international at the very heart of moscow. coming up on r t the guantanamo bay hunger strike is expanding more detainees have decided to take part in the strike as the u.s. sends extra medical help to the detention facility will look at the situation next . chicago retail and fast food workers go on strike they want higher wages and the right to form a union so what are the odds of those demands being met will question more and it's thursday so that means it's tech news will give you the download on what the government is up to with internet freedoms and privacy that's later in the show. it's thursday april twenty fifth five pm in washington d.c. i'm megan lopez and you are watching r.t. . well the situation at the guantanamo bay detention facility continues to grow

more dire by the day for detainees as live on the street lieutenant colonel samuel house has now acknowledged that ninety four of the one hundred sixty six detainees participating in the hunger strike are at the facility seventeen of those ninety four men are now being given liquid nutrients through a nasal tube to prevent weight loss in a recent new york times op ed piece one of the detainees described what it was like to be force fed through one of these all hassan mock bells that quote i will never forget the first time they pass a feeding tube up my nose i cannot describe how painful it is to be force fed this way as it was thrust in it made me feel like throwing up i wanted to vomit but i couldn't there was agony in my chest throat and stomach i had never experienced such pain before i would not wish this cruel punishment upon anyone the united nations human rights commission considers force feeding a form of torture the world medical association prohibits them from using the technique as well to talk more about the ethics of force feeding on the situation

at guantanamo bay james jones joined me earlier and he's a former ambassador for mexico u.s. ambassador to mexico and current co-chair of the constitution project's task force on detainee treatment he began by talking about why he believes that the detainees are on a hunger strike. well i mean a lot of the hunger strike comes from the fact that they've lost hope many of these as you know more than half of them have been cleared for release but they haven't been released and most of them haven't had any kind of a trial or any kind of adjudication of their claims against them so i think it's that's a big factor in what's going on in the hunger strike as far as a treatment within the hunger strike itself right now are hard task force was not able to look at that because that's happened since we actually concluded our panel but we did find instances of torture among prisoners at guantanamo bay and we found in previous activities. at the time which amounted to the amount of the torture

and there's always been questions over all over what type of effect these types of tactics. feeding force feeding in general epically have on the protesters and also the effects of a hunger strike we actually spoke to a doctor recently i student and we're going to play a quick clip from him and then come back to get your opinion you know if you look at past. you know the word hunger strike it's kind of a misnomer because after about forty eight to seventy two hours what happens is you start breaking down. she told since. these ketones are floating around in it actually takes away the sensation so you're actually after a couple of days you're not so we're hunger strike is actually a misnomer. to break. now that was a little bit of a medical explanation of it we have heard in the past that it is extremely painful and despite the fact that all these inmates are using this as

a protest method and despite the fact that they have done this in the past and people have actually died nothing has really changed in guantanamo bay will this protest really change anything or what will it take in order to spur action or change the one of the first things that could be done to spur change would be for these sort of defense of defense to sign an order releasing the roughly half of the prisoners there who our government all such and our government find no reason to keep holding i think that would give some sense that there's not indefinite detention for all the prisoners there so that's one point the other point that i think needs to be done is the use of medical personnel there is a liar in all of these detention or many of these detention issues a lack of confidence to russian ship and i think that relationship has to be reestablished in line with the with the medical ethics so that the doctor can

explain to the prisoner the the actual harm that's being done to the body by going on these under strikes etc at a time when they have a rational. ability to make decisions so i think that's that's those two things would help a whole lot sure now as we mentioned in the beginning here constitution project had focused on torture in this report and one of the things that it talked about in chapter six was the world medical association the declaration of a multi and that now is that prisoners if they are willing to die in a hunger strike if they set out that guideline before and it's not ethical for medical personnel to intervene really and to stop them and also talk about the fact that for sure you know if they do take any can actually resist the torture and yet there you are resist the the method and yet they are the. i think they're on most of them and they're also using their strengths can you talk about the restraints and how that adds to the aspect of this torture classification well i think what we

found in many instances not in the hall but in many instances was that the restraint the. putting it having these prisoners put in position. standing up for many many hours at a time of sleep deprivation all those kinds of things all the real torture by any legal definition or international treaty definition and. all the other signatory i don't believe to the multi agreement fact is it conforms with our own domestic medical ethics principles and i think we should be following. the obama administration back in two thousand and nine said to d.o.j. way out there. and say they found it to be lawful and humane so that obviously contradicts what your report is saying can you talk about this juxtaposition well i think one of the things that. humane is when

a person at the end of the so-called hunger strike is has no ability to resist or anything else the question then is which is more ethical to let the person die or to help the person to live and to feed that person who are speeding away it's a different kind of force in that particular point in a person's life and that's a very tough ethical question the general feeling in the international community is that person have they had they known been counseled on what the effects were should be allowed to to have the free will to die there's a strong resistance to that so i think it's a tough ethical question and as you had mentioned more than half of the prisoners are actually being kept in guantanamo bay have been cleared for release but because of their travel restrictions to. yemen they are not seeing that type of freedom and bastien are james jones he's the former u.s. ambassador to the cohen current co-chair of the constitution's project's task force

on detainee treatment thank you for joining us if you now because of the tight security measures surrounding the guantanamo bay detention facility there are still a lot of unanswered question about the hunger strike itself and the reasons why so many detainees are being held when they were cleared for release for an in-depth look at the information coming out of get mo r.t. international correspondent diane chicken brings us this report. the military has been updating the numbers since the middle of march saying at the beginning that there were fourteen people on strike the detainees defense lawyers have been saying all along the war may need more around one hundred and thirty they would say earlier this month the prison try to put an end to the strike by putting the time and already said they raided the communal living area and forced the detainees into individual cells to prevent them from covering cameras help the number has doubled since then according to the officials again the numbers that we've been getting from defense lawyers were different all along out of one hundred sixty six

guantanamo prisoners eighty six has been cleared for release so the sole reason they're still held captive is their nationality i had the chance to ask the acting assistant secretary on human rights about this collective punishment based on nationality here is what she said the president has made clear his commitment to closing guantanamo but this has to be done in accordance with u.s. law in consultation with the congress so it has to refer you back to their statements by the white house and the spokesman that it's not just about those who have been cleared for release but many other if anything defense lawyers say it's been a dead end for them trying to get their clients out when they're asked about these issues the administration gives the same response they were first to congress what the lawyers say even with the transfer restrictions in place the current law still allows for the administration to use waivers to release some of these men but they for some reason don't use those it's really not clear what can change the status

quo at this point an advisor for the pentagon who visited guantanamo last week came back and said he predicted dangling strike would lead to death so a long time muslim advisor at guantanamo who goes by the name zack who goes only by his first name for security reasons he said quote there will be more than one deaths and then he said it at the detainee squad. i wanted to die out of hunger and thirst behind cover timers end of quote and the question we need now is what if someone really died in this hunger strike we would change the body but i'm going to go. to west texas now where investigators are still trying to piece together the events that led up to the deadly explosion at a local fertilizer plant up until this point the only thing that instigators have been able to rule out with any certainty is the idea that natural causes ignited the fire president obama and the first lady also attended the memorial service today to remember the fourteen people who were killed in the blast some of those

bodies have yet to be identified r.t. correspondent ramon go endo is been in west texas following this case closely with exclusive footage from the site of the blast he brings us the town's emotional story. a.t.f. agents tribute to first responders killed in the west fertilizer plant explosion the blast site they are sifting through it is angled metal the crater is nearly one hundred feet wide and ten feet deep fire trucks at the site are barely recognizable a few hundred yards from the verbalize your company an apartment complex and playground have become piles of rubble many of which are closest to the fertilizer plant are still off limits however we are starting to get a better picture of the damage which was cause if you look behind me that's the actual plant where the fire started you can see major damage to some tanks just to

give you an idea of how potentially deadly this could have been just to this other side is the west intermediate school now school was not in session at the time of the explosion and residents of this small town are very grateful for that had the children been there this would have been a much deadlier tragedy a blue tarp is covering a rail car which contained the explosive ammonium nitrate however investigators say it was not the source of the initial explosion. other chemicals on the plant that's part of the so we don't have specifics as to exactly what chemicals were in the facility as residents clean up and assess the damage are to obtained exclusive video inside of the toy of west middle school the ceiling has collapsed and the building has been sealed off because it is not structurally safe outside shattered windows give the brick school house a haunting feel

a lot of people in this community are heroes. lives about a half mile from the plant at the time of the explosion he was at home with his wife and his eight year old son samuel you know when i first came out it was it was total chaos i mean it was people just running. scream and holler and you know run into the streets coming out their homes people just suffered major damage but he thinks god is that if we have a gun table it was here i was sitting up against the wall so one explosion just loaded the cost of all over here my wife was in the restroom at the time the us is eternally grateful for the firefighters who responded to the fire at the west fertilizer play not knowing it would be their final call. the rules for the victims will continue in the coming days and will remain in texas to figure out of tragedies like the one it was going to be avoided.

in west texas ramona in the party. and now to the latest developments in the boston marathon bombing investigation in a press conference earlier today mayor michael bloomberg and police commissioner ray kelly confirmed that suspected bombers targeted new york city and more specifically times square as a site of their next attack just revealed this information to the f.b.i. late last night claiming his brother ended to quote party in the new york area joe hart changed his story and told them about a spontaneous plan to travel to new york in order to use the remaining explosives so that scenario did not go as planned after the owner of their hijacked car escaped and called the police the latest news comes on the heels of a potential failures in the u.s. information sharing systems a federal audit conducted back in january warned that systems in their current form

would not prevent a terrorist attack the audit labeled the systems themselves as high risk now the issue of communication has been thrust even further into the spotlight as reports untenured to surface of multiple warnings issued by the russian the us to a suspected bomber tomei wants are naive on the terrorist watch list back in moscow the russian president vladimir putin gave his perspective on the bombings calling for closer cooperation between the two countries. oh man americans are not to be blamed they don't understand what is happening here i am addressing them and our citizens to say that russia too is a victim of international terrorism i was always appalled when our western partners at western media labeled terrorists who committed bloody crimes that our country as insurgents and almost never as terrorists these groups received intelligence financial and political support sometimes directly and sometimes in directly we

said declarations merely proclaiming terrorism a common threat were not enough we must get it done those two have proven opposition all to well some u.s. politicians not u.s. leaders or even attempting to announce. a prisoner of war are they out of their minds what kind of p.o.w. wizzy do they fight this civil war between the north and the south again it's just nonsense i'm saying all this not to apportion blame but the cole for bringing the u.s. and russia closer together to resist common threats of which terrorism is one and most dangerous if we truly join our efforts we will prevent such strikes and such losses suffered. ok you up to speed on the investigation as it continues. well hungry chicago residents might have noticed that the fast food lines were moving

a little slower than usual on wednesday that's because workers from nearly a dozen food chains and retail stores walked off of the job for a one day strike the protesters are fighting for hard to say what they have to fight for fifteen dollars campaign the protest demands exactly what the title suggests fifteen dollars an hour for as minimum wage for workers right now many of those people are making anywhere between eight and ten dollars per hour they also want the right to form a union for more on these strikers who they are and what they're demanding from their employers i'm joined now by whole foods employee and striker matthew can't. you are part of this strike so how big was the strike and how many people did you really see involved in this movement how many people are still involved in the movement i think the numbers i got rid of three thousand participate in the actual campaign yesterday. beyond that i know there are hundreds of workers who are involved in the fast food and retail in the loop participated in demonstrations

sure and here an employee at whole foods as i had just won the fortune slot options list of top one hundred best companies to work for over the past sixteen years yet you out on the streets yesterday so i have to ask you what has been your experience working for a whole foods and what's the disconnect here sure absolutely i think you know whole foods has a reputation that it's invested a lot of time and effort and money into something of a worker's paradise and be that as it may our experience of working for the company has been practically the opposite while whole foods it's true pays better than most other grocery stores and in theory which is to say we see. in our we've actually found that actually keeping is very difficult so job security is really what had evaded myself and many of my coworkers to participate in the action yesterday. and let me ask you also matthew how hard is it then to sustain yourself on the both the salary and the instability that you talk about at whole foods so certainly it's

very difficult your whole foods or the employees i think like the highest percentage of graduates in the growth in the grocery industry speaking for myself i've gone to college i have two degrees one in history and one of political science both from state universities but that's left me with about twenty thousand dollars in student debt and i think it doesn't well go ahead and say it ten dollars an hour quite frankly is not enough money to make a dent in those debts so it's something that we're constantly living with and tie on top of that to put on top of that cable bills rent insurance etc it becomes almost unbearable that matthew are you afraid of some type of risk of retaliation i mean you're putting your face out there and you did yesterday as well when you are striking are you afraid that whole foods might fire you should i think that you know of all the companies that were struck yesterday by the thought for fifteen campaign. whole foods is one of the ones that's most likely to get out it's

employees who participated in the reason i say that is the company is notorious for its anti-union policies that being said i think i have tremendous confidence in the acts of solidarity with my sisters and brothers in fast food retail as well as with the legal team. that's our union the workers organizing committee of chicago has put together to defend our rights and that's an important point we have the right to organize in this country in the united states and we we stood up for that right yesterday let's talk a little bit more about the demands that you are going for as you just expressed you are looking to have some type of a union for the fact is that most retail jobs do not have unions and fast food at the end of fast food industry as almost entirely so does not have a sort of union but also i want to ask you about the minimum wage are you protesting whole foods. in particular are you protesting the entire minimum wage system of chicago actually this is a question this is a conscious against the entire minimum wage system of chicago particularly with

a minimum wage is eight dollars and twenty five cents an hour it's outrageous you simply cannot live on eight dollars and twenty five cents an hour sure and talk about how that compares to the rest of the country i know i mentioned chicago has eight dollars and twenty five cents an hour but what about the rest of the country sure the rest of the community so it's seven dollars and twenty five cents an hour that's the federal minimum wage so you can imagine it's even worse for most people that are living and working under these conditions the reality is that fast food and retail is the fastest growing industry in the united states and yet they insist on paying rock bottom wages to their employees and so they have a fast growing history that's that's hiring more people than any other industry in the nation. at a wage that's quote from the unsustainable if we expect to achieve anything in our lives as you had mentioned that if we were three is the fastest growing highest grossing lowest paying industry and i want to i say how fastest growing that's all

because of the recession before the recession the jobs only made twenty one percent of it but they got gains ever since the recession may have fifty eight percent of it i'm going to have to thank you for joining us in the end it there that was whole foot in finance tracker matthew camp sure thank you very much. well it's thursday and you know what that means it's time for our weekly tech report and there is a lot coming out of the tech world this week so let's get straight to it joining me today is carl franzen he's a reporter from the verge all right first topic and this one is a doozy carl a last minute amendment to the cyber a television sharing and protection act was blocked by members of the u.s. house of representatives even that would have essentially banned employers from forcing workers to hand over all of their social media passwords the provision was actually proposed by congressman ed perlmutter and it was voted down two hundred forty four two hundred twenty four excuse me to one hundred eighty nine. sure that's a great question i think that. when we look at kind of the social media laws that

have been passed so far in different states it seems like they were trying to do something similar here on cissp on tax that on to the end doesn't look like that's going to happen it doesn't look like the actual bill itself is going to move much further than it has already it's already passed the house of representatives but it still needs to go through the senate get passed there and then to president obama's desk in the obama administration has already issued a very strong statement of administration policy is what they're called and this basically says that in its current form it is. not something that the president will be signing in fact he would veto it if it came to his desk because it does not contain strong enough privacy protections so we not have also heard today there was a representative spokes person i should say from the the senate committee on commerce and science and transportation which would be the one in charge of the

senate version of cispa and. that that person spoke to several media outlets including u.s. news and world report and said that the senate doesn't seem to have any intention of picking up its current form so it seems like we might end up with a similar situation to what we had last year in two thousand and twelve this but also passed the house but it just did not move on to the senate or to the president's desk so it looks like it might just stall out again then he always has the veto power now let's go back to this topic being able to access the passwords i understand that several states already ban this practice was etc now because it was such a last minute ad or because it's something that the states would deal with or because congress members really believe that employers should have uninvited access to a lot it's an interesting issue and you know i think it is one that people are increasing going to have to grapple with both on the state and federal. you know lawmakers themselves but also big companies like facebook and twitter and other

social networks that people use a lot more nowadays but i mean so far it seems like the federal government has taken a hands off approach to this was an interesting you know last minute addition or curveball there's been some attempts also precisely last year believe senator blumenthal may have introduced a similar bill on its own but don't quote me on that that's correct i haven't checked in in a little while but point is that people are attacking it from all levels of government it seems like that's going to be something that they will look into on the federal level if not insist you know in another form perhaps separately all right let's move on to the next topic up for debate and also communications privacy act of nine hundred eighty six the house and the senate have taken up legislation legislation they are taking it out next week they've already debated it to require police to obtain a warrant in order to search e-mail and other private online content the current e.c.p.a. law only requires a subpoena for all e-mails that have been on or for those that are more than one

hundred eighty days old how likely is this reform to pass through growth both branches. again this is we're seeing an issue that was similar to what we saw last year the e.c.p.a. or act supply hard one to pronounce because it is you know just a bunch of letters mashed up there but we saw a similar issue last year where it went through got through the same committee that it did today the senate judiciary committee which is chaired by patrick leahy the democratic senator of vermont and now this is basic this bill is basically his baby i mean he's been trying to push this for. i would say about three or two or three years now so last year he got it managed to through his own community which was mild six together. again we'll see if the rest of the senate decides to move forward on it it does have the strong backing of privacy advocates like the electronic frontier foundation and google you know the the the search company internet company so there's

a lot of people outside of government that do want to see this go through and believe that it is necessary to keep e-mails and other electronic communication secure and really move them and let's move on to one more time to the final topic senator jay rockefeller said this week that legislation for the do not track option for internet users will pass this year this option would penalize businesses for ignoring consumer wishes to not be tracked online but carl everyone thinks this is a good thing the only debate is whether they should have to click a button to say i do not want to be tracked on whether it should just be automatic so what is taking so long for this to pass is a great question it's funny that you say that we were having this debate over at the verge new york city office earlier today about what the hold up my it has been a long time coming i think that a lot of what has emerged at least publicly at this point is that advertising companies online advertisers and their associations are a bit resistant to really endorsing this wholeheartedly i mean

a lot of them did come on board when it was first introduced but now they're trying to water it down and say that you know there should be exceptions in this. that case because they do want to be able to deliver targeted advertising through web browsing history use and your activity online so that and carl wood i'm going to have to end it there unfortunately we're out of time this is a fascinating discussion carl friends and reporter from the verge thanks that thanks for and that's going to do it for now for more on the start to cover go to youtube dot com slash arcam erica check me out on twitter at meghan underscored as . 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 we're watching is the very heavy snow moving into boston properly today it was very sticky you can see it start to become much more time to read the ground line

there's a lot of snow out here and a good place for snow ball play. dates and it is going to pretty incredible day there and record snowfall throughout much of a night will be slow to drive your listeners to the urgency of fear lurks absence.