basically walking around sweeping the streets because of the debris paper secret about whatever kid who is now in full be. for six months

it is an outrage in a country that professes to have a undying respect for the freedom of the press to be you know throwing throwing reporters in jail. was exposed but this case is not unique rather it's part of a dangerous trend in the u.s. when you let the state control who is a journalist that's just propaganda team pool is an independent journalist who has witnessed police reject press passes on a state by state basis throughout occupy wall street protests in new york they don't care even if you have a press pass i've watched i've watched a cop grab a journalist with his press pass on the ground i've seen supervisors call out to grab a journalist press pass and take it from him i have d.c.b. processes. in oakland they require local oakland press ups in new york they've been rejecting trespassers from other jurisdictions have

a first amendment which guarantees the freedom of the press i mean there is no nothing in the law which must at least agencies to determine which press are legitimate press and which are not requiring a press pass it's also been sending journalists through a vicious circle not of just people work with guessing games of which state might be next to a person near impossibility pasties well you have to prove that you've covered breaking news but it's hard to cover breaking news in the police won't let you so creates this catch twenty two take several months. finally if they like the news you're making they'll let you get a pass. arbitrary or unattainable press passes demanded journalists arrested for covering the news the constitutional concept of media freedom under siege i think we're slowly coming into a state of affairs where. doing a video camera is a lot more dangerous to the stablish myth and shooting

a gun choosing to view his arrest as an invaluable cultural experience he'll treat it with humor i got born it goes out of my experience i would say it's pretty good outcome for me freedom of the press in america a first hand account is the future fourteen years. are all now we've all heard about the craven five bomb plot as well as the arrest of the so-called nato three but let's just recap for a second the cleveland five is a group of men who were arrested for allegedly conspiring to blow the bridge in ohio the plot wasn't successful because an undercover f.b.i. informant reportedly provided the men with a dud bomb all the defendants have pleaded not guilty and are being held without bail until the trial begins meanwhile the nato three is a group of men facing terry late in charges for allegedly plotting to attack president obama's campaign headquarters in chicago during the nato summit last month many parts of this case are coming under fire at the moment because lawyers say that illinois antiterrorism statute is all encompassing and defined however

beyond the fact that both sets of men were arrested and then an alleged plot was deterred not much news has been coming out about either of these cases both police agencies as well as the government have been hush hush about the plots it seems like the u.s. is attempting to lock up these potential domestic threats and just the roadway the key and one case police are being accused of entrapment and the other the defendants are still awaiting for official indictment and being held while the mainstream media is focusing on other things we'll continue to update you on these cases as they develop and 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 two dot com slash usa can also follow me on twitter martin have a great night and we'll see you tomorrow. it is.