eight hundred to avoid seven go. today at r t we know the f.b.i. likes to meddle but now we're learning just how expansive its influence really is the first person to arm the black panther party was an f.b.i. informant so where does the line between right and wrong fall when it comes to preventing and provoking terrorism in the us. putting on the rose colored google goggles looks like the company may have been buying positive press and now one judge wants to know who's on their payroll coming up yet another case of compromised journalistic ethics. and coming to a wal-mart near you sando sweet corn field with the vitamins and nutrients and oh yeah toxins you know the kind that has been proven to turn animals intestines into liquid so why are companies so eager to put tested and labeled foods on grocery

store shelves we've got a story that will make your stomach churn. it's tuesday august twenty first five pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wall and you're watching our tea we begin today with a story you probably won't see on the mainstream news taking a close look at the role of informants in the f.b.i. and we'll start off by highlighting the case of a man that played a critical role in the black panther movement in the one nine hundred sixty s. his name is richard. the man you see here he was a militant activist an arm of the black panthers turns out he was also an f.b.i. informant and this is all recently coming to light after an investigation by seth rosenfeld a journalist that put in a freedom of information request to the f.b.i. asking they release thousands of documents in connection with aoki here's part of

the report from the center of investigative reporting it discusses the f.b.i.'s techniques in dealing with the black panthers. the goal. was to go through as you ranged from sending false letters or planting negative news stories to trying to foment violence between the pair and other groups the f.b.i. also used informants as part of its cointelpro operation. he committed suicide at his berkeley home in two thousand and nine but today many questions remain to what extent of the f.b.i. no way yochi was arming the black panthers well the f.b.i. creating violent situations as a way to justify battling the group this can be compared to the f.b.i.'s recent controversial use of informants with activist groups take the cleveland five for example the five men you see here the f.b.i. arrested these men for alleged conspiracy to blow up

a bridge in cleveland but some believe it's the f.b.i. that infiltrated the group and encouraged the suspects to carry out the terror plot it's a slippery slope between the f.b.i. catching criminals and creating them to discuss this earlier i spoke to trevor aaronson author of the book the terror factory he told me about the cases of informants he uncovered while writing his book. as part of the book i looked at five hundred errors the prosecution since nine eleven and what i found is that an informant was used in acts of. you know in some cases an informant is used in the way you might suspect he simply provides information but in a lot of cases like an increasing number of cases the informant takes on a role like what you. do where he provides the means and the opportunity for people to commit crimes for people to commit acts of terrorism. as exemplified by the case that. this is not a new tactic by the f.b.i. but when you say post nine eleven that it is more common what's revealing about the

case is that it goes back that far you know. the general belief was that this happened largely started with drug enforcement in one nine hundred eighty and we see an increased use of sting operation since nine eleven where there you know they basically taken a tactic that with use in the eighty's to find someone to want to buy or sell drugs and then you know flip it around and instead of drugs that weapons of mass destruction of some kind of terrorist and so on now more and more the f.b.i. is using this as a counterterrorism tactic but you know what they say is that this is a way identifying today the terrorists of tomorrow but a real question is this about whether any of these people could have committed acts of terrorism on their own or not for the f.b.i. providing the me the opportunity for them to do that and i know in your book there you vera went on a few examples what do you think are the most significant examples of the f.b.i. using informants to create criminals in a way you know there's a good example of this out of illinois with

a man named eric sharif and eric with down on the luck with broken down he worked at a video game store yet absolutely no money whatsoever and informant came up to suggest that a plot to bomb a shopping mall in illinois there got behind that you know he was interested in violence but had no capacity for violence and it turned out that the f.b.i. to further the plot needed derek to be able to purchase. grenade from an f.b.i. agent who was posing as an underdog and as an arms dealer but what turned out to be the case was that there didn't have any money to buy their goods so they brokered a deal where derek would get a pair of old stereo speakers in exchange for a grenade and a plot like that is patently ridiculous because obviously no real arms dealer is going to say speakers for black market weapon but that's an example of how the f.b.i. was able to build a terrorism conspiracy charge around someone who really had no capacity to commit terrorism on their own that's just one of many examples but cover would you say for the most part i mean is the f.b.i. creating enemies or are the enemies already there and the f.b.i.

is just you know trying to to bring it to light. what the f.b.i. would say is that these people who are caught in terrorism thing operation would have become terrorists on their own if given the opportunity by actually if the terrorist were there to say here's a bomb do you want to plant it in a shopping mall or in a public square but the truth of the matter is that there isn't any evidence to support the idea that there are actually terrorists providing these weapons to want to be fair the united states so i think you know we can conclude then that without that the f.b.i. has become very effective creating the very enemies of funding so are you saying that it hasn't proven to be an effective method of stopping crimes or acts of terror when you look at actual terror but it's not evil as came very close the bomb in the new york city subway system or by justice just to try to plant a car bomb in times square these are men that in our midst never tipped the f.b.i. off and yes they became they got very close actually committing acts of terrorism

the people that f.b.i. ormont are finding and covering are people who are interested in violence are odious for whatever reason but they have no capacity on their own to commit this violence and yet the f.b.i. informant is able to provide that violence that's the need for them to commit violence and so i don't think there's any reason to believe that the people who put up an f.b.i. sting operation would have on their own been able to miscarry their old men allowed to commit through the use of an f.b.i. informant ok so it's questionable just how how effective this tactic really is why do you think the f.b.i. resorts to this. you know using informants and that's why so often. part of this is a bureaucratic process you know every year the f.b.i. receives three billion dollars from congress earmarked for counterterrorism the largest part of the f.b.i. budget and the f.b.i. can't really come back to congress and say hey you know we looked around we didn't find any terror you know there's so much pressure on f.b.i.

agents to bring terrorism cases that the use of an informant become widespread and i think there are cases where it were not for the pressure of the f.b.i. to sit back and say you know this guy's a loud mouth that he's you know he's talking big but he's never going to be able to do anything with talk instead they're pursuing the case that they're going to the people who are talking big and saying you know what we can provide you with this and that's what they're doing and it allows you know the f.b.i. to increase the number of terrorism when f.b.i. director muller testified before congress he specifically mentioned the sting operations specifically mention that there are people who were for example a stock or a wal-mart who had no capacity on their own to commit terrorism now in the end it trevor what do you think this is doing you know in terms of public sentiment as it creating this sense of paranoia to be paranoid of these radical groups. well i think the f.b.i. wants to create a situation where you know someone who is interested in violence committed because

they fear that the person they're working with is an informant but it has another effect and one of those effect is that for example the muslim community where you seen so many of the sting operation there is a mistrust of the f.b.i. there's an unwillingness to cooperate and volunteer information to the f.b.i. i suspect the same is true. in eco terrorists and you know certainly similar things have happened like you mentioned the cleveland group for example you know that was an example of a group that had no capacity on their own only violence someone an f.b.i. informant provided them with a bomb to blow up a bridge but without that f.e.n.'s form and without that f.b.i. providing the bomb there was no way is that group of five men could have committed you know conspiracy they were charged with now presumably there are instances where this this tactic of them using informants has been affected you can presume because they continue to use it but it does bring up this question where do you draw the line between preventing and provoking criminal activity. i think that's

a question that the f.b.i. is really struggling to answer you know in general when these cases up on the trial the evidence tends to be so overwhelming you know boston bombing a bridge or public transit system that juries have been unwilling to be sympathetic to entrapment defense so as a result the f.b.i. has a clear message from that is syria that it's ok to pursue these types of cases and as a result of that i think we're seeing an explosion of these sting operations that are centered primarily in muslim communities counterterrorism but also effects the left wing groups that you go to terrorist groups such as the cleveland by the mention right trevor very interesting stuff that was cover aronsen the author of the book the terror factory thank you. we turn now to a high tech case that could have major implications for the current state of the media it's a case of oracle versus google archives adriano said oh break the down for us. and the never ending patent war between tech companies there are no hostages from apple

to samsung microsoft a.o.l. and as you can see by this rather confusing chart right here it seems everyone has a stake in the industry of the future and that brings us to this oracle versus google the biggest case in tech and it just got a whole lot more interesting with billions on the line in the future of technology development at stake a us court has ordered google to disclose any of the names of authors bloggers or journalists that may have been paid to quote report or comment on the case but let's take a step back and explain how we got here the entire court case hinges on a claim by oracle that google owes the company upwards of a billion dollars for using certain technologies in their popular android platform after an initial decision siding with google oracle promised to aggressively appeal the ruling and has been in attack mode ever since that brings us back to now judge william alsop want to know exactly which journalists and bloggers the two companies

have been paid to take media coverage in their favor citing concerns that the evidence presented over the course of the case was directly or indirectly influenced by financial compensation so after failing to comply with the original deadline google now has until august twenty fourth oracle on their part admitted to paying stanford law professor paul goldstein as well as foss patents tackler blogger florian mueller calling him a paid consultant he coincidentally also has no ties to microsoft google however struck back at the court stating it the not pay off anyone adding there had been zero quid pro quo arrangements made by thick the pressure is still on google to provide the name of any contractors consultants or employees that might have covered the case so at the end of the day it looks like google might have to confess who it paid for its positive press however it's not just the money and allegations of copyright infringement is the notion that media can be bought and sold to the highest bidder and yet another stark reminder to always always question

more for r.t. i'm on genocidal. well for more on this i was joined by christopher chambers journalism professor at georgetown university i first asked him what exactly is google hiding. it's hard to say i mean this this is a this is utterly beyond the pale this whole thing is just unprecedented i mean usually when a judge orders part not the reporters it's a different thing but orders the parties to disclose who your your allies and your shills are it's because there's been some you know outward evidence of jury tampering or something like this there's been a jury verdict in the copyright and patent actions this is after you know the smoke is cleared and this judge is doing this it's it's utterly utterly. unprecedented so there must be so you know i mean i do believe in there where there's smoke there's fire thing and because oracle who had lost you know who was the plaintiff you know

had you know one or two people that they said they had dangling there must have been something there must have been some tip off in camera as they say in latin that to the judge that you know something was going on here or he just looked and saw you know article upon article blog post upon blog post lining up you know in google's favor and so there's got to be something going on here plainly there must be something going on here because they haven't advanced the constitutional argument against the order they're just now we will pay anybody and you know so i don't think this judge is is either a moron or crazy so there there's there's fire there somewhere right and the embarkation five s are significant because i mean google of math and everybody is it good all right they are hiring is a start for the day and that's how they responded to the order they basically sent a list saying well everybody uses google especially google advertising you know what do you want to say and you know whereas oracle boom you know now maybe you

know i don't know internally and they lost a case they took a big hit it was almost a slam dunk you know was a slam dunk on the patent action almost in the copyright for google maybe oracle figured it didn't have anything to lose but again i mean they disclosed fairly quick. google is basically saying well there's nobody there's either nobody or it's everybody in the universe and that's that's a ridiculous answer and again they haven't for you know advanced any constitutional argument saying you know you can't order us to do this so there's got to be something going on here and it's something that people need to pay attention to despite all the political noise and everything all these other issues going on in the world i mean this is something that we all do use and we need to to really prepare ears up and see what's going on here now looking at the bigger picture i mean to what extent that suggests they're one example a very significant example to what extent are journalists commentators bloggers paid to report on a certain issue and if and last well i mean there's there's there's there's there's

shelling for money you know which is what he's going after and then you know which is not really that far off the on the end of the spectrum and then there's commentary and punditry i mean it might be something that that i do i'm not getting you know gold bricks the hero in the mail from our t. but you know there are instances even going back before say the golden age of new sites and breitbart and blogging and you know melding with with t.v. news going back to the eighty's and ninety's where the bush administration some generals who had been retired and put forward as pundits for the pentagon were there you know shilling for the first iraq war you know and then weapons of mass destruction for this for the second one you had commentators fox commentators a number of them who were on the the administration payroll under george w. bush shilling for certain you know items you know so that that does happen the

problem is now it's hard to trace i mean how do you get you know i mean if somebody is paying you through a news outlet to be a pundit i mean where is the news outlets money coming from of. if i work for c.n.n. or m s n b c or fox as a paid commentator or you know or a reporter hosting the show you know what is their point of view and where does where does their corporate money come from i mean so it goes through a lot of filters plainly this judge is saying there are any filters here i have evidence possibly that you know google maybe through an intermediary got these people on the hook somehow and you know in this nebulous world where who's a reporter is a blogger reporter is a tech blogger a tech reporter you know. they're operating in this weird kind of market that we haven't explored yet so they basically figure we can do what we want so no i don't think it might give anybody a check but there might be something there and that's exactly what you know media

becoming more and digitizing all they have rapid technological advancements i'm right seeing consumers have more choices than ever before which seems like a dead thing to have all these choices but on the flip side how do you know which you know which outlets you're turning tail are are accurate are at some of these reports are misleading or if there is a conflict of interest here that relates to the seller exactly and you know and here again i mean you have a situation where you know again it's not a clear cut usual situation where the reporters and you know it and again as a blogger reporter are being subpoenaed or subject to these court orders it's the parties to a suit that's been solved news been a dispositive jury verdict so i mean this being so unprecedented i go i have to say though i'm a little i'm not a scared about what the judge is doing and maybe it's almost like chief justice roberts in the obamacare case i mean maybe this guy is doing something for the

public good and maybe he's trying to strike some kind of blow for not having these huge corporations have these page shells influencing you know tipping the scales either way but again this is oracle which is huge versus google with which is to just like godzilla versus. every monster they don't really get hurt it's scrambling around at their feet to get squashed and so you know we need to pay attention to this regardless right lastly quickly just want to ask you amid all of this what is a viewer or a news consumer to do well with this it has as many outlets as possible outside of your echo chamber your usual comfort zone and have a very diet because you're not going to get it directly from t.v. or a site except for and you can even trust the search engines because they are like google they are a machine in and of themselves as is twitter you know so i mean it's that's the problem right chris

a pleasure to have you on the show i know is that was christopher chambers journalism professor at georgetown university. still ahead on our as he was in your sweet corn if you pick it up at wal-mart the answer might be a vitamin unitarians and scorpion this isn't an episode of fear factor it's genetically engineered food and we'll tell you exactly what's in it. who you. know. you're going. to goof. who.

well as we near the end of the summer shoppers continue to hit the supermarket for those final summer barbecues but to most people know what they're really buying at the grocery store retail giant wal-mart has recently confirmed that it will be start it will soon start selling monsanto's new sweet corn but what's troubling is that this corn has been genetically engineered with insecticide built right into its d.n.a. this particular talks and found inside your corn occurs naturally inside caterpillars and even some lofts the toxin is

a powerful insecticide that's proven to liquefy the stomach lining is of insects that try to grab a bite so we know what it does to bugs but at this point we don't know what it can do to humans so what does this all mean for the corn consumer to discuss i'm joined by can all history professor at university of the pacific and author of the book you see here the last arts of hearth and home. and welcome so i mean how can grocery stores genetically modified corn that contains insecticides that have never been tested on humans. well that's true of all genetically modified food but we've been eating it's a quite a long time anyway i mean the genetically modified corn has been on the market for a long time it just gets made into corn. corn oil and other products so it's not like this is brand new to us. and even the philip turned against this has been

you know plants in the u.s. for about fifty years and in general for about a century so that's also really nothing new at all in fact this strange irony. organic so i think i mean you know in general that that's very safe but we don't know what happens when you genetically modify it to have a corn express the factory itself i have a third gannett because it comes from tax from bugs what is significant about all this is that now it's being sold at wal-mart a grocery store that sells a quarter of the grocery food and it's contrary so can this is really affecting a lot of people. it is i think it would be nice to label but i think wal-mart knows very well if they put a label on it. and think that's not a bad thing i think the pending legislation in california hopefully something will

law labeling laws in place maybe the rest of the country will follow suit i think and people can be assured that nothing that happens to them and they each that if they modified foods. they have reason to be scared and labeling i think is the only really legitimate way to address those concerns so centrally what this does my understanding it liquefy down the lining of the bug that would consume corn sensually does it mean then is being used in food crops which well it's a bacteria unlike anything specifically target some of this really doesn't affect other creatures and secondly years ago the butterflies killed all. the seconds of the tank then certainly doesn't affect. them natural there's no way it's everywhere like much bacteria the whole body that area that we end up on the b.p. is not natural. and you can get them off for

a long time but that's nothing new even a. toxin well harm human. may have it's the model for you know and i think people are hearing a lot of the increase in allergies for the parents that cater to may actually be part of the fact that we're consuming remotely already i think there's a little different that wal-mart is is of course really powerful and they can do anything they want you know and you know the fact that wal-mart sells we're going to. sell but i think the larger question is people really don't know what this is going to do them in the long term and. the government that's just sometimes we do it on everything else and the reason they don't assume this is exactly like any other or you buy on the shelf that they're there. organism and

therefore we know doesn't hurt us there or eat it but it's a little bit you know that it's not exactly the same because it has been genetically modified to contain these toxins that are found in bugs and you know what that kind of sounds like can an episode of fear factor and if there's scares you oh let's take a look at this first it's terry grab a needle time is wasted they got you got it you got it you got a rabbit. do you get what you want. but don't think about a thing you do you just do it don't stare at it in ways that i'm. just going to make you angry. that's right. if you're cringing when you're watching that i can't even really watch the thing i mean did you get disgusted at what's inside your court because i mean it's being derived from insects. no it's really not. the. case exactly like

all. the there's nothing scary about it really i think what we don't really know is the long term effect short term it's going to states like for the little kind of areas and that kind of scary not knowing what the long term health effects are that's true but that's also true of everything everybody manipulates today i think. about all the you know additive. fragrances that. we have no idea what the really long term and we don't know what the new processing that does the. this is this is maybe we may wake up ten years from now and say what with all the fuss we've been eating all this. for a long time and. just you know crazy people. hopefully that will happen we're not going to wake up one day hopefully but we just don't know we just don't know what how long term health implications some new elements could come out as a result of eating all this genetically modified food that has been tested by the

food and drug administration and speaking of that why isn't the food and drug administration and drug administration required to test this corn well because the companies that make this stuff do in this case have a lot of control over. a lot of control over who gets elected and where money goes and so they have political power in such a way that they you know we grow corn in this country because the law in the middle of the country. that is a lot to make sure that one is grown so their supporters farmers supporters and whatever but i think the government could very well just say we're going to bulldoze the stuff and they sure they still mostly because they don't have access to the technology they're not given the plants to experiment with nonsense is that will we do that. and you know that and you know whatever. companies that are trying for tending to be your best self interest i mean look what happened with martin i

mean that the whole of eat margarine it's more healthy you will get there and then suddenly realize that we messed up that it was a better if you've been eating more of the whole pie i mean things like that obviously fine that's the nature of scientific knowledge is you know i think they're only going to new and people always make a very big mistake some were hoping this one will be a big thing all right i guess we can only hope but helpfully we'll get some testing of the foods you know and at least some labeling on their can we are at a time thanks so much for coming on the show that was can i love history professor university of the pacific and author of the lost art of hearth and home that's going to do for now for more on the story of the cover check out our you tube channel you tube dot com slash our team america you can also check out our website our team dot com slash usa and you can also follow me on twitter at liz wahl back here and a half hour.