tonight on 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 u.s. . and now that some of the u.s. wars abroad are winding down who will buy all of this drone technology companies have made available from border patrol to cow bandits a look at the new future of unmanned aerial vehicles. and coming to a wal-mart near you monsanto sweet corn filled with vitamins nutrients and oh yeah bt toxins you know the kind that has been proven to turn in sacks intestines into liquid so why are companies so eager to put untested labeled foods on grocery store

shelves we've got a story that'll make your stomach churn. but we begin today taking a close look at the role of informants in the f.b.i. and we'll start by highlighting the case of the 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 and arm the black panthers turns out he was also an f.b.i. informant this is all recently coming to light after an investigation by south rosenfeld a journalist that put in a freedom of information request to be f.b.i. asking that they release thousands of documents in connection with a here's part of the report from the center for investigative reporting it discusses the f.b.i.'s techniques in dealing with the black panthers. but a girl who. was to percival neutralizer techniques ranged from sending

false letters for planting negative news stories to trying to foment violence between the panthers and other groups the f.b.i. also used informants as part of its cointelpro operation well aoki committed suicide at his berkeley home in two thousand and nine but today many questions remain to what extent did the f.b.i. know a.o.q. was arming the black panthers well the f.b.i. creating violent situations as a way to justify battling the group that 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 the 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 well it's a slippery slope between the f.b.i. catching criminals and creating them to discuss if trevor aaronson the author of

the terror factory joins us now cover welcome to the show so to what extent are informants used in the f.b.i. today. 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 they're you know they've basically taken a tactic that with use in the eighty's to find someone who 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 means the opportunity for them to do that and i know in your book they're easier 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 derek to read and derek was down on a luggage cart with broken down he worked at a video game store yet absolutely no money whatsoever and informant came up to

suggested 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. for the plot needed eric to be able to purchase grenades 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 take speakers for a 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 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 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 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 at 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 terrorist but it's not evil as you came very close to bomb a 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. informants are finding uncovering 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 violent 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 the f.b.i. to bring terrorism cases that the use of 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 just 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 you 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 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. you know eco terrorists and you know certainly similar things that 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 yet 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 in that group of five men could have committed the you know conspiracy they were charged with now presumably there are instances where this this tactic of using informants has been affected you can presume because they continued 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 well you know. 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 that issue right 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 type sting operations that are centered primarily in muslim communities really counterterrorism but also affects left wing groups if you go to terrorist groups such as the cleveland five. trevor very interesting stuff that was trevor aaronson the author of the book the terror factory but you. also had on our teeth drone companies are pumping out the products and pulling in the profits but not from their usual customers up next we'll show you how unmanned aerial vehicles are being used for everything from catching criminals to conservation. r t is the state run english speaking russian channel it's kind of like al-jazeera.

russia today has an extremely confrontational stance when it comes to u.s. . efforts for a such as burn drives right right i mean it's like a derivative of actual pepper it's a food product essentially. this is much stronger than anything you'd see by a lot of solutions thousands of times and stronger than any one of the one hundred thirty of them are pushing them.

as defense spending the united states dwindles down the defense industry is pushing to expand their market drone and they're looking not only to our overseas allies but to groups right here in the u.s. commonly used in military operations drones are now finding air space domestically we're talking drones being used for things like wildlife conservation surveillance of farm land border patrol and drug enforcement recently we learned about the international association of chiefs of police giving recommendations for the use of

drones by police agencies but are we really at the point where police need unmanned aerial vehicles in order to keep us safe or is this just a way for the defense industry to ensure they are still reeling in the dough in a time when the wars are dying down tell they answered as a nice upon of it associate litigation counsel for epic joins me now welcome amy i so i first want to start off talking about law enforcement we had just mentioned that this association of police chiefs you know coming out with this code of conduct for the use of drones within police forces is this the beginning of drones being used by police forces on a regular basis i've really think it is police chiefs across the country have publicly said that they are interested in german technology that they want to be able to use it there's been a real push back however thankfully by the. people who say that they're not going to accept this being used by just police in their districts during normal surveillance so the code of conduct is a first step unfortunately it's not enforceable it can be changed at any point and

it really is questionable on wind applies or not seeing as when police have you surveillance technology in the past without feeling that they needed a warrant and now that the wars are dying down these defense industries are looking to sell drones domestically would you say there's a big market for that there is a huge market now the problem is defense drones are actually very expensive we find we have a problem with drone technology because it can be very cheap it can allow an incredible amount of surveillance at a low cost however the defense drones are expensive so you're going to have to see who is willing to purchase these drones however these are capable of being weaponized they can carry incredibly invasive surveillance equipment they're very very high tech vehicles so we do should keep an eye on who they're sold to and what these people plan to do with them because there is a high capacity for abuse now with you had mentioned that there are very expensive that want the drones that are used in the military but as they look to expand these

drones domestically could they kind of you know tailor the drones to make them more affordable so that they can expand them to domestic markets if they can take off them a lot of the weaponry a lot of the more advanced surveillance technology there is a market for these on the border customs and border protection already own ten of the predator drones which are the drones that are being used overseas the defense drones so they might be able to sell them to customs and border protection into other administrative agencies and maybe even police departments in the united states who would like to purchase these for increased surveillance and insults a possible that police chiefs maybe across an entire state or region would want to purchase just one drone to surveil the entire area now in the i want to take a look we kind of compiled this list of domestic drone uses today. if we can bring that up there the. first one border patrol drug enforcement agency operations us police force and then it kind of gets away from law enforcement to

conservation efforts monitoring crops and. then catching cow thieves. so it looks like the possibilities are endless they are and i would add to your list they're being used in real estate for people to catch videos of houses to put up on youtube or wherever to sell houses they're being used by the paparazzi and what many would feel is a very privacy invasive manner so that really anything you can think about being used for they're being used journalism is another big area where drones are starting to be used more and more often. i'm not sure if r.t. is thinking about using drones i haven't heard that yet but i think keeping on this with them possibly becoming more widespread some of the safety and privacy concerns associated with seeing more drones hovering in our skies exactly there are incredible amounts of safety concerns at because of course focused on the privacy

concerns we were asking the f.a.a. to regulate this industry to say that there are only specific purposes you can use a drone for that you have to be transparent with those purposes and if you go outside of what you say that you're going to use it for that you can be held accountable for that so we're really in the forefront of this. over the next couple of years the f.a.a. congress has required the f.a.a. to allow more and more drones to be used so we're coming out now and trying to make sure that privacy is protected at this point so you know two years down the line when everybody is already on film all the time somebody isn't over all of a sudden thinking oh we should probably look at this so you're saying that the focus now is regulation because i mean at this point is it just inevitable that drones are are part of our future well congress has said they are and at this point unless congress comes back and says you know where we were just kidding we were going. to revoke what we said before. there's going to be a huge push for them they're making sure they're allowed in the united states airspace there were choir regulations to be loosened to let more of them in so

unless we're able to come in and require some baseline protections at this point thirty thousand i think is the number that they're saying are going to be in the air in the next ten years thirty thousand euro thirty thousand in the u.s. our air power i mean at this point you know today we have seven thousand operating drones twelve thousand more on the ground so you're saying that within ten years that number is going to triple exactly wow. you know really quickly we don't have that much time but you know these agencies and companies that use these drones they say you know we're we're finding uses for them that we're able to to do our jobs more effectively so do you think that drones can be used in a positive way or do you think it's kind of just a dangerous ideal together and there have been positive uses for it they've been it used to track missing hikers when they're in the forests and they can't be found and save lives they've been used to discover environmental abuse and one notable case it was observing a river and they found a river of blood flowing out of

a factory and was able to discover that there's tremendous environmental abuse so as long as they're used in a way that is not to spy and surveil on individuals in the united states there are positive uses however we want to make sure that right amy thanks so much for coming on the show we are out of time great to have you here that was a mr bennett edge associate litigation counsel for epic. well still ahead in our tale what's in your sweet corn if you pick it up at wal-mart the answer might be vitamins nutrients and. this is an episode of fear factor it's genetically engineered food and we'll tell you exactly what's in it.

the plight of american power continues. things are so bad might actually be time for a revolution. and it turns out that a popular drink a starbucks has a surprising radio. well

as we near the end of the summer shoppers continue to hit the supermarket for those final summer barbecues but do 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 toxin found inside your corn occurs naturally inside caterpillar then even some moths the toxin is a powerful insecticide that's proven to liquefy the stomach lining 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 ball a history professor at university of the pacific and author of the book you see here the lost art of hearth and home can welcome so i mean how can grocery stores sell genetically modified corn that contains insecticides 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 just gets made into. 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 in.

organic so i think i mean we know in general that that fairly safe but we don't know what happened genetically modified to have corn express the factory itself i have a third gannett because it comes from insects 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 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 law labeling law place maybe that the country will follow suit i think people can be assured that nothing that happens to them and they teach 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 essentially what this does my understanding it liquefies that down make lining the bug that would consume corn centrally does it mean then is being used in food crops which. you know unlike anything specifically target some of the. doesn't affect other creatures. years ago the butterflies killed all. but i can. certainly doesn't affect. them. it's everywhere like much bacteria whole bodies. not natural form. and they've been using it for a long time but that's nothing new. and it's the model and i think people are hearing that

a lot of the increase in allergy we've had over the past decade or two may actually be partly due to the fact that we're. already i think. a little different that wal-mart is of course. and they can do anything they want and the fact that wal-mart sells organic i think is amazing. but i think the larger question is really don't know what this is going to do them in the long term and be nice if the government mandated this is just. about everything else and that the reason they don't it's assumed that this is exactly like any other point you buy on the shelf at their. level and organise them and therefore we. need but i mean with that i know that it's not exactly the same because it has been genetically modified to contain the of toxins that are found in dogs and you know

what that kind of sounds like can an episode of fear factor and if that scares you let's take a look at that first there. you got it you got it you got a rabbit. what i want. to wait. 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 cord because i mean it's being derived from insects. no it's really not. the. case exactly like all you know all. this is nothing scary about it really i think what we don't really know is the long term effect short term it's going to taste 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 additive. fragments and. we have no idea what those really are and we don't know what the new processing of. 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 this is 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 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 loving 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 of the law in the middle of the country that in the law to make sure that one is grown so there are farmers supporting whatever but i think the government could very well just say we're going to pull this stuff and they sure mostly because they don't have access to the technology they're not given the plants. that will lead to that. and the best and you know what. companies that are trying. pretending to be. i mean look what happened martyr i mean that the whole of martyr and its mark felt the you will get there and then suddenly realize that. it was a better thing than eating or i mean things like that. that's the nature of

scientific knowledge is you know things are only going to new people always make a very big mistake some were hoping this one will be a big thing alright i guess we can only hope but hopefully 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 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 tonight but for more on the stories we covered you can check out our you tube channel you tube dot com slash our team america but check out our website our t.v. dot com slash a list say you can also follow me on twitter at liz well for now have a great night.