coming up on r t in response to the guantanamo bay hunger strike president obama reinstate his promise to close the detention camp so what options would he house for finally ending a place of indefinite detentions and human rights abuses find out just ahead the u.s. has seen a decade long expansion of prison industrial complex says but what is it like for the to be actually one of the people locked up inside a system words from the other side coming up. plus the charges were recently dismissed in a case against an animal welfare activist who recorded a video of a utah slaughterhouse but that's not the end of the ongoing clash of transparency and private interests we'll tell you more in today's show.

it's tuesday may second four pm in washington d.c. lopez and you are watching our t.v. starting off this hour a new information is coming out this week about a federal public defender who was actually found dead in his apartment investigators say that thirty eight year old andy hart committed suicide he died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound early last week hart left behind a suicide note in a thumb drive reportedly containing case files of his clients and some of those clients were actually guantanamo bay inmates over the years he represented a low level al qaeda operative colleague saeed mohammed accused tunisian extremist hakimi and most notably mohamed rockeymoore all afghani a man who was thought to have been osama bin laden's translator. meanwhile the hunger strike in guantanamo bay has no end in sight one hundred of the one hundred

sixty six detainees there are actually starving themselves twenty three of them are now being force fed by medical personnel this is happening despite president obama's renewed promise to actually close that detention facility down in cuba there are a lot of questions and criticisms over why president obama has made these promises time and time again but as actually failed to follow through some believe that the president's hands are tied by congress well our chief political commentator sam sacks shows us what measures the president can take without congress' approval this week the hunger strike at the u.s. military detention facility in guantanamo bay grows with more than one hundred prisoners now involved in the president once again pledges get mowed down. it is not a surprise to me that we've got problems in guantanamo which is why. when i was campaigning in two thousand and two thousand and eight. and when i was elected in two thousand and eight i said we need to close guantanamo i continue to believe that we've got

to close guantanamo now congress. determined that they would not let us close. now it's true congress has thrown roadblocks they've denied funding for a new facility in the u.s. to replace get mo they forbid in any prisoners from being tried in the us in civilian courts they forbid in the transfer of detainees to nations in unrest or that sponsor terrorism and they have for been the release of any prisoner until the administration can confirm with absolute certainty that these prisoners won't pose a future risk the united states something that's well it's impossible to guarantee so yeah congress hasn't made it easy and with the latest poll showing seventy percent of americans support keeping give open well don't expect congress to budge any time soon but it sounds like the president foresees a moral crisis at the facility stays open so what can he do right now to close it well first he can certify the release of more than half of the current detainees by claiming it's in the interest of national security there are one hundred sixty six

men act get mo only nine have been convicted or charged with the crime another twenty four could soon face prosecution and forty seven are considered threats the united states but aren't facing prosecution mainly because the evidence obtained against them is not permissible in court like if the authorities got a confession but they used waterboarding to get it so that leaves eighty six other prisoners cleared for release yet remaining get no block by congress the congress does allow for an individual to be released if it's in the interest of national security so right now right now the president can order the pentagon to use this loophole to get those eighty six prisoners out of get now fifty six of those eighty six prisoners cleared for release sort. transfer are from yemen a country barred by the administration from receiving detainees so the president would have to lift this ban next the president and let the courts do his work for him there have been more than one hundred a.b.'s corpus cases filed on behalf of get no prisoners by groups like the center for constitutional rights so he the

president can instruct his justice department to not fight these court cases essentially giving him a good no plaintiff's a win that would lead to either their release or an actual trial and finally the president can actually make closing gitmo a top priority all these blocks by congress expire on september thirtieth when the national defense authorization act which contains these provisions expires to congress will likely try to keep these provisions in place but the president can tell congress that he'll veto any bill that prevents him from closing gitmo is three and a veto before but never actually went through with it of course this would require the president to use a lot of political capital but if he really considers getting only moral stain that would cost him and the nation a lot more to keep it open in washington same sex are two. well from the detention facilities abroad to those right back here at home let's turn now to the state of prisons within the u.s. remember the story we told you about last week where thirteen female corrections

officers in baltimore have been indicted for actually helping inmates run drug operations while the union who is represents those officers has now responded to that representative say that they have identified several systematic witness weaknesses at the detention center they say that a love staff might actually have contributed to that problem meanwhile governor martin o'malley insisted the eichmanns of the inmates interaction with facility and the correctional officers was quote a positive meant in maryland's fight against violent gangs also defended his prison chief let's talk about that more broadly the prison system if correction officers actually could get away with this what else are they getting away with one joined now by macca gaskins he's a community organizer in prison rights advocate marc was a prisoner for fourteen years in the virginia department of corrections men were spent at rod but i mean supermax prison right in appalachian not too far from here where quote the worst of the worst are held in confinement max thank you so much

for joining us so we talked a lot about this prison in a cigarette a coalminer anyone can you tell me what that term means to you so the prison industrial complex i mean there's different differently pieces to that we can only talk about prison talking about distances. folks so i herded into a prisoner prison is like on the back in the. arms someone that went to prison at the age of seventeen and came home when i was almost thirty two years old so fourteen and a half years. and. six of those you spent in solitary confinement like in my opinion two of the worst presidents in the country because of the isolation of these presidents like no publicity. where i would like to be tortured in these presidents like all the other prisoners that were there like the beating but beaten by the guards like that by dogs shot with rubber bullets that they shoot from a twelve gauge shotgun and. have our mills refuse on a daily basis. here like all the horror stories that you've heard before it's like

indoor i'm a witness no i think. it's like we talk about the prison industrial complex i get an idea of like what prisons like what the true role the function of a prison is in this country. and prison so i have always in this country like represented a place that does represent like one of the chief impression institutions like in a society like this is where you put political prisoners people who like commit acts that directly challenge the government or like the moral fiber of the government and the way society is structured right and then once i like to like expand that to what is a political prisoner me because almost everyone is in prison and some sense of the political prisoner in the south of in the sense of if you are a politicized prisoner like you're someone who comes to prison for not for political action but you go to prison and you become politicized the treatment is pretty much the same as like a little prison in terms of like ever getting released from prison like your jack

and with the politicized prisoner one of the most famous prisoners ever being go to prison for political act but imprisoned he became politicized on the black panther party and he never got out of prison but. all the folks are in prison for like property crimes and most crimes are property crimes are like stem from that robberies and theft. crimes of poverty right like there are some exceptions but for the most part most prisoners like are in prison because of a political basis like the war on poverty is political a war on drugs is political it's not like a coincidence certainly an interesting argument and let's talk about the justice system do you think that people are treated differently within the prison system based on race or based on class or anything like that definitely house and well i think that most laws are are a way to avoid but they get at certain communities or certain people they will definitely is an equal across the board based on class based on race right like but

when they get within those at a correctional facility do you think they're treated differently. the laws are kind of blurred there but only because most people present poor you don't have to you don't have any signs of the waltons like in prison you have poor people in prison whether late black latino whatever. these presence up in the appalachian and that region a. very unique because when i came there came there. and two thousand and four i believe and it was almost like an office leadership this like it's permissible to talk about the two in the same breath. because these why folks that live in that region they had never interacted with blacks or latinos before and all of the folks that were on that bus were black and latino so if the racial tension was very high . so it was like racism right like that. mentality that

singling them people through institutions right had nothing to do with like the whole argument of whether a person is humane or not but to talk about your personal experience and these alleged torture that you suffered the day i got to run a state prison there we were met by like fifteen guards at the gate and they had helmets on they had on double they had dogs you know guns and they had a checklist and then also anyone on the bus of all the folks on the bus that needed to be trained and i was one of them i was sent there for allegedly assaulting an officer and i've been involved with a work stoppage at sussex one state prison so they drag me off the bus and bring me inside and begin. this process of humiliation like stripped naked and over and i refused so they beat me unconscious me naked they dragged me across the yard i still have scratches on my feet from that incident and they took me to the spurs

again where the torture i can creased the strap today as they have this practice called five arm restraints where they put you down on the bed and they leave you there for days. and fortunately only have a very short amount of time left but i want to ask you. do you think that people are listening to you when you say that there is torture going on her do you think anyone listens and why would they listen to a so-called hardened criminal. yeah well that's you know part of this like. people mean like first of all ignorance rightly people not really knowing what the troll and function of a prison is like what actually happens inside of a prison there was there's a guy around the end so and he was like the director of corrections and sitting at one point and he was doing an interview and he was asked why how can you justify keeping these men locked in the cells twenty three hours a day and his response was that we didn't bring him up here to rehabilitate him we brought him to die it's like all the money for the programs have been cut and these

prisons one part of the reason prison like all of that like prison is so leaping that there's no very interesting the way that the prison system functions and that gaskins community organizer and prison rights advocates thank you for joining us that you're making on a personal story thank you. well in the aftermath of nine eleven the american public and congress came to a consensus that sacrificing some privacy was necessary in the name of national security never again we told ourselves and indeed a terror attack of that scale has not happened on american soil since but how do we strike a balance between protecting the public and security overkill and with the massive dodge of massive budgets that the d.o.d. and the d.h.s.s. have at their disposal why weren't the boston bombing suspects can't sue ner r t international correspondent marina porton iowa takes a look back at america's insecurities and how they continue today to fuel our security complex september eleventh two thousand and one terrorism claims the lives of nearly three thousand americans at a construction of

a super sized us security paradigm begins. surveillance technology has become the driving force behind washington's counterterrorism strategy bodies scanned at airports faces filmed on the streets and social media closely monitored in cyberspace there has been a similar we're denigration of civil rights and civil liberties and the aggregate of power by federal government authorities and by law enforcement against individual since two thousand and one around seven hundred and ninety billion dollars has reportedly been spent on cementing america's homeland security apparatus a platinum wall of defense easily shattered by inexpensive pressure cookers ball bearings nails and a free bomb building manual that could be found on the internet you just can't prevent terrorism in the current model with these surveillance technologies are can

go into a rite aid and walking with the makings of a bomb you can build a bomb in my own house put it in a backpack. put it on a street corner and kill fifteen or twenty people three people died and more than two hundred seventy were hospitalized last month after twin bombs exploded near the boston marathon finish line by terrorist attack in broad daylight that no camera or law enforcement official was able to prevent i believe this was a massive failure of the the surveillance state that we've created in america since nine eleven we have spent over seven hundred billion dollars on national security and a lot of that is surveillance with the help of surveillance video the f.b.i. was eventually able to identify the boston bombings suspect however the best images did not come from a public camera the video was reportedly filmed by a private camera belonging to the department store lord and taylor every publicly

installed camera for every camera that the n.y.p.d. puts out or bloomberg kelley or or some security agency puts out there's anywhere from thirty to fifty privately installed cameras they're being installed everywhere it's a pin up the con everywhere you go you're being watched in new york city the u.s. capitol of surveillance four thousand security cameras are mounted just in lower manhattan alone facial recognition has become the new normal in the big apple and recently city officials proclaimed privacy to be off the table the attacks in boston and the news that new york city was nest on the terrorist list shows just how critical it is for the federal government to devote resources to high risk areas it also shows just how crucial it is for the n.y.p.d. to continue to gather to expand its counterterrorism capabilities and intelligence gathering activities meanwhile the u.s.

president is questioning whether his administration needs to apply new strategies to tackle domestic terrorism or the. more things that we can do whether it's. gauging in engaging with communities where there's a potential for self radicalization of this disorder. is there work that can be done in terms of detection detecting terror in the homeland eleven and a half years after america's global war on terror began. r.t. new york well may day has traditionally been a celebration of spring as well as international workers' rights but demonstrations in seattle turned violent again this year. thank you thank you thank you police officer squared off with hundreds of protesters wednesday night marchers broke windows and threw rocks bottles and fireworks at police officers law

enforcement responded with flash bang grenades and pepper spray seventeen people were arrested for assault and property damage the anti capitalism protests occurred right after a peaceful immigration rally earlier in the day now as i mentioned this is not the first time that the city has actually had violence erupt during a may day protest last year protesters clad in black raised in all black raised havoc on the city prompting the mayor to make an emergency declaration to quell the violence that was enough to prompt the government to send f.b.i. agents out to seattle even before this year's may day protests began to track down an archivist's but even that wasn't enough to prevent the violence now back in our nation's capital if you intermittent spurts of violence broke out during demonstrations once when protesters veered from the route that they had planned to go and rushed clothing store and once when a brawl broke out between

a few protesters. now the latest two the first ever prosecution of a person under utah's two thousand and twelve ad gag law prosecutors have now dropped all charges against twenty five year old the mayor mayor faced a class b. misdemeanor charge for allegedly interfering with agricultural operations when she filmed practices taking place at the draper slaughter house on her blog she described seeing cows struggling to be free piles of horns flesh being spewed from a shoot on the side of the building and sit cattle being harmed carted away as if they were piles of rubble but after dominating the headlines of publications across the country the case was dropped so is this a win for animal rights advocates well for more i'm joined by will potter he's an independent journalist hi there well thank you for joining me first of all he's also the author excuse me of green is the new read the book that you're looking at there so will does this latest news out of utah suggest anything as far as ads go move ing forward i think it really reflects that the biggest way and the

most effective way to fight these bills around the country is just the most effective way to expose abuses on factory farms and that's to shine a light on it and expose what's happening what happened in utah as soon as news of this prosecution broke out people were outraged i mean it may have literally went viral and got hundreds of thousands of views and just twenty four hours later the prosecutors dropped all charges and to me that really reflects the state of this legislation the industry wants it on the books but when it comes to enforcing it i think there's going to be a difficult road ahead so let's break this down into two parts first of all this talk about this case specifically i understand that this case is a little bit more unique in the fact that she was actually on public property do you think that the prosecution used that as an excuse to to drop these charges in the midst of unpopular press absolutely i mean if you look at utah's law which is still overly broad and very vague it doesn't include this type of activity like filming from the side of the road or filming from pub. property it specifically

says you have to be trespassing among other things so the law clearly cannot apply i mean this was a losing battle there is no way that amy meyer could have been convicted in court for this but the real danger is the chilling effect this has i mean prosecutions like this being arrested for being prosecuted for filming from the side of the road makes other people afraid and that's why these bills are so dangerous almost talk about the other kaviak to this the owner of that meat packing factory was actually the mayor of this utah county is currently so isn't that a conflict of interest absolutely but it's the same conflict of interest we're seeing around the country in iowa where the very first ag law that was passed in the last legislative session the sponsors all have close ties to the agriculture industry we're seeing a similar pattern that with that in pennsylvania and tennessee which is now considering that the industry is going to close ties with politicians on this and that really should make everyone politics and how do you think the media actually

played into this do you see that this case would have gone through it had the media and these negative headlines actually come out about this case i think it's very clear i mean if this media attention hadn't been there that the prosecutors were to move forward i don't think she would have been convicted i don't think that would be impossible hopefully but she could have been tied up in the court system for a year a year and a half going through this process having a way over her you know every day facing potential jail time fines and i think that exposing this and writing about it helped shine a light on that but let's talk about the bigger picture here now dropping this case is obviously good news for any mayor but is it dropping this case does it necessarily make for good for the battle overall when it comes to these ag laws i mean obviously it's shine some light but in a couple of months this story is going to be forgotten right well in the law still on the books i mean six you know is a victory to have this prosecution dropped but the utah ag law still exists so does iowa and missouri and other states and right. now the tennessee governor is

considering signing another piece of legislation pennsylvania more legislation is about to be introduced in north carolina and these bills are still a threat i think what you talk shows is the importance of fighting them tooth and nail and exposing what's actually happening and without once that happens the public overwhelmingly opposes them well let's talk about all of those other states that you just brought out this is something that isn't contracting if this expanding right what it's expanding in unique ways i mean the industry has been met with the severe backlash against this legislation that criminalizes photography and video and what we're seeing now are new bills being introduced that don't even mention photography and also don't even mention factory farms and agriculture in north carolina the bill is called the commerce protection act occludes every industry not just farming i mean this is people who are working on all assembly lines or tobacco plants that includes all workers what do you think that this says about the current state of industry in this country i think what it really reflects

is that the biggest threat to business as usual for any corporation in any industry is an informed public and that's why the industry that's why the agriculture industry is trying to shut down opposition and keep consumers in the dark all right well potter thank you so much for joining us that was well potter independent journalist and author of green is the new red exxon mobil can't seem to get a break these days but it's hype sure can the company confirmed on wednesday that the troubled pegasus pipeline had another rupture this time in ripley county missouri according to exxon mobil senior planning adviser russ roberts forty two gallons of crude oil spilled into a yard at a residence in the city of dhoni on roberts said that cleanup for this latest leak was already underway at this point investigators don't know how long this section of the pipeline has been leaking for. we're not sure how long but the investigation

we're doing should be able to uncover the information for some that now this seventy year old pipeline was in the news just last month when a rupture in the mayflower arkansas leaked actually nearly five thousand barrels worth of crude oil into a neighborhood and for those of you who don't want to do the math that's two thousand two hundred ten thousand gallons of oil cleanup in arkansas arkansas is still ongoing the pipeline was temporarily shut down after the spill happened and was not in operation when the missouri spill actually occurred on an average day the pegasus line usually carries over nine hundred thousand barrels a day of crude oil from illinois to texas perhaps the stock market is taking notice of exxon's failures though the company reported virtually flat profits for the first quarter of this year although it still is the world's largest publicly traded oil company and reported a net income of nine point five billion dollars well do you love your job do you

love it enough to get a tattoo of the company's logo what if you were offered a pay raise in return well that is exactly what the owner of rapid realty in new york is offering to his employees one tattoo for a fifteen percent pay raise at least forty employees have reportedly taken c.e.o. anthony lolly up at his word that two selves in return for some green the company currently employs around seven hundred fifty people and is in the process of expanding here's how the owner explains why he decided to come up with this incentive for his employees. credit doesn't go to rapid realty owner anthony lolly he says he got the idea from a loyal employee who wasn't doing it for money so he calls me up and says a anthony i'm getting a logo on the ice i show up at the shop and i'm like this is cool how can i repay you no word on if the owner plans to pay for tattoo removal if the employee leaves

the company or is forcibly removed but in a tight belt economy like this one it just goes to show that people are willing to do whatever it takes to make ends meet which reminds me michel i'd like my twenty five percent pay raise thank you. and that's going to do it for now for more on the stars they got covered go to youtube dot com slash r t america don't forget to check out our website at r t dot com slash usa and you can also follow me on twitter at meghan underscore lopez but stay tuned i'll be back at five pm prime interest comes up next that's our new financial show. technology innovation all the developments around russia we've got the future covered. sometimes you see

a story and it seems so for lengthly you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize that everything you thought you don't. welcome is a big picture. goal .

good afternoon to welcome the prime interest i'm perry and boring here in

washington d.c. and here's the story that we're tracking today. rolling stones that t.v. weighed in on brown vitter the tough new banking bill that was introduced last week he had some harsh words regarding a report that was issued by standard and poor's which is one of the bill's critics tavi wrote the paper essentially hands back forcing banks to retain more capital could lead to world of financial collapse the onset of a new ice age mamet's roaming the past. however as of yesterday have closed climate change futures were not yet pricing in this telling bobs ability. this morning president of the european central bank mario draghi cut the main.