today we could weeks release the kissinger cables you know about thirty people database of over a million diplomatic records that delves into the us the support of certain seventy's dictators who speaks of the spokesperson of wiki leaks the head while the guantanamo bay detainees can tell you their hunger strike the un human rights chief now calls for the closure of the prison camp she claims to the camps indefinite detention of prisoners without charge or trial violates international law more of these developments later in the show and a new bill in california is in her inner joost the protection of consumer data this bill calls for companies to inform customers when their information is shared with other parties and even give the customers access to their own data will this bill pass details ahead i. know it's monday april eighth eight pm in washington d.c. i'm margaret how you're watching r t starting this hour the latest from wiki leaks

earlier today the whistle blowing web site released one point seven million cables ranging from nine hundred seventy three to nine hundred seventy six and in these cables will they reflect the u.s. state department's interaction with other countries these cable sheds some light on political goals of that era now this contrary of documents also includes communications between the top official of the time in re kissinger and other governments wiki leaks founder julian assange was on hand somewhat joining the proceedings remotely from inside the ecuadorian embassy the only thing is they said that he controls the president controls and he controls the posts controls the future and that is because of the vital role that history plays in deciding to own interpretation of what is happening in the world. the u.s. national archives since it owns searches to the wood where he weeks following

that revelation we've looked closely at what else was going on and in fact as kristen said from two thousand and six. it became apparent that the u.s. national archives had reversed custody case over fifty five thousand pages of material that in the great analysis done by the national security archive say a group run out of george washington university we have pulled together two million documents two hundred fifty thousand documents from our previous release cable guy one point seven million documents pulled from the national archives and put them together. into an integrated format so does he controls the past control the future well i was joined by wiki leaks post spokesperson kristen roughen said earlier today and i asked him to break down what these leaks actually

mean and why they're so important take a listen. well i mean they are declassified in these documents but they are very hard to access so they are defacto kept secret because it's only you need expertise to actually be able to get in get access to them and find it your interest there so what we're doing of course we're unearthing them bring into the public light making it was so simple to the general public so it's a it's a question of semantics but i would. call it a leak is ok so what do they mean essentially for journalists who. talk to me about does it actually change anything well i mean for me as a journalist this is this is so important to have a database like that a you can go back to would of reference again and again this is this is i do that frequently with every news story that comes up you go to cable

gates now you have one point seven million all the documents just i think some pull market. there's a lot of information about markets in those early cables certain documents from the seventy's so there are information about the new pope it's a treasure trove you can go to these documents very very important to to use it as an essential to tool for journalists to see so you know the speculation or the rumor would be that they came from the national archives can you tell us where they came from all of these are in those you know archives and. you know hidden there in many ways that's one form of secrecy and that is the hiding hiding information behind the wall of complexity they say so you know project k. was released to the national press club held a press conference about this today talk to me about the significance of that and if it actually impacts anything well let's see what happens we're we're working

with about eighteen media partners who have been. mining this information for news story. and it's already front page material some places i mean the hindu in india reduced a story based on this material so the involvement of the in a shady arms deal involving sweden back in the seventy's that's you know who cause you know per another example for example is the year. the year like this year it's on the u.s. involvement in to take the ship regina's in latin america good friends a journalist in brazil has told me this is so helpful for the newly set of truth commission which finally was reconciling with the the period of the tater ship in brazil so it's not that far away these diseases in history that has as strong relevance to our certainly so project a project kissinger if you will certainly has some relevance here we actually of us

thought from r.t. interviewing henry kissinger would like to play it now. and they have to remember that for and probably for a country it's intruded. right it's three. by the objective situation. yeah. that's probably the major thing so you can never start something totally new. which case you have normal human. so the state department just released a statement saying that they can't comment on the authenticity of the declassification of these cables what are your thoughts on their statement well i mean we have we have. never used anything that has been called not us or something so. you can really see why they are denying the

authenticity of this interesting to hear or to kissinger's warriors here there is an interesting document in from one thousand nine hundred eighty six in the minutes from a meeting in in turkey. where he actually is quoted as saying. when it's illegal and we do it immediately when it's unconstitutional it takes a little longer it's supposed to be a joke but. an element of truth about what the truth of that. lie was kristen robinson we could make spokesperson. and food labeling advocates for each your heart out occupy monsanto group organized an even protest in front of the f.d.a. center for food safety and applied nutrition in maryland today over one hundred protesters showed up with super bowls and picket signs some even bust down from as far as massachusetts to join in on the action r.t. correspondent and lopez brings us some food for thought. it's an angel tale with

lessons that extend to modern life. today the story of stone soup brought a group of protesters activists and food advocates together but instead of hungry stomachs these protestors are taking a bite into the issue of genetically modified foods by confronting the two entities they say are responsible for food secrecy the food and drug administration and the biotech giant monsanto with mo's you have to try very hard to not eat food in this country it's not labeled and people are demanding that the g.m.o. foods are labeled so the story of stone soup goes like there was never a one time traveler who entered a village and he was hungry but not until a very somber than anything to eat only go to the middle of the city and he put them in there any other problem. and the whole point is that the people from around the village that were serious actually came in and added their own ingredient or they added mushrooms and to convert lattice carrots and potatoes and soon enough the entire community listen around one god so obviously this is

a fairy tale but the moral of the story is that the entire community actually came together to surround initio and to make a stone soup like what you see here today that's our intention in this is to show the community building of eating together and that we can share a meal with each other we can share a meal with the f.d.a. and it can be just this this symbolic community building and relationship and another issue the group drew attention to today the revolving door between the government and private sector meet michael taylor he's the former vice president of public policy for monsanto that was until he became the deputy commissioner of foods at the f.d.a. and those close ties between the government and the biotech industry are something food activists can't stomach of course now that we have a food regulator that used to work for monsanto is a bit of a conflict of interest so i really want to help popularize it if we need to close the revolving doors and get the. monsanto minions out of the food regulating.

portions of our government over one hundred protesters showed up today with bowls and picket signs in hand but the f.d.a. says these foods are safe for consumption a statement released today by the agency says quote in general foods derived from genetically engineered plants must be the same requirements including safety requirements as other foods such as foods derived from traditionally bred plants the statement went on to support voluntarily labeling g.m.o. foods but wouldn't force the issue despite the fact that california's proposition thirty seven which was the first public vote on g m a labeling failed despite the fact that the new federal budget includes the so-called monsanto protection act these protesters say the food labeling movement is just beginning we're really in the infant stages of a worldwide food movement that's been on the rebound in the end these protesters say they can have their cake labeled and you get to report in college park maryland meghan lopez our team and i would update on the ongoing issues that the guantanamo

bay detention facility will today marks day sixty two of the detainee hunger strike and as the protests continue concerns over prisoners is becoming an issue most recently coming from the u.n. now united nations human rights chief navi pillay calls the u.s. to close to tension camps and she said that the indefinite incarceration of detainees is a breach of international law and she went on to say that she has great concern over what is classified as a system a systematic human rights abuse issue that has left many to take desperate measures in this case starvation but what are those the facts will according to dr sitting both who spoke with us earlier periods to talk about what is happening during this hunger strike you know if you look at fasting. you know the word hunger strike is kind of a misnomer because. after about forty eight to seventy two hours what happens is you start breaking down you're

a fatty acids and you get cheetos and as these ketones are floating around in your body it actually takes away the sensational home so you're actually after a couple of days you're not hungry so the word hunger strike is actually a misnomer of are your body still continuing to break down. well earlier i was joined by r.t. correspondent on a study a chair came from new york and i asked her exactly the human rights chief have anything to say about one time ok. well love margaret you know some scary things going on a growing time of course is that dr just described what we have coming out of the united nations human rights chief navi pillay she is of course recently slammed the united states for having failed to shut down guantanamo prison camp four years after barack obama signed an executive order saying that it would not take longer than a year and what the former u.n. work rhymes judge says is that the indefinite detention under which the prisoners are being held is of course

a violation of international law she says that the hunger strike that has been ongoing for the last two months is no surprise because these people have lost complete hope of ever seeing a fair trial or an appropriate kind of treatment while being held there for course we know that while the military and guantanamo says that forty people have been on a hunger strike lawyers are actually saying that the majority of those one hundred sixty six prisoners being held and certainly pillai has also underscored that it's very important that the prisoners be tried in civilian courts instead of military commissions and this is a major concern i want to take you back to those human rights issues what are the major human rights concerns here well that margaret the first one we have to talk about is of course the lack of due process we have to remember that out of one hundred sixty six detainees only nine people have so far been charged or convinced with or found to be responsible for a crime and this is something that's just an outrageous number the hunger strike

again has underscored the inhumane treatment lack of due trial and also have an associate but what what type of standing does the u.n. actually have here can they actually compel any change any policy change in washington margaret that's the trick here unfortunately at the united nations there's only one body and that's the security council that can have any kind of tangible impact on events taking place around the world and those events have to be somehow related to issues of security and this is a. course is not seen as such a case so for anybody else at the united nations to come out and say this is wrong that the us is still has going to open there's really nothing of a huge kind of impact that we can be see because the u.n. simply does not have that power and see so president obama if you remember he vowed to close the detention facility right after taking office he hasn't done it what message is this sending to the u.n. by our own president which you know how can they press this issue he hasn't done it

he promised to do it what can the u.n. do at this point well you know like i just said the united nations there's really not much they can do except for continuing to underscore the importance of shutting down one tunnel you know taking over media headlines by pressuring barack obama but the only thing that can happen from here is the u.s. can either ignore or hear this message which certainly doesn't seem to be the case like you said obama signed this executive order to shut it down four years ago he said he then a year later said that the prisoners would be transferred to illinois that never happened he then said that a year later again that a proper review process needs to take place that never happened because of blocking by congress so in this particular case analysts are really becoming wary they're saying that one of the first promises barack obama's made could be the last one he actually makes reality well that was. going to new york studio. privacy you know it's a topic that continually comes up these days and as the relationship between

consumers and companies continues to evolve one california lawmaker wants to make sure that that relationship stays on the right track. now california assembly member bonnie lowenthal has introduced the right to know act which is a piece of legislation that would quote require any business that has customer's personal information as to find to provide no charge within thirty days of the customer specified request a copy of the information to the customer as well as the names and contact information for all third parties which the businesses share the information during the past twelve months now regardless of any business relationship with the customer kudos to member low involved it was actually passed to talk more about this i was on earlier by human founder of people here and he started out by explaining what this means for businesses and their customers let's just start by putting it out there in the front this law is really really serious from a business perspective and it's very powerful from

a consumer perspective and let me just give you a quick on why the law actually expands the definition of personal information to not just information you have given yourself to a site so you may go to a site register some information but that site may also be collecting your ip address may lower your location may no other information about you. do you think that people are going to be surprised when they find out how often their data is changing hands here. well i think a lot of people in the world are not aware of the power of technology what they're not aware of is how is it that they get relevant advertising sent directly to them on something they're actually interested in buying and a lot of that happens from the data that's collected the third party that is shared with so initially i think absolutely if somebody makes a request and says i want to know what happened in the last twelve months they may be looking and saying oh wow i did not know that and at some point people will get

used to that concept and realize that the companies have already been telling you that they're collecting information and that they're sharing it in their privacy policies which california was the one of the first states to actually require that on their websites and have the posted and easily accessible and now what they're saying is not only do you have to have a privacy policy you have to disclose what you're collecting who you're sharing it with in the thirty days that you have to turn it around when a consumer makes that i've already said do you think that these companies are they crossing the line when it comes to the most basic privacy rights. you know i think that's actually a really interesting way to put the question the reality is this companies have to disclose what they're collecting that's all about transparency they're doing a great job in terms of saying when you come to our website here's our privacy policy if you don't like it you can move on to another site if you do want to do business with us this is what you need to know now what this law is saying is what

is that list of people you have actually shared it with and i want the contact information i may as a consumer may want to reach out to it i think the impact to the business is going to be huge though and that is something that we should talk about it's going to be huge whether you're a big company or a small company because at the end of the day you only have thirty days to respond and if you don't either the california a.g. the district attorney the city attorney civil lawyers can actually file a lawsuit or claim that you have injured a consumer and that's a statutory violation that can have significant impact on your company as well as on your reputation when it comes to privacy of consumers and ultimately that affects how you do as a business in the marketplace i think could we see possibly other states follow suit if california forces these companies to disclose when they're selling people's

private information what kind of you know what kind of issue could come up here with other states i mean if this passes we may see this across the board. i think if this does pass in california every legislator out there in every state is going to be saying what about me i should do something here as well i care about the citizens in my state in the privacy of their data and what they know and given that right to know california has done this in the past states usually strive to step up first when it comes to privacy when they do other states follow i would predict that that will happen so if i'm a company and you're listening right now the number one thing you should be thinking about and this actually applies to wherever you are in the country can sooner or later and you just don't see things are going to have this we would have to see these companies essentially reorganize if this law passes to comply with this law is that right and that's where that's exactly exactly right that's the impact so what that means is how are you collecting it where are you storing it do

you know where all the little pieces of information are coming if somebody has to call it are you technically capable of bringing that information to the forefront and saying hey consumer here you go and if you can't do that in thirty days you will run into a major problem so company a cyclist that's what we do for a living we go in and you're thinking of that out and that's something that you should know i had to cut you off there so that was the man she took on founder of assets people who. so i had here in our team back in the early days of the u.s. people were put in prison for not paying their bill now it seems like this bam part of our justice system is making a comeback more and our president after the break. the same story doesn't make it news new some. pieces some new tough questions.

right. and if you think the concept of a debtors prison is a thing of the past well you'd be wrong the practice of imprisoning people who owe money to the state or private enterprise was outlawed in eighteen thirty three and the supreme court reiterated this in a number of rulings in the twentieth century that sad this was unconstitutional to jail people for fines that they were able to pay but more than a third of the states allow borrowers to be jailed either because they cannot pay or will not pay off their debt the latest and stands well the american civil liberties union of ohio just released a report saying that the state still has debtor prisons and her and county ohio for instance the second half of two thousand and twelve more than twenty percent of all bookings had to do with failure to pay fines to discuss this further i was joint

earlier by our t.v. producer rachel courteous. the ohio a.c.l.u. came out with a pretty bleak report called the outskirts of hope and it paints a picture that shows that essentially one in five as you said prisoners endure on county or century there because they continue to zero money on a debt whether it's a public debt for instance court finds or whether it's a it's a private debt that they owe for instance something like of furniture pay manner or some other form of private debt in one and a half months in summer two thousand and twelve so from need to live through the end of august they found that forty five defendants and parma municipal court were there because they weren't paying their debts and seventy five people had say in at the sandusky municipal courts we see that this is actually a relatively routine practice this isn't one where you can say oh here's one aberration but this isn't going so you're telling me that there are certain you know certainly people can. legally at this point be jailed for not paying fines or other dads in certain states that legally is an interesting question right so

technically it's illegal and the reason is first of all as you mentioned in your introduction it was made illegal in eighteen thirty three this was reiterated by the supreme court in one thousand nine hundred ninety again in one thousand nine hundred one where they said listen the fourteenth amendment for equal protection essentially extends to make sure that people who are impoverished people who can't pay these fines and that's the key here right is that people who aren't able to pay these fines shouldn't be jailed for their inability to do so because otherwise the law is more punitive against the impoverished people so it's not equal protection so what are the certain legal implications for jailing somebody over debt will essentially it's illegal so in ohio for instance it's both against federal law that eight hundred thirty three federal law and then the state constitution also has a clause that says the dead prisons are not legal and and furthermore that in either to that in order to determine whether someone could be jailed say for not paying a fine you first need to have a hearing to figure out whether they're actually capable of paying that fine so you

really have them go into court and have a look through their finances and say oh look you actually have this nest. so the fact that you're not paying the furniture company the fact that you're not paying say this ticket for keeping your dog off of a leash you could be paying that what they're finding is in a huge percentage of these cases no one is having that hearing in the first place so these people are put in prison ok so do we think that these people have legal representation is that the problem well that is the problem what they found is that eighty percent of the people who are jailed are eligible for public defenders meaning the first of all they're impoverished so they don't have any meaningful way to pay these these fines and deaths are levied against i'm. in the end when they do have legal representation they don't have those hearings themselves so you know you could have a lawyer but if you don't have a hearing for which the lawyer to speak you're in trouble now certainly in terms of people reaching out to them the a.c.l.u. is a legal defense fund and it seems like this is something that's very much on their radar and and even in their report though they were they were they showed a lot of people who essentially were in prison for many months at times and and

ended up the cost of arresting and imprisoning these people was much higher than the death that they owed so the question here is let's say states like ohio for instance do have budgetary problems this doesn't seem to be a meaningful way for them to fix these problems because they're essentially paying more money to in prison than they would say by using a civil case to get to get this money certainly seems like it's there aren't these courts breaking federal laws by jailing these people i think the bottom line here it certainly seems that way they're breaking federal law in the case of ohio they're also breaking their state law as as well as countering a lot of supreme court cases that have come out relatively recently thank you so much rachel for joining me that was our two producer rachel perseus and studio well the u.s. is one of the world's biggest sources of consumers and producers of porn yet it seems like when we talk about it here in the states we can be quite prudish for more on that the resident for harvest explains.

for one group does that word make you feel uncomfortable it might make you a little excited you deviant you but today i'm talking about all the people who feel uncomfortable about porn because why why are we so uptight about porn here in the us clearly it's a thriving business with plenty of customers according to family paid media every second twenty eight thousand two hundred fifty internet users are viewing board that every second over three thousand bucks is being spent on porn and every thirty nine minutes and new porn is lower than in the us they got bless america there are

over four million porn websites and over four hundred million for any pages whatever that means well over half of those are generated from the us the numbers are arguable some dedications say there are more some think there are less but i think we can all agree that there are a lot of great good bowlers on the internet and not only is there a lot of it there are many kinds of it there are support for every kind of weird sexual behavior you can think of and a lot more sexual behavior you would never ever think of and you're really sorry you wonder dogs about page by mistake none of these statistics are surprising because come on let's be real here we've all seen porn what is surprising is that we're still prudish about it here in the us we're the champs at making it seriously no one else comes close to you as so is our prudishness the reason for upper lip the coffee is it that we've made. back then sexuality so taboo in our puritanical

country that we crave porn even more if we made sex less taboo and were more open to it when we chill out about it and not have to see it doing it with an inflatable toy to be fulfilled personally i'm not sure because i've never worn and would never intentionally look at anything so tawdry because i am a very good girl tonight let's talk about that by following me on twitter and. that's going to do for a male for more on these stories we've covered go to youtube dot com slash r t america for the latest and greatest information coming out from around the world check out our website at our team usa our digital producers are always working hard to connect you with the world new stories around you so check out you can also follow me on twitter at m underscored j underscore howell for all of us.