biotech giant monsanto is squaring off with a small time farmer inside the u.s. supreme court coming up find out what's at stake for the company and why the seventy five year old farmer isn't giving up his fight. nearly five years after the a.t.f. raided the organization formerly known as blackwater the case against the security agency has come to a close what was the verdict and what is the private security firm doing in greece . plus we're learning more and more about president obama's secret drone program including mental health problems among some drone pilots and a growing demand for accountability from elected officials. it's monday february twenty fifth eight pm in washington d.c. i'm maggie lopez you're watching our t. let's get straight to the stories we begin this afternoon with a story that's been told since the beginning of time one person fighting for what

they think is right even willing to take on an entire system if need be seventy five year old vernon hugh goldman is a going head to head with biotech giant monsanto over alleged patent infringement on old soybean seeds he used on his farm located in sanborn indiana right there at the bottom of the mouth monsanto has a policy that prohibits farmers from saving and reusing cvs from one year to the next year bowman says that that policy is in and of itself seedy but it looks like the supreme court may just side with monsanto archie correspondent liz wahl digs up the latest information on this case. it's a case of david versus goliath i don't know that but i could see nothing what i was wrong seventy five year old vernon you bowman in indiana farmer up against monsanto an agricultural giant that owns more than half of the world seed market if

they don't want me to go to the elevator and buy that grain then then congress should pass a law saying you can't do it the case has come all the way to the supreme court's monsanto claims bowman violated the company's patent on soybeans genetically modified to resist this weed killer at the heart of the case being considered by the supreme court is just so far monsanto's pass and can go the company says the seeds can't be re-used once the crop has grown but farmers worry that monsanto has a monopoly over the seed market for generations to come so this farmer is saying i bought seeds that were the next generation removed from what you patented that patent should apply here anymore in months into saying the patent applies forever it's a case with wide reaching implications from technology to medicine researchers and businesses are keeping a close eye on what the case could mean for control over their patents it's well established the seeds and other living things such as transgenic mice is another

well known example passable subject matter of living or you know potentially living material that can be patented but consumer and organic food groups don't buy it and when it comes down to this food is different we're not talking about the latest cell phone we're not talking about some new fancy new technology this is about whether people going to be afford be able to afford to forment afford to but so far it appears that the supreme court is leaning toward monsanto citing that the law prohibits making copies of a patent an invention with monsanto pumping millions of dollars into lobbying washington and with the backing of the obama administration it seems for bowman and small farmers like him the fight for their farms will be an uphill battle in washington liz wall r.t. . well nearly five years after the bureau of alcohol tobacco and firearms raided the organization formerly known as blackwater and seized twenty two automatic weapons the case against the security agency has finally come to

a close the indictment claimed that blackwater used the camden county sheriff's office as a proxy to purchase weapons and also allege that the agency brought some two hundred baht some two hundred twenty seven short barrel rifles without registering them one of the former blackwater officials who was of the five former blackwater officials excuse me who are charged former general counsel andrew howell former procurement vice president and a bundy and former weapons manager ronald sleeze act all had their charges against them dropped meanwhile former president of blackwater gary jackson and former executive vice president william matthews pled guilty to some misdemeanor charges they were sentenced to four months of house arrest three years of probation and a five thousand dollars fine so a slap on the wrist by any means so this is what we want to know did the group get off too easy or was it justice served in this case and to answer that i was joined by michael o'brien he's the author of america's failure in iraq and he joined me

earlier to talk about the indictment so i asked him how serious the charges really are. well really there are they're just follow on charges after the the debacle at mr square in a big did september of two thousand and seven. course that was where the seventeen iraqis were were killed you can say they were you know murdered needlessly killed whatever the case may be these are follow on charges that were pushed against blackwater which is now of course the that's the old name the company technically doesn't exist it's called academy now. a rose by any other name i guess you could say that way they can you know technically legally sever the relationship but you said it's a slap on the wrist it's really it's really nothing so let's go back and look at the the charges itself and also the the verdict i mean was this justice served in this case do you think well you know they reached

a plea they they plead they they copped out they dropped the charges three people were just to walk to the charges were reduced to five thousand dollar fine slap on the wrist i think it also there's house arrest for four months so. and the other thing too is they they claim that they were buying these weapons for the cia and the cia said we don't know what they're talking about and the thing about it is who knows i mean maybe they were but it seems to me that the cia has ways of getting their own weapons i mean it just doesn't make a lot of sense and the cia just if they if it was true the cia left them hanging well and when i think to bring up is that of the i want to read a quote from jackson's attorney ken bell and talking about what that they think they are large that the government actually knew about this he said quote all the things that jackson was charged with doing that were crimes that he did and the company did for the government at the request of the government with the full

knowledge of the government and it's just taken us a long time to get the government to. and and resolve this case but with that mr bean or so is it relieved just a case of mistaken communication could it be because he said he said i think it could be it could have been mistaken communication but but then again you know bligh if you're in business and you're doing something on behalf of the government as a front or something like that you know it's not like you know mission impossible you know if you get caught anything you do or you know we will disavow any knowledge of your action. that's t.v. i do i really seriously doubt that blackwater would have gone into this and just my personal opinion but i doubt they would have gone into it. with all taking one hundred percent of the risk and it was it was not a lot of weapons it was a small amount of weapons they were raided by a.t.f. and weapons were found and it was not like a huge cache of weapons or anything like that. it's not like it was

a major major scandal was odd now for the firearms and tobacco agency to write ada . they must've thought so but it just doesn't seem like it seems like it was. the deal was struck with the prosecution so what was the point do you think of going after these people and not really throwing the book at them is the government or the federal prosecutor in this case afraid of going after people that they essentially hired do their dirty work well i really think that the reason why the u.s. government went after him was because they weren't able to really get anything after the new source were massacre as a result of the complete screw up of diplomatic security from the state department who copped a deal they said we won't charge you for you tell us what you did that's the same as me killing somebody and then the police going if you tell us what you did and that you kill them we won't charge you it does that doesn't make any sense and the government i think was just a little ticked off that they couldn't go after these guys so they were trying to

you know go after anything that they could get blackwater with and of course eric prince who's the former head of the company has left new name academy and he's off doing his own thing around the world providing military services a mercenary services for the highest pay or more under it appears that just to kind of switch the conversation just a little bit it appears that you know the u.s. americans might not trust blackwater turned the turn academy but the great certainly do former great diplomat leonardo's christ sansa la paz i hope i said that right says that the greek government has hired organised the organization along with five other international for profit security outfits because quote the greek government does not trust the police who salaries have been cut out so so what should we make of this that the greek government is willing to trust these people i mean what does this say about the relationship with this defense contractor well blackwater is making black work academy is making a ton of money. there are i don't even know i don't know if they are headquartered

in the united states anymore certainly they used to be in north carolina i don't know if that off the top of my head right. they might be offshore now but it's for all practical purposes an american company but technically if they're off shore they're not. it's a mercenary firm you could say it's a private security company i'm sure that's what they call themselves and they're selling. military services for a profit apparently they're still amazing quite a profit if they're able to work in the great government and beyond michael o'brien author of america's failure in iraq thank you for joining me thanks for your. well after years of secrecy we are finally starting to learn more about the u.s. drone program its breath and also its potential targets among congress members there is widespread support of the program but also a growing demand for more information as well as more regulation perhaps no one has been more vehement as kentucky senator rand paul who appeared on fox news on friday

with a major demand we're talking about is not killing someone with a grenade launcher on their shoulder we're talking about someone eating at a cafe in boston or in new york and a hellfire missile comes to raining in on them there should be an easy answer from the administration on this they should say absolutely no we will not kill americans in america without an accusation trial in a jury so what are you are talking about people engaged in lethal force i'm talking about people sitting at a cafe having coffee and that's not the only news coming out of the u.a.e. program a new study by the department of defense has found that drone pilots experience the same mental health problems like depression anxiety and p.t.s.d. as a result of the work that other troops do earlier i was joined by ray mcgovern he's a former cia analyst who filled us in on the health effects of drone pilots these days you know this is a good sign and in my view the country is still. it's not completely automated

which they're trying to do of course there's a wonderful cartoon of the sacramento bee here to two. soldiers sitting behind console's and one's got a american citizen is crosshairs and the other one is looking at him like this and the the one says. don't worry relax we just downloaded do precious software into the warhead. while it's coming i mean something like that is going so in my view that soldiers in air airman still have conscience which that's a good thing and of course as an infantry officer and prejudice against people who think they can win wars from the air when one of the interesting things to note in this research that was done is that these drone operators are affected so much more so than your normal pilots because they actually can stay there they can watch the target be destroyed versus pilots their job is to get out of their area and into

a secure area as quickly as possible but i want to play a sound bite from you from robert gibbs the former white house press secretary something that he said over the weekend. when i went through the process of becoming press secretary one of the things where the first things they told me was you're not even to have knowledge of the drone program you're not even to discuss that it exists now r.t. website has calculated that as many as six hundred eighty one people were killed by drones during gives time in the white house could this secrecy you be a part of the fact that these drone pilots are experiencing p.t.s.d. depression etc well secrecy is the bottom of the whole thing ok. here's gibbs saying they told me i couldn't discuss this program who told them which one in this country. he works for the president who's they these drone operators you know the ones that have to keep this in secrecy who like to disguise their the

casualties when brennan saying there hasn't been one call adderall death in the period of the year before june two thousand and eleven you know this business about the white house saying well it's classified we can't talk about why is it classified well the only reason is there were war and undeclared war with a major country called pocky stein one hundred eighty million people there people with nuclear weapons ok. so i have no three years ago fifty percent of the puppet state he's hated is now three quarters so what is the point here what is the point the point is we get fancy new weapons we can use them in a standoff kind of way it's a brave no it's not a brave new world it's a coward to lead the world interesting points so let's talk about rand paul the comments that he made earlier this weekend saying that he wants to not target americans on american soil is this just political theater or is it something that

we can expect maybe a drone court we've heard a lot of congress numbers talk about drone courts where you know i have to tell you i am solemnly sworn to defend the constitution united states against all enemies foreign and domestic and when i took that oath fifty years ago i never thought that i would have to apply that to domestic enemies fifty fifty member of the constitution says that that no person who say no american or no citizen says no person shall be deprived of life liberty or property without due process of law now the president took the same oath i did how can you are a gate to yourself the right to slay other people without due process to be judge jury and executioner i mean that's. eight hundred years ago at the very nick carter we did away with that and then in sixteen forty eight the treaty of misfile and we tried to regulate things so that one country would respect the borders of another

we're in a very different world now it's a new era and i spell that error both ways or as well as the very interesting and just last question yes or no why did the drone program be more transparent if it was run by the defense department versus the cia. i can give you no yes or no is just one of the i can't you know because it all depends on the president how much secret how much how many secrets he wants to keep in this present is really the secret all right ray mcgovern thank you so much for your and your time sir and israel governor former cia analyst. still ahead here on our team if you thought you could just keep your phone and move on to a different provider on a whim not so fast unlocking a phone from your provider may not only carry a hefty fine but even some jail time will tell you more after the break. let me let

me i want to know will let me ask you a question. here on this network is what we're having the debate we have our night so. we do this right space thing there is again here in the situation where the united states talk about surveillance me. here is mitt romney trying to figure out the name of that thing that we americans call. a dog. i'm sorry i'm just a guy who cares an awful lot of what use are are you know what that is my other terror cells that i want to wish to defeat terrorism the only liberal that chris.

hill is going to. going to support you to distract us from what you and i should care about because they're profit driven industry that's those of sensationalistic garbage he calls it breaking news i'm out here martin and we're going to break that . ok. welcome back well if you're like me then your cell phone is probably permanently attached to your body smartphones are the new personal assistant you can keep track of your busy schedule you can surf the web check your e-mail record important events. make phone calls to for most american cell phones are essentially another body part now you can choose your cell phone and you can also choose your carrier but sometimes the phone that you want isn't supported by the company that you choose to do business with and in that case some people have turned to

unlocking their cell phones unlocking as part of a process of hacking into an operational system of a phone in a locking it so that the phone can be used by any carriers so for instance what you're looking at right here if you use a if you buy a i phone from fries and you could be using it on a t. mobile. carrier provider if you wan lock it essentially so this is this is a process that a lot of people use to do business and to use their cell phones a new version of the digital millennium copyright act however makes that process illegal so even though you own your phone you cannot in fact do whatever it is that you want with it and violators could be faced with up to five years in prison and five hundred thousand dollars in fees if they're actually caught now earlier i was joined by derek honna a visiting fellow at the yale law information society project and he explained why this process is illegal. well just one thing i want to quibble with you on the

technique that's illegal is called unlocking unlocking versus jailbreak yes and it's not as complicated as some people may think so basically you take your phone you plug it into a computer and you want a computer program it changes some of the settings and now you can use your phone on a different carriers has a pretty easy process very commonly used and now it's illegal ok and who is the one that holds you accountable presumably the justice department can hold you liable for a half a million dollar fine or five years in prison. additionally or silly libel on top of that but my main articles are on the thrust of the idea of putting an individual in prison for five years for unlocking their phone being kind of crazy sure now currently under the digital millennium copyright act those found guilty of unlocking their phones could be potentially facing the next five years in jail as we talked about but really what is the motivation for making this practice illegal

it really is the result of shoddy law breaking a law from nine hundred ninety eight the digital millennium copyright act that regulates all copper in the united states but was created before modern media was created before the kindle and the i pod in the book and as a result it actually makes a large amount of modern technologies illegal and it's up to the library of congress to provide exceptions to keep these technologies lawful in the library of congress decided this was exception was no longer necessary on the advice of eighteen and t. and verizon who force were arguing that it was not necessary ok so this is another example of an antiquated law kind of ruling our digital lives and we not only obviously this law is only ten or so years old but is it is an example of an antiquated law i think it's an example that equate a lot of a nice maybe it was before modern media three years before the i pod five years before the kindle and we should have laws that reflect modern technology and that's not what this law is i mean it's even a contestable question about whether or not your cell phone is under this act or.

so it's a really acid system where not only is it probably illegal we don't actually know if it's illegal which is just a way that to conduct a criminal justice system where you have a law that may or may not apply to you ok so let's talk about you had mentioned t. mobile as one of the as one of the carriers for eyes and they're the ones that are fighting against this team of the one that are finding for this legislation is the one that's fighting against it from what i understand they actually put up an ad saying bring in your unlocked cell phones encouraging people to unlock cell phones so can you kind of talk about this dichotomy between the carriers well this is a clear example of crony capitalism where the big market participants watered the law to be built in such a way to ensure that they didn't have new competition as a teen mobile was asking for their customers to come in bring their own locked i phones and come over to t. mobile now t. mobile didn't actually file against they were kind of quiet on it but they were advertising for their customers to unlock their phones until the technique became

illegal and then they shut that campaign down so it's a clear example of where one market participant actually likes this existing technique and then the small wireless providers they actually fought it to the library of congress so they filed against this decision and they argue that this would destroy small businesses and they were correct and we know that a team of obviously doesn't offer some of the services such as the i phone so perhaps this is our way to kind of skirt around not having to pay the i phone four there are other services but also having it but let's talk about the petition that you and others started on we the people are so what are you exactly trying to accomplish and how are you going to get it done more importantly we already got done so what happened is we created this petition on the we the people website which until last month really required twenty five thousand signatures and the up to two hundred thousand signatures we beat that we beat it with time to spare one hundred ten thousand signatures and on saturday it was turned over the white house so now the ball is in his court and it is going to be interesting to see where the white house comes down on this as far as you know is the appropriate decision by

library of congress or they go. recommend for congress to fix this and what kind of response are you hoping to get back from the white house if any well you do have to get one back so what do you what do you open your back well i mean in the past there is a petition on creating the death star in the white house took that seriously and they provided quite a lengthy explanation about how president obama is against the destruction of planets so it's unbelievable of you getting that response back we don't know that is what we expect a real response or this is a serious issue one hundred thousand americans are on record and more every day this is an issue that affects tens of thousands of our service members when our services are plugged over to afghanistan or even to other countries they have to unlock their phones there is an a.t.m. team afghanistan so you know to your idea of creating a locker for made just seem kind of a stupid law but your service members the idea of committing a felony is actually a pretty serious thought process ok and finally we have just about a minute left but you had mentioned that you have to go to the library of congress

while i have heard of congress of all places how they construct the law and i had no idea the library of congress has the final word right there it kind of very interesting conversation something we are going to be following up on in the coming days and hopefully we'll have you back on the program there for us thank you so much for joining us. an update now on two men whose lives are forever intertwined but whose fates could be completely different from one another i'm talking of course about julius onj and private first class bradley manning on saturday bradley manning marked his one thousandth day behind bars without trial over the weekend protesters had protests internationally and honor of the accused wiki leaks are now as for the case itself pretrial hearings are expected to continue tomorrow and manning could enter a plea he faces twenty two charges including aiding the enemy which could result with a life sentence the trial is slated to begin june now in ocean away wiki leaks founder

julian assange has been for senate has officially been accepted by the australian electoral commission his name will now appear on state and federal electoral rolls in for victoria although a songe has been formally accepted as a candidate the newly formed wiki leaks party has not yet registered with the electoral commission so mr assad has been for senate is seen as a possible political move to help him escape from the ecuadorian embassy in london where he has been since june nineteenth under australian law a songe is allowed to run for office without being physically present in the country but must arrive within two months of winning the seat in order to accept it . well fresh out of his congressional confirmation hearings newly confirmed secretary of state john kerry has committed his first diplomatic slip of the tongue listen close and see if you catch it. we were some of the most dangerous places all over the earth they do it for gardeners of it we are stronger partnerships with

countries that share our commitment to democratic values and human rights they fight corruption in nigeria they support we declared robo they should cover great institutions and coups and stay out of drug. degenerates john kerry praised diplomatic efforts in a country that in fact does not exist the secretary apparently confuse the poor a landmark nation of kurdistan with its oil rich neighbor to the north kazakstan creating a sort of hybrid between the two nations so he must stop but he certainly isn't the only one. turned to. the steps of the russian oil. supplies to try to start i'm ready for the gotcha questions and they already started the car and when they asked me who is the president of you beki beki beki

beki stan stan i'm going to say you know i don't know do you know so on one hand you have senator mccain saying that czechoslovakia still exists when it's actually the czech republic and the hand you have beki beki beki beki stan stan try to point that out on the map for me kerry also mark mitt romney at the democratic national convention for his outdated foreign policy. sure a pale and should she could see russia from alaska. mitt romney talks like russia by watching rocky for what at least rummy was referencing countries that you can actually find on an atlas kerry is not the first and he won't be the last to make a mistake like this but the reality is that the difference between these two nations is very stark both were key allies in the u.s. led war in afghanistan but that cozy relationship could be cooling in kurdistan where the government says it will not renew the lease on a u.s.

air transit facility used for military operations in afghanistan when that expires in two thousand and fourteen meanwhile u.s. officials are hoping that kazakstan could play a major role in diplomatic talks with iran no word yet on what u.s. officials are hoping to do for the still not existant country of her sick stan and that does it for now for more of the stories we covered go to youtube dot com slash r.t. america you can also check out our website r.t. dot com slash usa and don't forget to follow me on twitter at meghan underscore lopez my question to twitter followers tonight how can congress legislate technology we've spent a lot of time on r t talking about some of the antiquated tech laws that are inhibiting innovation but technology is constantly changing so was we create today could in fact curb innovation of tomorrow so what are your thoughts on tech law's tweet me at and i can underscore lopez have a good night.