in shortly before midnight tonight this morning congressional leaders headed to the white house surely to begin a round of tense last minute negotiations to avoid certain chaos or you know just to check in with the president before heading home for the weekend congress has now gone home for a long weekend. after failing to pass a plan to avert the sweeping eighty five billion dollars in cuts making it almost certain that president obama will be forced to sign an executive order today the deficiency puts the cuts into effect it's truly sad how much time has been devoted to his area particularly when you look at how many other news stories are yearning for just a scintilla of back coverage just take for example one of the biggest unreported stories that's constantly being ignored of course being the trial of army private bradley manning who just reached his one thousand today in prison for releasing documents to wiki leaks now while he did just plead guilty to the charge of misusing classified material he did not plead guilty to the most egregious of

charges that of aiding the enemy which could carry the death penalty and yesterday they spoke out for the first time finally giving us some insight into why he did it manning said quote i began to become depressed with the situation that we found ourselves increasingly mired in year after year he then talked about seeing the greater purpose in exposing the information and said quote i also believe the detailed analysis of the data might cause society to re-evaluate the need or even the desire to engage in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations that ignore the complex dynamics of the people living in the affected environment every day wow i could have said it better myself but you know i can't sam surprise that the corporate media wasn't all over the story they can't handle breaking apart the profound truth that lies behind bradley manning's eloquent words which is why it's easier to keep parroting the same old sequestration talking points so if you feel.

not as disturbing as i do you join me to break the set. of the to. do if you've ever seen anything like that. america loves to claim that it's the beacon of freedom in the world but the so-called reality that becomes a myth when you look at the numbers of those bound by the shackles the us has five percent of the world's population that it holds twenty five percent of the world's prisoners think about that for one second one out of every one hundred people are incarcerated making america the country with the highest incarceration rate in the world surpassing china and iran in fact according to a pew research study if you're an african-american male without a high school diploma you're more likely to end up behind bars than you are to get a job of course once you are incarcerated you're forced to leave labor

wages to produce everything from office furnishings to military apparel in addition to what some of called the modern day slave trade another controversial issue at hand is the upsurge of the private prison industry in the last twenty years the number of inmates in private jails sixteen hundred percent spike so what incentive is there to continue this trend and how might we be missing out on one of the biggest violations to human rights in this country so i got all that and more i'm joined by the cole porter director of the advocacy for sentencing project thanks so much for coming on the callings for having me so i don't think people realize that these private prisons are for profit give us a sense of how it is that they're profiting off course of incarceration well they get contracts room state and local governments to incarcerate people and in many instances as a part of the contract the state regardless of whether or not they continue to

detain the same number of people the state still has to pay out the contract so the president are profiting off of that i mean it sounds crazy that there is a how is it moral that there contracting with states and cities to actually insure a ninety percent fill rate of these persons. so in some states there are bad guarantees like colorado and i think what's important for people to remember is that those are still taxpayer dollars those are taxpayer dollars at the state or the federal level that are paid out to for profit companies on the real. as i understand it private prisons have higher rates of violence lower rates of accountability and in some cases i mean they cost more than state run penitentiary so what is the selling point here well the proponents say that they are cheaper than public facilities but they're cheaper because they cut corners they cut corners in terms of labor cost and program and services and oftentimes the prisoners they incarcerate earlobe or security they don't detain folks consider

convicted of more serious offenses and even the workers if they don't know if they're not seizing the workers to work within the prison they don't necessarily have to deal with problems that arise are really high turnover rate of these and exactly all that they cut corners they hire lower wage lower cost workers and oftentimes they don't put as much investment into training and other labor benefits so the cost are are lower and there is a higher rate of turnover how let's talk about how nine eleven kind of changed the private prison industry was it used as a justification to continue to crackdown on immigrants well there has been an increasing number of immigrants who are detained at the federal level so. fiscal year two thousand and ten about forty immigrant about forty percent of persons admitted into federal prisons where they are for immigration offenses so there's been increasing number of enforcement at the federal level along the border but

also in the interior through prosecution priorities like programs such as operation streamline that's an immigrant prosecution priority program and what about the drug war how many people are we talking about in prison here for low level drug offenses i mean is this. working as a method to crack down on drugs well at the state level about seventeen percent of folks are incarcerated for drug offenses at the federal level forty eight percent of people are incarcerated for drug offenses there continues to be priorities i'm at the federal and state level for detaining people convicted of not only possession but also trafficking offenses so it's a part of the war on drugs and it's demonstrates a failure an american social policy i mean is that working are people using less drugs because getting locked up and also when they're in prison for let's say you go to prison for marijuana possession i mean are you more likely to leave no we more or you know having more access to drugs more access to maybe criminal activity

well the problem with prisons is an overcrowding problem there continues to be a large number of people who are admitted to prison every year and they're there for increasing length of time there's a large number of people there for drug offenses and because prisons are overcrowded there isn't an ability to provide adequate treatment so when people are in prison oftentimes there aren't enough programs to meet the needs of jet treatment and other sort of substance abuse treatment. you know i read somewhere and i actually want to get your take on this it's alleged that there are more african-americans in prison today than in sleeved and eight hundred eighty. i mean is this true in our prisons starting to resemble modern day slavery here well one out of every three african-americans young african-american men born today can expect to have some contact with the criminal justice system not only through incarceration but also through arrest and their contact with the criminal justice

system so it's very pervasive in certain communities particularly low income communities of color and in some neighborhoods it's also it's almost a norm to expect to come in contact with the prison system and again it just demonstrates a failure social policy in this country in terms of modern day. slavery there are requirements oftentimes in federal prison then in state prisons for work and many times prisoners are paid very low wages but again i'll go to the fact that the problem with prisons in this country is overcrowding and so many times prisoners are there for long periods of time and they want to be productive as well so they have to work on the facility there in federal inmate programs work programs or just term in terms of serving the facility working in the kitchen and working to clean up the prison so there's a lot of different jobs that prisoners may be required to do i want to talk about this aspect of it because i think growing up when we hear about prison labor we

think like oh they're making license plates and prison i mean this goes far beyond . nicole i think i want to just go over a list really quick of you know cora which is the largest federally run prison corporation they make i mean clothing linens circuit boards electrical vehicle components furniture even a meat packing i mean dealing with with food i mean is there a problem with having a federally run program profit off essentially slave wages because i want you to also talk about how much we're talking about here also there's about two hundred seventeen thousand people who are incarcerated in the federal prison system and about eighteen percent of them are employed or you know or at the federal prison industry graham now it is problematic the low wages that people are paid anecdotally people may be paid literally since on the dollar for every hour that they work so much lower than minimum wage admitting that in many times as a part of a student's wages they're garnish prisoners wages are garnished to pay back

restitution to victims or to the. depending on which jurisdiction someone's incarcerated in but i'll just go back to say that you know no one goes in to prison and leaves prison the same way that they went into it in so many times prisoners want to be working they want to be participating in programs it can be unfair in terms of the wages that are paid and there's a lot more equity that needs to be a part of it but. people are in prison for way too long and because of that there needs to be adequate programming absolutely but what about the people who maybe can't work with like let's say i mean if they refuse to do something that they're asked to do do they get tacked on i mean what well again the unicorn program only about eighteen percent of their two hundred seventeen thousand federal prisoners are participating in what are you know relations that are for profit and not sort of the b.p. used to use prisoners to do these cleanup efforts on the gulf i mean they're using prison labor to stage these photos i mean how does that even the legal we have

about thirty seconds left short well again there needs to be more accountability and there is that there is tremendous lack of transparency of what goes on inside a prison that the state and at the federal level so any time corporations are involved there needs to be oversight and there needs to be public awareness of what's going on and certainly there's not enough thank you so much for shedding some light on the issue of the cole porter director of advocacy the sentencing project time thank you so much for having me. so i feel like we've seen so far how do our you tube channel you tube dot com breaking the set sure to subscribe so you don't miss a single episode or segment every single segment had out if you want to cut those separately or encourage i'm going to check out our interview with j.d. hanson on what you are what you eat and also look at everything we've done separately under our tab section on the top of the page from big brother watch to weapons of mass destruction check out all that and more. breaking the set and take a break from my preaching for now but stay tuned to hear about your rights as

a juror next you know sometimes it's. a story and it seems so for like you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture. the fire. the. potentially deadly blizzard taking aim for the northeast it's expected to hit stunning in a few hours from new york to maine we have team coverage of the storm. but what we're watching is the very heavy snow moving into boston proper earlier today

it was very sticky you can see it start to become much more powdery down to the bottom line there is still a lot of snow out here a good place for snowball fight the fire case and it is going to be pretty incredible today there and even record snowfall throughout much of it like the film is long three driving lessons some emergency vehicles are exceptional. emission free cretaceous three runs four judges three. rangelands three. three stooges free. download free blog modern video for your media projects a free media dog r t v dot com.

have you ever been called into jury duty if so you're probably aware of the tremendous responsibility you have to fairly determine another person's fate but if you don't agree with the law being used against a defendant well that's where jury nullification comes in and it's a right that not many people even know they have happens when a jury actually acquits a defendant because they believe that they're not guilty of the charges against them because they disagree with the law the defendant's been charged with or disagree with how the law is being applied this notion brings some controversy as mark schmitter florida man with an advocacy group called fully informed jury association is experiencing firsthand schmitter in a sense to one hundred forty five days in jail by the fifth district court of appeals last month the charge against him stems simply from schmitter passing out pamphlets to jurors as they entered a courtroom informing them about their rights florida judge belvin perry argued that this was jury tampering and with the support of a judicial panel in the county or was escorted to jail following the verdict the

whole thing raises questions over why a court wouldn't want jurors to be fully informed of their rights and what exactly are the rights of jurors in u.s. courtrooms to talk about just that i was joined earlier by kirsten tynan national coordinator for the fully informed jury association where i first asked her to elaborate on the concept of jury nullification strike out. against the traditional legal authority of jurors to protect human rights by refusing to enforce to enforce the law or to refuse to enforce unjustly applied and so what feature jazz is educate people about this obviously it's not something that's necessarily favorable to a prosecutor so that's something they try to keep from jurors and are not required to inform them of in the courthouse so the way jurors are going to find out about it is before they ever get there. and how do you respond to people who say that you know it's actually a crime to tamper with the jury and that infringing on the jury once it's in

session and handing them pamphlets to tell them about these things is a crime. jury tampering is something different jury tampering occurs when someone tries to influence the outcome of a specific case we need a general educational outreach which is simply to tell jurors of their rights and responsibilities in all cases we don't suggest that they vote one way or another in any case we don't comment on cases that are in progress that's not something that we get involved with we just do general jury outreach are all let's talk about the case of marc schmitter who is getting charged with a crime for simply doing outreach you know i thought i guess i was under the impression that passing out information in a public sphere about you know was protected by the constitution what does he actually being charged with and just talk about this case in general. and we don't really know what mark's a sickly is being charged with but it is a first amendment right to distribute information educational information anywhere

of course and in fact in a different circuit court in the state of florida prior to this whole brouhaha one of our activists and i think was in northern florida actually got a memo from the chief justice of the fifth circuit court that stated that it is our first amendment right to hand out these brochures and also that the brochures would not be confiscated if they were found in the jury assembly room so obviously someone in florida does respect first amendment rights as someone who's not afraid of jurors understanding their full traditional authority and responsibilities so you know i haven't ever served on jury duty but i would imagine that drummers are to hold their rights i mean as part of being a juror so really where explain if this is not the case i mean is this not the case is it the case that and where does your position get fit in to fill the gap is actually not the case in fact jurors are mostly going to be informed to the contrary they will be told that they must accept the law as it's interpreted by the

judge and simply judge the facts of the case in fact jurors are meant to be there both to judge the facts of the case and to judge the fairness of the law and it's of likability and this is been true setbacks dates back to the magna carta and it was installed in our own jury system in america. jury rights were some of the things that were grievances listed in the declaration of independence as being denied by the king and so of course they were built into our system of justice there mentioned in the body of the constitution thirty percent of the bill of rights is about jury rights and the right to trial by jury and you cross s. so that is it's very well grounded it was mentioned by the first supreme court chief justice john jay in a seven hundred ninety four case of georgia versus braille bro. as ferd but later on i think in the eighteen hundreds in it there is a case in which the supreme court affirmed the right of jurors to judge the law but

made it clear that judges were not obligated to tell them about this meanly because it was so common in the culture at the time that it was assumed that everyone knew those rights so once once they were not obligated to conform jer's of those rights they simply stopped because of course it's not favorable to the prosecution and so the way feature tries to fill in the gap is you're trying to reintegrate those concepts into our culture doing general at outreach we have volunteers who host tables at events we have activists who do psych what we're we have a speakers bureau of people who give talks and so on and so and of course we have our website f i j a or g u where we give people live information about the background and current use of jury nullification and of course anyone can call us at one eight hundred t.l. j u r y to get our free jury car information kit which contains oliver a sample of her shoes including the one that you saw in the picture that you showed

earlier the true or false brochure so we encourage people to give us a call or visit our website will certainly it's extremely important issue i think of a lot more people you know a lot of people void jury duty but if they really took part in it we really could change things at a municipal level with these court cases and really side for justice for truth i mention we're talking adrenals occasion just now but are there any other problems with the jury trial process they organization focuses on. there we also talk about grand jury issues what most people don't understand is that the purpose of a jury is not to simply rubber stamp what the government wants which is generally a conviction but to be an independent body that judges the entire picture of the law and the facts of the case and comes to a just verdict and so we don't just issue. pettit juries we don't just focus on at juries we also talk about grand juries issues and issues where jurors are not given

all of the facts as we now know that judges can decide what evidence is or is not admissible in court so that can skew the outcome of the trial to we've often had people call us and say i've i voted guilty now i want to change my verdict because later i found out some information i felt was relevant but that the judge did not permit us to hear and it's very sad to talk to those people because they really were trying to your job and were simply you know had the information that they needed to come to just verdict withheld from them so we do focus on a lot of other issues other than simply jury nullification because in order for someone to get to the point where they can't use their juror veto power to refuse to enforce an unjust law they have to have all the information involved and all of that sort of thing so it in this used to be very common that everyone would have all of the information they needed and and jury nullification of course is a very powerful tool it was used extensively to refuse to enforce the fugitive

slave act and lead to that that helped contribute to the constitutional amendment outlining slavery jury nullification was extensively used during the prohibition here at refusing to convict people for crimes related to alcohol and of course that was overturned in a constitutional amendment so it's a very truthful and powerful message that we do give people and hopefully knowing that they actually have a purpose there other than to simply rubber stamp the conclusion that they're led to. that was kirsten tynan national coordinator for the fully informed jury association. i often talk about f.b.i. entrapment of muslims on the show there is one aspect of entrapment that i haven't discussed yet law enforcement is infiltration of peace and activist groups all across the country targeted never day people like you would mean recently

a four year request reveal that the f.b.i. have extensively been spying on the occupy wall street movement and they did this in a variety of ways including infiltration and others in mention just a few of the instances we now know about but there are probably countless more. on the first anniversary of occupy seven members of an occupy group in austin texas were faced with felony charges and up to two years in prison over an act of civil disobedience resulting from a case of police entrapment they were calling for a shutdown of a local seaport in solidarity with union groups seven protesters blocked the entry of the porch and used lock boxes made of p.v.c. pipes to link their arms together to form a human chain they were then all charged with unlawful use of a criminal instrument however it was later discovered that the real undercover cops had been involved in not only purchasing but designing assembling and ultimately providing demonstrators with the lock boxes used in the demonstration yep the whole

should bang the materials the plan and they agree just felony charge all have changed by the cops this is nothing new entrapment of activists happens all the time member the case of the cleveland five or federal agents posing as activists encourage them to commit violence and even arrange the purchase of fake bombs to blow up a bridge or what about undercover cops tried to convince a group of demonstrators to commit an act of terror during the latest nato summit but when that didn't work they planted incriminating materials in their chicago. apartment those four activists are still being held under charges related to domestic terrorism although driving methods are becoming more pervasive by the day in this expanding police state this is in no way an innovative tool for law enforcement during the sixty's and seventy's federal intelligence used undercover agents to infiltrate and trap peaceful activists in their operation chaos the us government targeted students in an attempt to halt the growth of the antiwar

movement in the johnson and nixon administrations however one of the most hostile crackdown them to send was a program called cointelpro or the f.b.i. made aggressive attempts to disrupt and discredit numerous political groups through smear campaigns false media reports harassment and full blown psychological warfare many say the program is still alive and well today over but of course the government claims these tactics are done all the name of national security tell us what they say but so far our security agency is willing to go to protect the status quo while what if the person you were intimately involved with for years when they were living with sleeping with turn out to be an undercover agent living a double life in many instances married with other families simply using you to build a case against your cause for years was horrifying is the scenario sounds is actually

commonplace the guardian recently reported that a woman involved in a peaceful left wing political group had to live with an undercover cop for years. once the man the suddenly vanished from her life she discovered his true identity and she testified about feeling betrayed and humiliated she said quote this is not about just the lying boyfriend or boyfriend who has cheated on you it's about a fictional character who was created by this. wait and funded by taxpayer money you know that's just the point it's not just the dehumanization of the you and your friends being watched and used for years it's the fact that we're funding this war pain police had sex with activists to entrap peaceful protesters into stage phony threats they say it's

a matter of national security i say it's betrayal and its purest form. wealthy british style. time right on. the. market why not. come to. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike's concert for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into kinds a report on our.