it looks like it's going to be a good week for months on so as an act was signed that protects it from potential lawsuits over any damages that steve may cause we'll tell you more about this bill supporters. and the graphic novel series persepolis faces a ban in chicago schools seventh grade classrooms are no longer allowed to use the book in their curriculums but students and teachers are calling this censorship more on this page turner ahead. plus it's no secret that as soon as your tweets leave your computer they enter the public arena they could even land you in hot water but imagine having a system that ranks your tweets that could predict if you're about to be fired details on the fire meow plater in the show.

it's friday march twenty ninth four pm in washington d c i meghan lopez and you are watching r t. well it was supposed to be a temporary budget bill that would curb threats of a government shutdown and fund the country for the next six months president obama signed house resolution one three three into law on tuesday but hidden within the text of this budget bill is a section critics are calling the monsanto protection act the section actually protects the biotech industry from being sued the farmers assurance provision takes away the federal courts right to halt the sale and use of generic genetically modified crops regardless of public health concerns now food safety groups are crying foul they say that this provision is a major violation of the separation of powers in the u.s. to discuss this issue in greater detail jeffrey m. smith joins me now he's the author of the book seeds of deception hey there jeffrey

can you start by breaking this provision down a little bit more for us specifically does it affect will it effects the voters industry they're trying to introduce new genetically modified crops typically they break the laws in order to get these crops to market without doing proper environmental statements and this is why they have to stop the introduction of round if. they had to face lawsuits in court. and it was you know we would stop either direction of sugar beets now wherever i go has. with this provision even if the court tells the u.s.d.a. you have introduced a genetically modified crops illegally and you must stop and introduce a proper evaluation of the environmental impact this measure tells us da that they are mandatory that they're required to go ahead and allow farmers to plant it and wave their finger so to speak at the courts so it actually dismembers the normal

balances of power and checks and balances between the courts and the executive branch now from what i understand geoffrey this provision will only last as long as this bill does so just about a year or so so what harm could one year really do considering the fact that monsanto and other biotech giants win the majority of their court cases how it affects us legally and environmentally well actually they continue to lose to the center for food safety because they turn they continue to introduce these products without proper environmental impact statements and so they recently asked a policy that allowed companies like monsanto to do their own environmental impact statement so now we have a situation where the foxes guarding the hen house and then also managing all the key positions but it could be that we'll have some very serious crops introduced during this six month window it's supposedly for the six month funding bill but they'd it's doubtful that they're actually going to get replace the bill in time in

six months we may just extend the provisions of this bill which could make it last about a year as you mentioned so a lot of damage can be done during that time right now like dentist trying to get crops on the market that can withstand doses of two four d. herbicide which is a component of agent orange there's other things in the pipeline and any of these things could create major environmental catastrophes but once it's released into the environment there's no full recall that you can do because the g. and it becomes this propagating judoon exclusion that you know the effects of global warming a nuclear waste so potentially huge consequences now one of the major proponents of this bill is actually senator roy blunt he the new york daily news actually reported that this missouri senator actually worked with monsanto to craft section seven three five which is as most natural protection act here's a few other c. things that i was able to dig up about him first of all he's

a ranking member of appropriations subcommittee is on agriculture we're all development and also the food and drug administration he also received sixty four thousand two hundred fifty dollars from an santo for campaign committee for his campaign committee between two thousand and eight and two thousand and eleven that's according to the center for responsive politics and that actually makes him the largest party recipient of monsanto funding as of late so what should we make of all of this since he is the one that actually put this part into the bill. this is perfectly typical of the kind of thing that monson does now and the biology chemistry and agriculture industrial giants have spent tens of millions of dollars hundreds of millions of dollars in fact lobbying washington and paying for campaign contributions etc and i think we all know that the person in charge of all associate the f.d.a. back in one hundred ninety two when the general policy was created was bugged out

his former attorney and later my sandoz vice president and now the u.s. food safety czar back at the f.d.a. even the u.s. secretary of agriculture don't sack the biotech governor of the year when he was the iowa governor and gave monsanto an award in year two thousand so we have a situation where there's key people in the obama administration who are basically month sentiment or have been receiving financial support so this is why we are in favor of a market campaign to stop g.m. goes where people avoid g m o's because they're actually dangerous for health and then we'll see the companies eliminate them even if the government still works marching in lockstep with the biotech industry so obviously they're very influential when it comes to both the biotech industry as well as possibly lawmakers as you're saying now some democrats are simply claiming that they didn't know anything about this particular part of the bill the entire bill which was h.r. nine three three was about seventy eight pages long i read the section seventy five

myself i found the text to be rather cryptic but i'm not a paid to vote for these things is this an assertion that the democrats simply didn't know about the monsanto protection act a valid excuse or does it highlight perhaps a bigger problem about our legislators i think yes and no this did not go susan normal committees for the digital committee or the agricultural committee and it should have because it really is just to rate the checks and balances of the government and is probably ok. to chanel's in fact even secretary vilsack office mentioned in a response to the press is going to check with the digital branch because it may be unconstitutional this was done the appropriations committee kind of has an end around so that shows if the entire mechanism of government has been hijacked and it explains why some of the senators and congressmen didn't really note at the time because it didn't go through normal channels however tens of thousands of people

have contacted their senators and congressmen and over one hundred thousand people called the white house demanding that president obama veto this particular section he ignored the callers the senators and congressmen ignored the callers as a whole and we end up with this extremely unconstitutional passage which could really result in significant damage to the environment something we're going to strike us to should something we're definitely going to have to follow up on jeffrey smith author of face of deception thank you fair opinions were awful. well as if the show chicago public school system wasn't under enough fire for planning to close fifty four schools this year the school district is now under fire for removing the award winning graphic novel perceptually as from the seventh grade curriculum at first notice was sent out to schools ordering teachers to remove all copies of this book from classrooms and libraries but then the blanket ban was reduced to a banned from using the novel in the seventh grade curriculum alone this book has

only been banned in one other place ever that we know of raunch now leading up to the law has led to a huge public outcry of school censorship by outraged parents and students alike they rallied outside of school to demand an end to banning this book here's the justifications akasha congo public schools chief barbara bird bennett gave for banning the novels she said that the book quote contains graphic language and images that are not appropriate for general rule use in seventh grade curriculum she also said that it uses powerful images of torture however that assertion is one that the author marge anus toffy denies she claims that there is only one frame of the graphic novel that depicted torture r.t. correspondent on a saucy charkha takes a deeper look into this controversy and the book. this march has been a month of eyebrow raising decision surrounding the chicago public school system

coinciding with the recent protests sparking announcement to shut down a record number of public schools for u.s. history a total of fifty four another recent announcement has been causing much to be a controversy here and chicago now this internationally acclaimed autobiographical graphic novel called persepolis depicting the life of marjane satrapi focusing on her earlier years during the one nine hundred seventy nine iranian revolution has currently been banned for seventh graders in chicago now it's interesting to note that this novel the film adaptation of this novel has been winning many international awards was also nominated for an academy award in the best animated feature film category take a look because she questioned. me to divest gets home. because should you both get. to see some just to see. somebody genetic. earlier this month instructions were sent out to

chicago public schools demanding that all copies of this book were no longer to be found in classrooms and libraries although this ban was later downplayed to just a bounce around to seven graders it's currently being debated whether or not this novel should also be bad for children in the eighth ninth and tenth grades now initially was speculated that education system officials were concerned with the message of islam a phobia being sent out by this book and that the feelings of muslim students could be heard but later the announce that in fact they were more concerned about some of the graphic language and graphic images depicted in this book and although there are certainly some scenes surrounding topics such as violence sex and torture critics say that really nothing in this book is not something that students in chicago. we have already seen on t.v. news and more sadly in their neighborhoods here in chicago they're saying that

possibly officials are concerns that students could draw one parallel to many when it comes to their own lives now it's important to note that many free speech groups scholars and the chicago teachers unions have spoken out against this ban they have said that this book has a lot to teach to students that it's been taught for years here in chicago as well as throughout the united states and they believe that this latest down this act of censorship is quote constitutionally suspect now they're also saying that it's important to remember that as many as ironically and sadly one hundred sixty schools here in chicago don't even have libraries so maybe education officials have better things to concentrate on and also we have to point out that ironically this book another country where it's banned the only other country in the world is iraq and. chicago illinois now the graphic novel itself was published in two thousand and a film adaptation was came to life in two thousand and seven as

a result the film was nominated for an academy award for best animated film feature film here's part of that felt. so. very seldom said crappies best something graphic novel. i love you. like in like everyone always has to try to. find the strength forgive. yourself i worked twenty years for this. and i assess a graphic novel as an autobiographical account of mars john starr a sock rafi's childhood during the one nine hundred seventy nine iranian revolution here's how she describes the novel. it's a human prey diffuse and greedy if there is one missing in this movie is the humanistic message is that human being anywhere is the same and they have to lay to

it the right to believe because they have dreams because they have love because they have parents and kids. for food for the first with something and then we have to understand that the situation is not as easy as with the. so why this book in why now why from the seventh grade curriculum in general for more i'm joined by our . o'connor she is coordinator for the kids rights to read project at national coalition against censorship thank you so much for joining me so why this book. why this book i really wish i could tell you i think that there's been unfortunately a complete lack of transparency and goeth before the ban and when the ban was first handed down and then afterwards when the school was backtracking to try and decide what it excuse what excuse it would use and it finally settled on this panel in the book that does the pick a man who was

a family friend of the main character being tortured and then ultimately murdered but that is something that obviously goes hand in hand was evolution and it's portrayed in a very almost quieter sanitary way in the book and the book has many affecting parts and i think that as your reporter rightly noted chicago public school students have seen their share of violence and this just book i'm sure is nothing shocking or alarming to them now the book's author claims that torture in this book is limited to one frame and that children these days are exposed to much more gruesome things than one drawing in a graphic novel here is the frame that is being contest it now as you can see it still was a man being peed on and whipped and burned with an iron and then cut into pieces it's unsettling yes but it's also very real so we should be trying to hide these realities from our children i mean by the seventh grade our children have already

learned about the holocaust so why hide this. absolutely and i think it's really unclear why they're hiding it but we see it all the time that we have kids right to read we have challenges on a daily basis that come up where people are trying to hide information from students whether it be about sex or violence whether it be profanity related religious issues things like euthanasia that are they're sensitive there's a real need to control information and limit that in certain when it comes to certain parents certain administrator xfce and it's are is really unclear what's going on here in the show how chicago public schools and they really have not offered any justification for why this ban had to happen in the first place and it was very sweeping at the beginning it was to be removed from all libraries and all classrooms immediately without any explanation and they backtracked and sort of said only it must be removed suddenly from seventh graders and teachers would be

required to take training through a through tenth grade but even so why and why now in the middle of the school year at the you know this is march why so suddenly and it's i think that the main problem with chicago public schools with that there's a huge lack of transparency and they do not have what many school districts have which is a district wide policy for handling materials complaints and having open and transparent and consistent clear conversations about whether material is appropriate and including their teachers and students in that conversation all very interesting questions now one of the great ironies that i actually found in this book is that the book itself talks about iran blocking access to education and yet chicago educators are essentially doing the same thing by blocking this book from seventh grade curriculum to my right. yeah absolutely i mean that was the first thing that i thought i went to the home page of lane tech high school which was the

main school that this controversy involves at the beginning and the first page is about their banned book club that they have which is wonderful which reads a number of controversial books throughout history but i just thought that was so ironic this and margins comments have been great about that that here now with chicago public schools we find ourselves in line with iran and tunisia who are the only two governments who have or even entities who have put up a fuss about this critically acclaimed wonderful graphic novel and very quickly acacia are we really making too big of a deal about this it is being taught in the other classrooms that a great and beyond so yes or no are you making a bigger deal out of this than needs to be i don't think so and i think it's important that students have access and why should their education be disrupted they're limited in any way when there have been no problems with this book here to know i think that it's matters that students have the right and the freedom to read

books that are interesting engaging real this is a real life event and they should be able to learn about it i honestly wish that i had read this book as a seventh or eighth grader acacia o'conner coordinator at the kids right to read project at the national coalition against censorship thank you for joining us. well most of us have learned by now that posting something on the internet is more powerful than ordinary ink even if you delete it copies concert frist years later congressman anthony weiner found out this lesson the hard way when he accidentally tweeted out a picture of his genital region to the world but even that horror story hasn't prevented people from going over the line online across the country employees are using twitter as a place to vent about their jobs and bosses but a new internet after called fire me can actually track what people are saying about their bosses to explain more about this than a few other digital developments ashmore is the digital media specialist and he

joins me now actually thanks for joining us so let's talk about this fire me app what exactly are they following and what can it mean for employees so the fire me is actually following everybody if we treat tweet right now it will show up on the live web application and its web site to anybody can access and on their they have a list of tweets that they call most offensive or mostly because you're fired and even go so far as to have a section is most likely to kill their boss so how can this potentially hurt employees is this enough evidence to have some fired up saluted without a doubt people have been fired for the. today i think that a lot of social media sites or over utilized by people who don't understand the real reach that they have everything that you tweet unless you have your account locked is public everything that you say is looked at by employers unless you've lost them

and also potential employers if you're on the job search but at the same time ashleigh have to ask you i mean it's kind of their fault right i mean you can only blame the employees because they're the ones that are putting this up online it's no secret that this stuff is going to go up online i agree completely i would call it online i did it he management and it's extremely important today to make sure everything from your linked in profile to even your facebook profile if you don't have the whole thing locked down to the things that you to eat to everything that you put out on the internet is saved and a tweet these days talk twitter users or their tweets are catalogued and saved immediately so even if they go and delete it it's still there it can still be found now and we know that the library of congress also keeping track of those they want to keep it as part of history so it could be you making fun of your employer bashing them or whatever but twitter isn't the only social media site where employers can actually employees can actually get in trouble facebook for instance

knows if you're procrastinating because it knows what you're doing and what you're signed into and if you're signed a network also should be concerned about this well i think it really depends on the work environment that you're in a lot of for example for arms in d.c. actually like their. staff to engage on facebook to tweet about the company and to talk about the company on linked in whereas if you're a air traffic controller you probably should not be on social media so it really depends they call things they were using it for what you're doing with it and how much you're using during your workday and technology helps people connect when we're getting to a point where we're connecting too much does that actually hurt they the basic point of this. technology the point is to help us get information but can also be very damning against us on the flip side i think is wonderful and the reason why is you can actually project to the world exactly what you want the world to think of you so if you say like i for example i do digital media so if you look for me

online you'll find me you'll find stuff about me if i mean doing that and the same for any specialist you can make sure that your message is crafted to connect to the people that you want to connect to you can make sure people just stumble across you find the image of the person you want to be online you just have to know what your limitations are you have to know the things that are public or public in the things that are private probably aren't as private as you think sure well and i think the big question here is really what are the lessons that we're teaching our children when you're in the seventh grade or the eighth grade you're not really thinking about how this picture or this post can affect your future what kind of lesson should we be instilling in our kids about the things that we post now that can affect us years later i think today we actually live in a new era of this today of trees being saved in the library of congress to everything that we say and do will be looked back on and i forget it was somebody very famous maybe maybe obama who said children if i can say anything to you today

if you want to career in politics to think about what you post online they'd be cautious and be wary and be just be very pointed with what you project and what you say now some assume the people that are running for political office will have a facebook long before the elections i mean we when we had president obama first coming out as a candidate you know everyone was very worried about the fact that he smoked what will we see is the future what we've learned is this just another door to transparency with our elected officials or does it go too far well i think that if if you do have plans for office to say teenager and high school and you plan to take that that should be something you're thinking about now you should think about what you say. and they where you check in on foursquare you should think about where you're seen and you should just say to yourself is this something that i want people to know that i've done twenty years should know because twenty years ago we didn't have this today we do so today we just have to be very careful and very

aware of it certainly going to change the way people learn about others in the future and it's already doing that actually more digital media specialist thank you for joining us. one of you ever heard of the phrase catch twenty two with a paradoxical situation where the preferred outcome is impossible thanks to some contradictions in your potential decision the case of eunice jessica shown here is a prime example earlier this month jessica was hired by a chicken franchise k.f.c. into pellow mississippi it was a positive step for jessica who had lost her job and subsequently her home and car that happened back in december but when the. k.f.c. manager chelsea ruff learned that jessica was living at a nearby salvation army he withdrew the employment offer rough signed a letter saying that he couldn't employ her quote due to concerns of a lack of residency and transportation according to the clarion ledger about is and here is what the catch twenty two isn't how it figures in folks because it without

a job how is this woman supposed to be able to afford her own place but apparently she can't work at the k.f.c. unless she apparently already has a home the manager of k.f.c. now says he lied to protect jessica's feelings and that his real reason for resending his offer was because jessica seemed too old for the job and didn't have enough experience in food preparation but this story saves to have a happy ending for jessica the clarion ledger is now reporting that on time transportation has fired her to drive patients to and from the doctor she has twenty seven years experience as a driver. and you might be surprised to learn that the latest plan for the marines wasn't dreamed up by the. dr evil or austin powers and even though it involves laser beams the office of net naval research announced yesterday it wants marine trucks to have laser guns attached to them the new program is called ground based

air defense directed energy on the move not the catchiest name of course and not the easiest to say so why lasers well out of a fear that marine trucks are to be vulnerable they're going to be vulnerable because of drones that could be flying around through the air to spy on them now interestingly enough this is because the country that began the proliferation of drones and uses drones in other countries to monitor any behavior is now afraid of them that's the united states now that the technology has been around for more than a decade it's become much cheaper and there are certainly concerns that other countries will fill the skies with their own forms of new avi's nothing that a laser can't handle though according to wired a laser cannon mounted on a humvee could burn through a small surveillance drone with relative ease the hard part will be powering up that laser for action for now the program is still in research stage that does it

for now see back here at five pm. i've.

visited lee's.