after the passage of the month santa protection act the company is now seeing an increase in profits while today's fast food workers in new york go on strike for better pay and wages tell you more about those developments in the food industry. and the shield of justice may soon be raised to protect whistleblowers a gathering group of activists and lawyers pledged to stand with anyone brave enough to expose both the corporate and government corruption more on that coming up. and arkansas neighborhood got a firsthand view of an oil spill now there's a question of how to clean it up and who exactly is going to pay for this mess we'll tell you more later in the show. well it's thursday april fourth five pm in washington d.c. i'm margaret held you're watching r t. and at the top of today's show a follow up to

a story we've been covering here the so-called most months santa protection act signed into law more than a week ago by the president there was a little no notice provision of a larger build a fine agricultural spending over the next six months and essentially gives genetic modified crops and the companies who make them and munity from court intervention even if they are public health risk since we started following the story as some other outlets have followed our lead let's take a listen let's at least hear some of congress is no doubt robust discussion on this controversial amendment critics are angry about how it was passed snuck into a huge agricultural bell without review by a committee. they're going to show it was attached this language protecting genetically modified food makers into a bigger unrelated bill. that isn't all yesterday a month santa announced its quarterly earnings the world's largest seed maker

revealed its profits rose twenty two percent in their second quarter looks like there's something other than g.m.o. corn growing and that's profits. but monsanto isn't the only food company in the public eye you know today marks an effort from fast food workers in new york city to create the largest strike in fast food history according to organizers of fast food forward and looks like there will be four hundred strikers from around seventy different establishment so why are they walking off the job of these chain restaurants and why today of all days to discuss this i'm joined by our team producer rachel courteous and studio hi there rachel and margaret so tell me why they're doing this today of all days sure today is actually the anniversary of the assassination of martin luther king and martin luther king died in memphis right before he died the night before he gave a speech called i've been to the mountaintop and if i may quote from it he says we don't have to argue with anybody we don't have to curse and go around acting bad with our words we don't need bricks and bottles we just need to go around to these

stores and to these massive industries in our country and say god sent us here to say that you've not been treating his children right so his final speech was in solidarity with low wage workers and i think and the organizers fast food forward were were trying to kind of move along with that momentum and bridge the gap between his struggle back in one nine hundred sixty eight and the ongoing struggle that they face today essentially what are they protesting for these workers that's a great question so right now. the minimum wage in new york city is seven dollars and twenty five cents an hour that last month the state legislature voted to change that by two thousand and sixteen to nine dollars an hour but with these workers are saying is listen even nine dollars isn't sufficient it's not enough for us to clothe our children feed our families and live and live our lives in a meaningful quality way so what they are demanding is fifteen dollars an hour in wages which was you know more than double what they're making now and what they

they also won is the opportunity to be able to organize collectively to unionize without fear of retribution from. employers say so you know the fast food industry to grow seeing massive amount of money here two hundred billion dollars last year the average one of these workers i understand that they make a leavened thousand dollars a year you know talk to me about that disparity and why this is just now you know we're just now saying this is an issue should we've been caring about this. but for now i'll get sure so i think that the minimum wage is something that we've seen come up before president obama mentioned in his state of the union address that he wanted to raise it to nine dollars an hour what will soon become the status quo in the state of new york but i think that there's another salary that we should be looking at here according to fast food forward who are the organizers of this protest they said that every single day executives at these fast food restaurants are making twenty five thousand dollars which as per the numbers you were given before means they make more than double in a day with their workers are making in

a year so there's that disparity that we need to look at another thing is that all of these companies mcdonald's young brands which you know k.f.c. and taco bell as well as burger king they're all traded publicly so they're all accountable to their shareholders and shareholders are incentivized to think about profits as opposed to say treating their workers in an ethical way or paying them a meaningful way to they're looking more at the bottom line here certainly so you know we've got we see one hundred eight hundred thousand signatures so far these on line this online petition it's being signed protesters in action are we going to see the changes come about from you know i'm not sure i think that that's a really good question with any protest there's always the question of there's attention to it people are writing something on an online petition but does that actually translate into results is that going to. have any meaning on what happens to these workers into the companies that they work for and i think that is something that martin luther king said in his famous found top speech is that the

only way that it's actually going to make a difference is if it is he says we have to anchor our external direct action with the power of economic withdrawal so if those one hundred eighteen thousand signatures actually say stop eating at mcdonald's stop going to burger king and taco bell and all these other places for their nourishment instead if they say you know until you treat these workers a certain way we're staying away from you i'm not sure if there's going to be any change it is true that the. they've certainly created for instance occupy wall street has decided to to stand in solidarity with them today at five thirty additionally we there are members for instance the a.f.l. . richard trumka was talking to fast food workers earlier telling them you know he's in solidarity with them he believes that they should have the right to unionize so we'll see if having these new allies results in any changes but so far i haven't seen anything certainly so you know it's my understanding that these

workers eleven thousand dollars a year many of them actually have to get on public assistance just to just to feed their own families you know we've seen these corporations not pay their employees what they should be paying them essentially and on top of that you know serving some of those chemically processed foods in the world what are checks and balances in place to keep these companies in line i mean are we are do we see anything coming forward even in even from this protest to kind of keep these companies and check that's a really good question i think that as long as i think that there's always going to be a balance that needs to be negotiated between people's individual choices for instance my choice to eat a big mac versus what it might do to my body later on over time or what it might do to you say as a mcdonald's worker but the number one check on these big companies again is their customer base if people say we're not going to eat at you until you you act a certain way until you say include more salad options until you stop using g.m.o. corn products in what you're making i don't think we're going to really see any

meaningful change the number one check again our customers so you know gaining steam certainly these workers who are protesting talk to me again you know how are they m. packed and how are they making a difference are they gaining any steam from this or is it just is it just showboating and essence something to do you feel like they're actually making a footprint on this at all yeah that's a really good question so i guess i have two responses to it the first would be this they would there was another protest organized by fast food for words. in late november with the same intent in mind that they were going to have workers walk off of their jobs and that had about two hundred people show up so in that sense they have gained steam they've doubled the amount of participants which means they've probably doubled the impact that it has on these these restaurants themselves so that's meaningful but it makes you wonder how fast food forward itself what is fast food for been doing in the interim in terms of organizing how much manpower has been dedicated to this from kind of the outside organization that certainly has the

intentions of helping out these workers but does it depend on outside organizations like this to kind of come in and organize you know i'm not sure where we'd be at were it not for fast food forward in this case certainly certainly well fast food workers protesting you know we certainly are you know understand their needs here and what they're wanting do you think that they're going to get the ear of these companies any time soon again i think that the only way they're going to get the ear of the companies is of the shareholders are kind of yanking on them saying we're not seeing the profits we used to see you know for all of the stores that have their employees walk out today that certainly means that they're able to serve less customers it means that their their customer service will will decrease at least for the day and that they're drawing attention to their pleas so we'll see what happens there thank you so much for joining me that was our t.v. producer rachel currently is in studio. and ever been stung by a jellyfish yes that must hurt but also misspeak may be useful that's what

researchers that virginia tech college of engineering are betting on they've unveiled a rebel a robotic jellyfish yes you've heard me correctly a robotic jellyfish they've nicknamed at the creation of the creation cyro and get this over five feet tall it tips the scales at one hundred seventy pounds in a news release the school says that the robotic jellyfish is a larger model of a robotic jellyfish the same team of researchers unveiled in two thousand and twelve but both robots are part of a project funded by the u.s. naval undersea warfare center and the office of naval research the purpose of these robots you ask the surveillance and monitoring of underwater environments but include studying aquatic life mapping ocean floors and monitoring ocean currents so is this amazing technology only going to be used to watch aquatic life i guess only time will tell however that only do you have to worry about jobs in the on the beach now it seems like you got to worry about the government and this new robotic

jellyfish also lurking in the water. down to arkansas where an ugly oil spill continues to wreak havoc as oil continues to flow through the small town of mayflower cleanup efforts have begun to take shape however there's a catch including as if a flight restrictions over the oil spill are to correspond marine important naya explains the federal aviation administration they say that the indefinite no fly zone which they are calling a temporary flight restriction was put in place as a hazard warning officials say this is so emergency support are able to respond to the disaster immediately now the f.a.a. is online posting noted that only relief aircraft operations on operated under the direction of mr tom so are all are permitted in the area now according to his linked in profile mr sir off list himself as an aviation adviser for. exxon mobil he is not an emergency expert or a safety officials this of course has caused many critics to speculate that the

real reason behind this indefinite no fly zone is to minimize news coverage that can further damage the reputation of exxon mobil marty recently spoke with a fellow mayflower resident chris harrell now mr harrell told us that he has not received any indication of any kind of compensation or settling on settlement offers from exxon mobil mr harrell said that on sunday when he went home briefly for easter here in the states he received a letter on his front door from exxon mobil that apologized quote apologized for the inconvenience mr howell said of those have that have been evacuated are being provided a hotel room paid for by exxon mobil but at a community peak a meeting that took place over the weekend with some exxon officials mr howell says that very few answers were given and all those in attendance were very frustrated very angry exxon mobil has not indicated how long cleanup will take mr harrell told r.t. that major concern for many people in the neighborhood is the longer term impact

from the spill both environmentally and financially what will this circumstance do to property values in that area of course this oil spill taking place in arkansas is not as big as the one that took place in the gulf of mexico a few years back but the concern for many people especially residents that are directly affected by this oil spill is that it's not going to receive the coverage that it needs to receive to find who is responsible for this oil spill accountable this is still a very disasters oil spill that's going to harm the community harm the environment and if the media does not is not given access to cover this oil spill to cover the extent and the damage and the circumstances of it then there may be less accountability that is the major concern and at the end of the day those that are affected by this and i think citizens all throughout the united states want to know why it took place what could have prevented it and if someone is responsible for

this they should be held accountable. well that was our t. is very important i am still ahead on our t.v. obama administration has gone after numerous whistleblowers so far have no fear the whistle blower defense league is here we'll tell you more about that after the break. a lot of potentially deadly blizzard taking aim for the northeast it's expected to hit starting in a few hours from new york to maine we have team coverage of the storm. that we're watching is the very heavy snow moving into boston properly or today it was very sticky you can see it start to become much more cattery down the line there's still a lot of snow out here a good place for snowball fight. piece and it is going to pretty incredible day there and even record snowfall throughout much of it might still be slightly driver's license of emergency vehicles.

let me let me we're going to let me ask you a point. here on this network in which we're having the debate we have our knives out. but if you decide you want to spend staying there again you're in a situation where being i don't want you to talk about the surveillance me. the same story doesn't make good news. no puff pieces i mean tough question.

here is mitt romney trying to figure out the name of that thing that we americans call. a dog. i'm sorry i missed the guy who cares enough about. you sir are you know what that is my terror cell if you want to listen to futurism the only liberal democrats. really sort of. you know the super committee of the structures from what you and i should care about because they're profit driven industry that sells a sensationalistic garbage he calls it breaking news i'm abbie martin and we're going to break the set. up. for something strange you don't feel good in the neighborhood you're going to call well the whistleblower defense league that's who critics of

the current administration their approach to clamping down on government leaks continues in some. even decided that something has to be done about this excessive prosecution. now to talk to me more about this i was joined earlier today by jay lederman lawyer lederman to find lp which is part of this group and i asked him to explain just what's behind all this well what's behind this. ministrations unprecedented prosecution model of whistleblowers people that would seek to shine a light on the truth and expose that to the public are getting prosecuted like never before in history actually it's a it's a crisis and a massive demand for this that that's what you know gave birth to this organization say so the whistleblower defense league that you and others have launched seem to challenge government prosecutions of whistleblowers what do you expect to achieve with this j well what we would hope is that the government backs off and

allows people who do know more than try to expose the truth to actually do that. information is important and even more important as we get into the digital age and it's this massive commodity that doesn't belong to the government it belongs to the world and as long as the government keeps trying to clamp down and make it so that people can bring information in truth polite there's going to be a dire need for our services well there are certainly been a record number of people charged under the espionage act and act that comes out of world war one in fact a total of seven people under the a-bomb ministration alone many of those that were on this list gave information to journalistic outlets not foreign governments do you think that this approach will deter anybody who is trying to report these abuses within the government. well i think that's part of the reason behind the

prosecutions is to show the next person that would have these ideas that this is not something that you can do and and with impunity however our presence in the presence of other organizations like us and the physically the fact that there are lawyers out there willing to give backing to people that would stand for the truth would i would hope encourage people to do that these people that have been prosecuted under this act should not have been the john kerry accused and thomas tricks of the world are not criminals these people are your i see so you know building on that this just in yesterday documents released by the partnership for civil justice fun they reveal that law enforcement agencies like the f.b.i. for example have been actively monitoring activists i'm not sure the part about or not but what does this mean for a journalist covering these stories to cover movements like occupy. well.

i see it is a shot across the bow for those journalists like little warning shot saying listen we're here we're surveilling you're not going to know we're here but if you do something if you publish something we don't like if you get too close to these people if you are truly embedded with them we're going to see a prosecution and you see that with with matthew key is that the case that i'm representing prior to the formation of this who was a journalist and who was imbedded in in anonymous chat rooms i mean should they be worried say i mean this is something that actual journalists should in fact be worried about well yes and no i would hope that journalists wouldn't be worried about it because if you worry about it you're not as effective and as carefree in doing your job the way you need to do it we give you the support that you need we

hope or at least we seek to give you the support that you need just simply do your job which is to report the truth to report what's going on however the reality of the situation is that journalists and everyone it's a natural thing to be concerned with the federal government comes around what's going on so we heard kind of put this back in balance and let the journalists get back to work doing what they do best which is journalism and say well jan i have to ask you are there any are there any interesting calls or tips that you'd like to share with me. well. so far the only thing that the whistleblower defense league has been working on publicly. is the government in connection with the barack brown case issued a subpoena. to an american company for his essentially one of his journalistic projects that he worked on called project where they're now in addition to

prosecuting him prosecuting his mother. and getting a conviction they're now trying to go after his his work his journalism essentially and the people that that assisted with that so you know we've only a real short while we've only been talking about this project for a couple of weeks we've only really been public or just since the beginning of this week this motion was filed and already we're seeing in action the government trying to suppress journalism project pm the subpoena density works on trying to just bring it's a wiki which just brings information about public and private partnerships with respect to security. spying snooping and those things so it's very important area for the people to know about and we're glad the w b a w b d l has gotten involved in that i'm not personally involved because of my previous relationship representing barrett but i. say i hate to stop you there we've run out of time but

that was to a later man thank you jay and myron lederman divine l o p. well even though at cia whistle blower john kiriakou is sitting in jail for having describe u.s. interrogation techniques such as waterboarding as torture us back during the bush administration his supporters latest on how it and demand that he be set free they're taking this up with the white house nail by way petition asking president obama to pardon him for his actions. spoke to us here at r t just a few months ago and now he's in prison and pennsylvania where he started serving a thirty month prison term back in february of two thousand and thirteen friend of cariocas offer to deliver the petition to the white house chief of staff the petition which started by this progressive online action community firedoglake it already has six hundred thousand signatures since it was published on wednesday morning. now the online group hopes to look to deliver this message through the

petition and over the position may not be as powerful as torture itself which forces somebody to do or say something they may not want to the online community has vowed to not stop fighting for him in the name of quote fair justice in this case. well it's a burden weight it's a plane it's a flying saucer that's a fascination with you u.f.o.'s that have always played an outsized role in american imaginations no creatures from another world have taken center stage in movies and film alike calibur there is some truth behind the concept of life on other planets maybe laurie high finance from the resident ask what believe what believes you haven't if the hype.

one of my favorite beers hereis ever is the one about the us government having knowledge of us both because oh my god how awesome what was that see if it were true not the whole they're keeping it a secret part but the part about there being aliens that would be on. ok so the f.b.i. recently released an explanation of the most popular file in the f.b.i. involved which is their on line catalog of documents released under the freedom of information that the most popular file is a memo dated march twenty second one nine hundred fifty written by a guy named guy how tall the f.b.i. field office had at the time it was addressed to day edgar hoover and it was about a story that was told to an f.b.i. agent by a third party who reported that three flying saucers were recovered in new mexico so the most popular f.b.i. file is the one about the us government's knowledge of the existence of aliens that

makes them there aren't that many interesting have to be added by as out there you know what doesn't make sense is that people would still believe the government knows about u.f.o.'s after reading the day a memo because it is a document of seriously bad reporting it is merely an account of a second or third hand claim that was not verified enough to even investigate it's an account of an incident that is akin to your ornery drunk uncle calling up the pentagon and then not honestly reporting that is labor and we hate has a secret store of plutonium in his basement just to get him in trouble and then the poor shlep at the pentagon that has answered the call has to write it down just. for due diligence state due diligence and excessive paperwork and bureaucracy that's what this memo is kind of like and it's the most popular document in the f.b.i. vault why because it talks about aliens and lot that people want to believe that the u.s.

government hand them any government scrap of paper with the word alien on it must be proof right. the moral of the story is that just because there's an f.b.i. memo about u.f.o.'s and nine hundred fifty doesn't mean that the u.s. government has a private stash of with zero someplace don't take every sentence you read to be proof of the fact you want to exist is special effects and to start with something like one guy heard from another guy that some other guy that his brother knows said take the time to sort out fact from fiction look for well credited sources and actually process the information before jumping to conclusions in other words question more even if it means having to make your theory about u.f.o.'s remains unproven which. tonight let's talk about that by following me on twitter at the.

well eight months pregnant and being tasered by a cop for refusing to lay on the ground those events unfolded last week in a parking lot in springfield illinois and they were all caught on tape take a look. thank you. oh yes. she's trying. to look like me. now the cops say that lucinda white and her boyfriend frederick thomas were resisting arrest and actively fighting officers white told a local t.v. station in st louis that she never touched the officer a witness to the scene said that while requested not to lie on the ground face down because of a crime scene the police were initially called in the parking lot for

a minor car accident and a dispute between drivers i guess we'll have to wait for that surveillance tape to determine who's telling the truth but here's the bigger question should officers even be using a taser on a pregnant woman police in the company who makes the taser say that using the device is safer than other alternatives how safe enough is it the pregnant woman and her unborn baby are fine so far but white said she felt the baby shaking for several hours after being tase was going to do for now for more on these stories we've covered go to youtube dot com slash r t america for the latest and greatest information check out our website r t dot com slash usa our digital producers are always working hard to connect you to the world with news stories you can also follow me on twitter at m underscore j underscore held all of us here at our team will be back at eight.