and i don't r t it was a small protest that sparked a global wide movement the occupy rallies have changed political discourse here in the u.s. and overseas our tea has been out in the field covering them since the very beginning and will tell you all about our and the nod as a result of it. and we want to we all know that 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 u.s. and coming to a wal-mart near you santos sweet corn filled with vitamins and nutrients oh yeah and bt talks in you know the kind that has been proven to turn insects intestines into liquid so why are companies so eager to put untested unlabeled foods on

grocery store shelves we've got a story that will make your stomach hurt. it's tuesday august twenty first eight pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wall and you're watching her t.v. well we here at r.t. are proud to announce today that we have been nominated for in emmy award it's for our coverage of the occupy wall street movement a movement that is sparked that sparked october of last year in new york city and spread throughout the globe thousands of protesters have taken to the streets of various cities speaking out against what they see as government corruption and handling the economy and our t. was there from the very beginning. well from coast to coast occupy wall street protesters storming the u.s. cities today r.c.

has been covering this story from day one we have correspondents in all the movements hotspots around the country to bring us the latest now the occupy wall street movement has resurrected the workers holiday calling it a day without the ninety nine percent thousands and thousands of people it's like i say get out of. the occupy movement kind of like a little bit of hibernation last year right. while you're on the streets of los angeles is quite easy we can. occupy us this route from the pictures we've been seeing from the people we've been speaking with is literally occupying the streets shutting down the streets. keeping keep getting back to hit me shoot me they're putting their shoes excuse me they're shooting like any other are fired protests i've been through so far because this is the first not one gathering well that's in contrast to mainstream media coverage of the movement as you can recall it was a movement that was initially overlooked and then mocked by most media outlets. i

think if you put every single less when called into a blender and hit power this is the sludge you get there are so many most uninformed people if you listen to it virtually unbelievable i like the one guy says were affecting things i think the only things affecting is traffic so what do you want protesters it seems like people want a messiah leader just like they did when they are known to barack obama but if you don't know what's wrong no one can fix it for you john well our team is one of seven news organizations up for the emmy in the category of current affairs in news and the twenty twelve international emmy awards talk more about the coverage of the occupy wall street and the emmy nomination i'm joined by our correspondent ramon goal endo in l.a. and our t.v. producer adriano the cerro right here in d.c. . it's a good day right how does it feel it feel very very nice i must say i mean especially the fact that you are being recognized for some good work especially covering a worthwhile story and i think it's good i think it's says

a lot right now yeah absolutely and we really saw we were there from the beginning we saw this we're going to grow into this global movement ramon i want to ask you it's a movement that spanned you know from the east to the west coast and you cover the protests and ally and in oakland what were some of the notable moments for you in covering the story. no definitely liz things got started here on the west coast of fyi a few weeks after occupy wall street got going there in new york but definitely a lot of passion a lot of emotion here especially in the golden state a place where you know the financial crisis hit is specially hard the housing crisis really really hit a lot of people so a lot of people really gravitated towards this message of occupy trying to fight against corporate and political corruption so i mean it was quite impressive the turnout that we saw here in los angeles the first day of occupy l.a. there were about

a thousand people in the streets for several weeks we saw street demonstrations week after week so there was definitely a lot of energy and of course the crackdown by police once. once lawmakers and city leaders really got angry at the protests the aggressiveness that we saw i mean we saw fourteen hundred l.a.p.d. officers in what was called an operation with military precision just tear down occupy l.a. we saw the violence in oakland where scott olsen was hit by a non lethal project our own photographer zuby in our producer lucy were up there and they got a little bit of a taste of the tear gas so those are some of the very notable moments and definitely i think what set us apart from was other mainstream media outlets were doing is that we were really giving voice to the protests we were really treating this as as a movement as a trend that was going on and like you said it inspired a lot of people in mexico we still see the one thirty two movement inspired by

occupy and many you know many ridiculed the occupiers here in l.a. but many of the ones that we met were quite savvy they were employed and they were college college educated and really gathered their motivations from the protesters in egypt and the protesters in greece who are fighting austerity and that is quite contrary to the picture that is typically very great of the occupy wall street protests. there is an idea and i want to ask you speaking of giving voice to these people i know that you really played a critical role of. bringing things set together from behind the scenes making sure that you know we had relevant guestbook. who was it there are a lot of interesting people involved there out this this movement who stood out to you i mean i would even say that people stood out because they feel that everyone from every echelon stood out everyone from taking some mental notes everyone from you know musicians like tom morello boots really that were you know pretty into the

from the beginning to journalist ugur that also sort of you know saw this and went for it so as you know picking up from what ramon said just a short while ago that it was good to see that you know people on the streets were savvy were intelligent and were completely the opposite of what as to what they were being betrayed as in the mainstream media i mean we met parents we met you know college grads that were just having a hard time to find a job we found so many people that literally just wanted their voices heard and were just upset and wanted to go out there and make a change so it was all over the board pretty much and you know there were some signature phrases that came out through this movement and ninety nine per cent and we are the ninety nine percent is one percent versus the ninety nine percent we had

those mike checks we had another one the whole world is watching banks now bailed out we got sold out all things that are now you know sort of kind of almost some of them kind of household term if you may know mainstream there you go. absolutely i just talked about that some of the language that has emerged throughout this movie . yeah i mean all i was just saying i mean all of those things have just now become part of our day to day speak i mean even politicians even the left is sort of been adopting the ninety nine percent one percent lexicon so it's really really interesting to see something that was viewed as i dare say you know fringe a little radical has now sort of become an accepted somewhat political tool really i mean i know democrats were sort of trying to i mean many in the movement i should say were worried that democrats were going to co-opt you know the

symbolism of you know one percent versus ninety nine percent and occupies sort of overall message but it's sort of i mean it's very interesting to see that that is actually now a viable way to be able to speak a viable you know it's part of the discourse right now in the country so who would have guessed it right i mean well i guess i. started out with a few dozen then hundreds so in york spanned throughout the country and we saw expand to other cities throughout the globe and speaking of the discourse simona this question will be for you you know right now the movement seems to be stalled but it did eventually as we just mentioned again this worldwide audience what effect do you think it really had and terms of change even if it's just changing the political conversation. it was mention it is definitely change the debate here in america has changed the conversation about whether we

want to be a country with this huge amount of wealth inequality we want to become a country with such a huge amount of corporate influence on our politics but to the note of democrats and other liberals and the clinging on to the. the language of the ninety nine percent versus the one percent we have to remember that has also been quite a quite a strong rallying point for the right there's documentaries coming out right now trying to demean the occupy movement trying to link it to president obama although many present or maybe obama sympathizers really spoke out strongly against. wall street so beyond just. framing the political debate we still see occupy having an impact when it comes to the issue of home foreclosures we see occupy foreclosures we see break off groups such as occupy the hood in occupy skid row

which bring up issues that are affecting the homeless bring up issues that are affecting the poor and imprisoned here in los angeles so although the encampments were taken down and many of the movement did break all of this has really emboldened a lot of people to speak up for injustices and inequalities that they've seen in their neighborhood and in their states for quite a long time right we have just a little bit of time left but andriana we are going to we have the democratic national convention coming up there republican national convention coming up there are protests scheduled at both a lot of factions of the occupy wall street movement will be there will be there and do you think it could possibly be a resurgence and bringing some of these things back into the spotlight i mean right now it's anyone's guess but i know one thing for share is that if it is we will be there so if you watch it if you want to be able to see that side of the story you know tonight watch and see what we did that is absolutely correct and good job guys

and staying on top of it and you have your adulations our team that was our to correspond armando landau and our producer said oh. well we turn now to a story you probably will see in the mainstream news taking a close look at the role of informants in the f.b.i. and we'll start by highlighting the case of a man that played a critical role and the black panther movement in the one nine hundred sixty s. his name is richard a yogi the man you see here he was a militant activist and arm the black panthers turns out he was also an f.b.i. informant well this all recently coming to light after an investigation by south rosenfeld a journalist that put in a freedom of information act 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 for investigative reporting that discusses the f.b.i. his techniques in dealing with the black panthers would go the. first

to go through as you ranged from sending false sweaters planted negative news stories to trying to foment violence between the pair through that other groups the f.b.i. also used informants as part of its cointelpro operations well aoki committed suicide it is berkeley home in two thousand and nine but today many questions remain to what extent did the f.b.i. know aoki was arming the black panthers well the f.b.i. creating a violent situations as a way to justify battling the group or 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 an 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 but it's a slippery slope between the f.b.i. capturing criminals and creating them to discuss this earlier i spoke to trevor

aaronson the author of the book terror factory he told me about the cases of informants he uncovered while writing his book. so 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 half of the case 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 would 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 terrorists 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 were it not for the f.b.i. providing the me the opportunity for them to do that and i know in your book they're easier when 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 to read and eric was down on the luck with broken down he worked at a video game store yet absolutely no money whatsoever and informant came up to him suggested a plot to bomb a shopping mall in illinois there got behind that you know he was interested in

violence but he had no capacity for violence and it turned out that the f.b.i. to further the plot needed derek to be. it was a purchased 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 go through speakers for black market weapon but that's an example of how the f.b.i. was able to build a terror conspiracy charge around someone who really had no capacity to commit terrorism on their own and 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 in the f.b.i. is just you know trying to bring it to light. what the f.b.i. would say 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

terrorists 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 enemy that context 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 terrorist this is not evil it came very close to bombing 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. orman's 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 commit this terrorist act they were 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 the f.b.i. to bring terrorism cases that the use of informant has 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 just a loud mouth that he you know is 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 they 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 would it be 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've 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 yes 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. form of 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 causing. 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 you know clear message from the issuer that it's ok to pursue these types of cases and as a result of that i think receive an explosion of these type sting operations that are centered primarily muslim communities lead counterterrorism but also affects left wing groups that you go to terrorist groups such as the cleveland five you mention. very interesting stuff that was trevor aaronson the author of the book the terror factory thank you well as we near the end of 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 soon start selling monsanto's new sweet corn but what's troubling is that this corn has been genetically engineered with an insecticide built right into its d.n.a. this particular talks and found inside are corn occurs naturally inside caterpillars and even some moths the toxin is

a powerful insecticide that's proven to liquefy the stomach linings 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 discuss this and more i was joined by ken. history professor at university of the pacific and author of the book you see there the last arts of hearth and home you first explained how grocery stores can sell genetically modified corn with insects to insects insecticides excuse me that have never been tested on humans. well that's true 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's just it's 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

planned in the u.s. for years and in general for about a century so that's also really nothing new at all in fact this strange irony between organic so i think i mean we know in general that that fairly safe but we don't know what happens when you genetically modify it to have corn express the factory itself i added 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 country so can this is really affecting a lot of people. it is and i think it would be nice to label it i think wal-mart put a label on it. and think that's not a bad thing i think you know the pending legislation in california hopefully

something will labeling law place maybe that the country will follow suit i think and people can be assured that nothing that happens to them when they eat anything modified foods they have to be scared and labeling i think is the only really legitimate way to address those concerns so essentially what this does my understanding it liquefies that down make lining the bug that would consume corn so essentially does it mean then is being used in food crops. you know unlike anything specifically target. of. this really doesn't affect other creatures. years ago the butterflies killed all. but i can. certainly doesn't affect. them there's no way it's everywhere like much bacteria whole bodies. and the b.p.

is not natural. and they've been using it for a long time but that's nothing new even. megan it's. you know and i think people are hearing that a lot of the increase in allergies of the parents that cater to may actually be partly due to the fact that we're consuming remotely already i think what makes this a little different is 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 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. or going to them

and therefore we know the earth there. 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 this scares you let's take a look at this first it's theory of gravity that time is wasted you got it you got it you got a rabbit. do you get what you want. but don't think about it saying you do you just do it don't stare the way said. he was 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 should you be disgusted at what's inside your court because i mean it's being derived from insects. no it's really not.

exactly like a whole. you know. nothing about it really i think what we don't really know what the long term effect short term is going to say it's like for the level kind of area 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 would think. about all the you know as it is. we have no idea what the really long are and we don't know what the new processing of. this is this is maybe we may wake up ten years from now and say what with all the things we've been eating all this. for a long time and. just you know crazy people. hopefully that will happen one of the wake up when hopefully but we just don't know we just don't know what the how long term health implications some new elements could come out as a result of eating all this genetically modified food that hasn't 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 most and who in this case have a lot of control over lobbying a lot of control over who gets elected and where money goes and so they have political power in such a way that they grow corn in this country because the law in the middle of a creep. 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 monsanto said well we do that. and we know that and you know whatever. companies that are trying for tending to be. i mean look what happened martin i mean that the polish eat

margarine it's martel the 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 i mean things like that. that's the nature of scientific knowledge is you know things are only discovered a new and people always make very big mistakes sometimes we're hoping this one will be a big thing i guess we can only hope but helpfully we'll get some testing of the foods you know and at least some labeling on there can we are at a time thanks so much for coming on the show that was candid about the history professor at the university of the pacific and author of the lost art of hearth and home. that's going to wrap it up for this hour but for more on the stories we covered you can check out our you tube channel at youtube dot com slash our team america we post all of our interviews in full there check out our website r t dot com slash usa or you can follow me on twitter at.