c.e.o. don carty dot com. well coming up on our t.v. protest against monsanto will soon become global activists have announced plans to host demonstrations in dozens of countries to voice their concerns over months santo's genetically modified food will give you a preview of things to come. in the u.s. representative eliot engel has introduced a bill that would blacklist all stolen electronic devices from service because this actually happened well look at this and his efforts to secure our online data out later in the show. and the people of pakistan are experiencing a hectic election season with a series of attacks taking place around their country we'll have a report from the ground on the violence this election e. well

it's friday may tenth five pm in washington d.c. i'm margaret how well you're watching r t. we start out today with a movement that is getting everyone from environmentalists to regular consumers questioning what they're consuming now activists against genetically modified organisms are organizing a worldwide protest against the biotech month santa later this month now on may twenty fifth at eleven am pacific time the march against months and so is expected by organizers to hit over two hundred fifty cities across six continents now this coming on the heels of congress passage of what critics of corning the month santo protection act now this is a bill that protects companies against the produce of genetically modified products from litigation large he contacted months santo but the company did not provide a statement in time for this newscast and the press release from the event tami canelo the seattle organizer she said that she got into it because she was

concerned for her two children sitting i film on santo threatens their generations held fertility and long jetty i couldn't sit by idly and wait for someone else to do something well she certainly isn't alone in her sentiment activists from across thirty six nations are organizing facebook to make their voices heard about why they're what they're protesting against i'm joined by a nick barnaby now he's the social director of media for march against month santa mr bernie i understand that you're an organizer tell me about these global protests what has people so up in arms. well you know we've been we've been following the. way that they've been infiltrating the government and where they've been kind of more thing in the government and morphing into basically one entity and you know we . we do a lot of alternative media and we were following we've been following them for

a long time now but what really has really started getting people to realize something was going on was the passage of them on signs of protection act like you were saying earlier and you know that's really gotten a lot of people to start questioning you know what's going on with these jim. and people are ready to start you know making a stand for their food supply well i'd let's talk about that next that monsanto protection act you know if it provides these bio it has a really interesting sense that provides bioengineering companies freedom from liability if their products cause any harm or health issues to anyone now what does that say about this relationship between those legislature earth and the biotech companies like monsanto well it's it's kind of scary because. these companies and the government as well they they hold out they hold the belief that generals are fine and that they're healthy and that they're good for us and that they're going to solve world hunger and things like this but you know

a big question. that comes up when you see something like the months on some protection act is why do they need to be protected from the law why are they putting themselves above the law and who are these politicians that are willing to just do what they're told to do because of the money that they're receiving from these huge companies that's an excellent point so talk to me about that relationship neck you mentioned earlier that they were infiltrating the government house can you tell me what you meant by that. well you have the director of the f.d.a. . he's a former months onselen lawyer the clarence thomas a supreme court judge he was he's a former monsanto attorney and you know those are just the top two there are there's tons of just intertwining and another thing to do is hire bill hire former politicians former congressmen to become lobbyist for their companies so that they really do work in the inside of washington d.c. ok well at the heart of this the bottom line people just want to know what they're

consuming and we saw monsanto spend millions of dollars to defeat that proposition thirty seven in california where you are what's going to force companies to put that label on g.m.o. products what sort of movement are you seeing in california with this. well you know californians were really they were really activated for the prop thirty seven and there was tons of grassroots movement and we had millions of people. organized and ready to you know vote vote in favor of prop thirty seven but like you said there was no use of dollars coming in from companies like monsanto to to keep the to keep these laws from being passed and you know in my opinion the easiest way to know what's in your food is by growing your own food and i think that's that's the legacy that we want to we want to. and we want to have people remember the march against monsanto for is we want we want to spread awareness about the new techniques that people can use the technologies that people can use to start

growing their own food or if they can grow their own maybe start a community garden if they can do that at least you know the very least support local farmers and buy organic ok excellent points there nick i want to talk to you we're running out of time here but i want to talk to you about the company's bottom line you know there are even as this anti monsanto movement is growing the company itself is continuing to generate a guy rocketing profits garnering twenty two percent an increase in april alone so the congress says bill you know is this because consumers are going to the grocery store and buy you know buying their products blindly why is this. well that's part of it another another thing is that. you see that monsanto is also a huge beneficiary of what we call. corporate welfare and a lot of a lot of monsanto's products are being subsidized by the government a lot of the food that they have on you can get with food stamps and with you know a lot of the poor people and they can't really afford to make

a choice between organic and and you know g.m.o. so a lot of the stuff that you see. on food stamps is all g.m. most of one of the most disturbing things is almost all of the baby formula baby formula that they have is all g.m.o. so it's it's a pretty scary thing you think about it like that. a lot of information quickly tell me nick what do you want these protests to accomplish well like i was saying i want we want to spread awareness and we want to start from the ground so you know the very very you know the easiest thing you can do to know what's in your food is to grow your own we started there at the very top is you know we want labeling on a ban but i think we should work from the ground up to have the best results we've got another we've got to leave it there nick that was the march against month and us director and social professional media nick barnaby and you now want to chevron the company that finds itself in court this time trying to reverse an earlier

ruling granting billions in damages to ecuadorian villagers now this suit fined chevron liable to the tune of nineteen billion dollars for the deliberate dumping of toxic waste in aqua door as far back as thirty years ago but several it has hired almost two thousand lawyers to fight this payment well our teeth political commentator sam sacks tells us more. the more than a decade long legal battle between chevron corp and tens of thousands of ecuadorian villagers took another turn this week as a federal judge in new york ordered this guy's chevron c.e.o. john watson to testify in the case and defend his company against an eighteen billion dollar legal settlement now here's the story in two thousand and one chevron bought texaco a company that drilled for oil in ecuador in this area over here and it's alleged that texaco contributed to the environmental contamination of the ecuadorian rain forest and the poisoning of local populations with these oil pits that you see here

by buying texaco in two thousand and one chevy one was suddenly responsible for all of texaco's liabilities and pending lawsuits and that liability grew a lot more expensive in two thousand and eleven when a judge in ecuador ruled on behalf of the plaintiffs in the case ordering chevron to pay more than nine billion dollars in damages later revised up to eighteen billion dollars the second largest environmental judgment in history second only to b.p.'s gulf oil spill now chevron is the third most profitable corporation in the world in two thousand and twelve bittern more than twenty six billion dollars it paid only a nineteen percent tax rate roughly half of what the actual top corporate tax rate is and on top of all of that it receives seven hundred million dollars a year in benefits from the government in other words chevron is flush with cash and is use that cash to buy influence here in washington d.c. and make sure those ecuadorians never see a dime from that legal settlement in fact chevrons campaign to avoid paying damages

began long before the ecuadorian court ruling in two thousand and eleven according to a state department cable released by wiki leaks chevron was asking the u.s. state department to put pressure on ecuador to assume the cost of all the environmental damages the table reads quote in previous meetings chevron reps of the suggested that the us government pressure the government of ecuador to assume responsibility for the environmental damage in the areas once operated by chevron. also chevron put pressure on the u.s. trade representative to punish ecuador if the government doesn't kill the lawsuit as newsweek reported in two thousand and eight quote chevron is pushing the bush administration to take the extraordinary step of yanking special trade preferences for ecuador if the country's leftist government doesn't cooperate the case chevrons powerhouse team includes former senate majority leader trent lott former democratic senator john breaux and wayne berman a top fundraiser for the john mccain all with access to washington's top decision

makers this move by chevron prompted a response from twenty five members of congress urging the trade rep to reject chevrons petition one of these members representative linda sanchez said of chevron's behavior quote rather than allowing this case to come to a conclusion embarking on cleanup efforts or even seeking mediation chevron has engaged in a lobbying effort that looks like little more than extortion apparently if it can't get the outcome it wants from the ecuadorian court system chevron will use the u.s. government to that i trade benefits until ecuador cries uncle chevron has since used its corporate cheshire chest to hire an army of lawyers in new york city with the help of more than two thousand lawyers and more than sixty law firm chevron has jammed up the courts and this year secured a victory when a new york city judge put a temporary injunction on that eighteen billion dollars settlement chevrons thousands of lawyers also launched countersuits to discredit the lead attorney

representing the ecuadorian villagers steve dunn figure and allege that evidence that the oil giant that was collected against the oil giant was phony now it's true this week that done figure one a small victory forcing chevron c.e.o. to testify but his case on behalf of the ecuadorian villagers is falling apart again chevrons legal onslaught. and you can't divorce what's happening in this case from the proper actual treatment big oil is received from congress and the over the top profits that lawmakers hope oil giants like chevron secured year in and year out profits that are then used by go argue to crush david in struggles just like this so just like wall street big oil is too big to jail in washington sam sachs r t well earlier this week pretrial hearings continued in the case against private bradley manning however not much is known about the latest round of corporate seatings in an unprecedented move the us government decided to hold most of those

hearings behind closed doors limiting access to the public and the press now this latest move comes after many in the media have expressed frustration over the lack of transparency and clarity in the government's handling of information surrounding this case as well as the lack of access to one organization is trying to change all valid the freedom of the press foundation and now a new fund raising campaign designed to raise money to hire a professional still not refer to cover the manning trial the money would go towards hiring a court reporter that would transcribe every event of this meeting trial as of right now there is no official stenographer and the only information regarding the trial comes the reporters on the scene now over the next three to four months the group hopes to raise between forty and fifty thousand dollars the foundation hopes that this project will help a journalist and give information surrounding the case out quickly now the trial is slated to start june third. well congress's approval rating has remained below

twenty percent since october and a new gallup poll released yesterday places congressional approval at sixteen percent in may now from cyber security and surveillance legislation to immigration there's a lot in the legislative docket but there's one issue that combines these topics warrantless searches of electronics on the border now the department of homeland security says that this practice is within the letter of the law but one congressman is trying to change all that now r.t. producer rachel currency us went to the hill yesterday to meet with congressman eliot engel of new york to talk about that ongoing concern of privacy issues like this one she joins me now hi there rachel so describe for me congressman ingles office i know you know he seems to be legislating a lot on these issues of cell phones a laptop did you see any lying around yeah that's a funny question i'm glad you brought that up so you're right that congressman engel has been working is a couple of bills he's already introduced this session the cell phone theft prevention act when the truth essentially blacklist all stolen cell phones so they

could no longer receive service in the hopes of just incentivizing those thefts as well as a social networking online protection act also known as snow which would make it illegal for employers or schools to ask for students or potential employees social networking passwords so yes he certainly seems like he's working on these sort of cell phone laptop stuff like that but in his actual office the office that we conducted the interview and funnily enough i didn't see any laptops or computers those are kind of where his staffers were sitting got it ok. as i told you he might just be reintroducing this bill the securing our borders and data act bill what is it and how is it going to impact civil liberties for the rest of us so this bill was first introduced in two thousand and eight with co-sponsor then congressman ron paul and the idea was that on the borders do you tests at that point and the department of homeland security was searching people's electronics when they were on the border you they're coming in or out. out of the united states they were

saying we need to be able to see what's on your cell phone we need to be able to see what's on your laptop so even if you say had a password protecting yourself you would have to then type in that password so they could take a look and so congressman engel and then congressman paul one had to pass this bill d.h.s.s. in response said listen we're going to get our civil liberties our civil rights arm of our organization we're going to look into this will have an answer for you within one hundred twenty days three years later this is what they said they said quote i c.e. which stands for immigration and customs enforcement and the c b p which stands for custom and border patrol exercise longstanding constitutional and statutory statutory authority permitting suspicion list and warrantless searches of merchandise at the border and its functional equivalent so i asked congressman engel what do you make of this assessment and this is what he told me i think it's an outrage i think that nobody should be forced to give their pin numbers or their

passwords or or anything like that. it's private and i don't think it should be given unless steere's suspicion unless there's due cause of most of these probable cause ok rachel so. did you get the feel from him that he thinks that this bill actually has a shot of passing yeah i did ask him that question and i said you know do you think that this is going to go through and this is what he told me. oh i do oh i do and i hope that it will it will get past you know sometimes great ideas take a while to pass and when i tell people about about this and i tell them be experience that some people have had with this people are really to shock they never thought about it before so we're gaining some steam and hopefully in the not too distant future will be able to pass that now ok rachel so these warrantless searches not only going on on our borders they're also going on inside within our

borders according to the a.c.l.u. they said that you're much better off sending a piece of mail the old fashioned way snail mail as opposed to sending an e-mail why are we seeing all this focus on the border and not within our border yet so it's a very good question i think. we had archie cover these issues of surveillance quite frequently from talking about law enforcement using drones in order to access more information to more recently the new york times reported monday that the white house signaled that it's probably going to a new f.b.i. effort to essentially be able to get a backdoor into all internet companies so the general counsel of the f.b.i. said in march quote it's a huge priority for the f.b.i. to wiretap all of our online communication by two thousand and fourteen so we're definitely seeing that this warrantless surveillance is happening all the time and again that it might actually be safer if you have some confidential information to send it with a stamp so you are it's a lot of key legislation that we haven't seen in a while you know these issues haven't been tackled for over a decade why now it's

a great question so a great example of a bill that hasn't been updated in years is the electronic communications privacy act which was last updated in one thousand nine hundred six when people were using e-mail with much less frequency so essentially what that bill allows for is a subpoena without a warrant of any of your e-mail after one hundred eighty days that may have made sense in one thousand nine hundred six but it certainly doesn't seem to make that much sense now so i. asked congressman engel why does it seem like congress isn't really working on a lot of these technological issues when technology is is such a huge part of our lives and this is what he had to say about it things have changed so we need to change with it to have these old laws and kind of pretend that they provide the protections that they once were intended to provide is silly because we have all this new technology people are are wondering if we change it now what'll happen in the two years we have to change it again and i think we should worry about what problems we have now and not worry about what problems you

may have in the future we'll worry about the future when they're in the future right now in the mirror in the present and we need to stop the laws that may have been ok in the past but are really no longer relevant turnaround dative all right rachel so let's take it back to civil liberties how explain to me how does this congress specifically this congressman that you interviewed how does he negotiate that balance between surveilling the bad guy and not violating the civil liberties of the rest of us i think that's the magic question because congressman engel along with many congressmen said repeatedly we need to find that balance we need to make sure that we're both getting the bad guys as they say making sure that bad things don't happen but at the same time making sure that the good guys are the normal guys are ok and don't really feel like their civil liberties are being violated because you know america is supposed to be this place with all these civil liberties so while he kept talking about finding that balance i think that the real question is figure out well what is that balance and what does it look like and we certainly haven't seen those answers yet

a lot of great information imation reason we have to leave it there that was our t. producer rachel courteous. well on the eve of the general election for a new leader in pakistan r.t. is taking a closer look at what's happening on the ground there now parliament seats along with the highest office in the land are all up for grabs an eighty six million pakistanis are eligible to vote in those elections but the days of leading up to the vote have been filled with violence and strife well arty's international correspondent lucy kavanagh is in pakistan now with the latest. week after week these are the images the world has seen coming out of pakistan victims of a brutal wave of violence bomb blasts rippling across the country this is supposed to be a time of triumph for our country that's going up for a first ever democratic transition from one elected government to another but we can bomb and gun attacks by militants against religious minorities and secular politicians have called the country's stability into question and sown fear among

pakistanis voters. everyone is scared of bombs and nobody feels safe so very few people will go and vote because they're scared and god only knows who will be the winner. the pakistani taliban has vowed to target the country secular parties and they've made good on that threat the awami national party or the m.p. has borne the brunt of the attacks forced to campaign in the shadows and get pretty boy we can't campaign we can't arrange meetings all parties are doing rallies with millions of people but we can only do them with two hundred men and even when we do that there are still targets but isn't the parties have been targeted to this in the aftermath of an attack against a political party seen as being sympathetic to the taliban but the latter have condemned the democracy as a whole meaning any political party taking part in the elections could be considered fair game by the militant group more than six hundred thousand security personnel including fifty thousand soldiers have been deployed during the election

to guard against attacks that's not exactly a comforting sight for a country that's been ruled by the military for almost half of his life as an independent state the violence isn't just political in a country where the majority fade is islam religious minorities have accused the mainstream political parties of not doing enough to protect them against attacks that could hurt the ruling party in the polls seem to. be. the is no better board because i made the positive. the give us security. questions for them at these. but the issues that may shape the outcome of the vote are more clear cut pakistan's economy has been battered by three years of success the floods which to be easily damaged agricultural heartlands power cuts are in demick with some rural areas getting only four hours of electricity per day clean water and food education and health care remain out of reach for many pakistanis

crime and unemployment are huge issues in the cities all the main parties have valid to tackle these bread and butter issues but you have outlined exactly how you can vote and skeptical the start of this election times in addition to making promises or you could to get votes to get this forget everything about nearly five thousand candidates are running for pakistan's lower house of parliament and more than ten thousand hopefuls are angling for seats in pockets on more provincial assemblies when it comes to the job of prime minister polls indicate that it's a showdown between former cricket legend imran khan and former prime minister nawaz sharif the latter seems to be heading to victory but khan has written a wave of popularity among younger voters this promise to clamp down on corruption it's a tight race that's been overshadowed by violence a landmark elections that it has been so far to be the bloodiest in the country's history the attacks are a stark reminder that politics and pockets son is a dangerous game and that democracy can be deadly this account of r.t.

islamabad pakistan. we have an update to a story we told you about earlier this week well three peace activist among them a nun has been found guilty of breaking into a nuclear plant will sixty four year old michael wally a fifty seven year old greg be your toboggan and fit eighty three year old meghan rice who's a nun broke into a secure facility where enriched uranium for nuclear bombs was stored now this crew cut a fence at the white twelve national security complex in oak ridge tennessee back in july and they walked around for hours spray painting slogans and taking a hammer to the facility walls now they're trying to prove how easy it is to gain access to a nuclear facility. well after this break in federal officials they said they forced to shut down the facility for fifteen days and a delay in prosecutors which claim damages america's credibility in terms of nuclear deterrence now during this trial the eighty three year old nun said that

her only regret was that she had not broken into the facility seventy years earlier but sister rice is no stranger to this side of the law you know she's been arrested forty or fifty times for committing acts of civil disobedience according to the new york times now this trio faces up to twenty years behind bars at sentencing it sounds like the government really went nuclear on this one. well here in the states it seems like we've grown accustomed to politicians having questionable ideas about monogamy but it's another story when politicians bounce back from their own scandals well the president for a harvest brings us a review of some of these cases.

mark sanford represented south carolina in congress from one thousand nine hundred five to two thousand and one in two thousand and two he was elected governor of the state in two thousand and nine he resigned from his position as the chairman of the republican governors association after it came out that he was cheating on his wife with a woman in argentina it also came out that he was misusing state funds to go business the girlfriend after a couple of years hiatus sanford just ran for his old seat in congress and even though he was caught cheating on his wife and misusing people's tax dollars the people of south carolina just reelected him. anthony wiener also a married man that represented new york in congress from one thousand nine hundred ninety two thousand and eleven in two thousand and eleven he resigned from his position in congress after it came out that he had been sending pictures of his private parts twenty twenty one year old woman through twitter it then came out

that he sent several other women sexually explicit pictures and messages and the entire standalone came to be known as wiener gate he recently came out of hiding to say that he might be running for mayor of new york city and a recent poll of new yorkers put him in second place to when. politicians and sex scandals are nothing new bill clinton had a sexual relationship with white house intern monica lewinsky in one thousand nine hundred eight and he looked straight into a camera and straight out lied about it then when they came out that he did have a relationship with her he was acquitted of impeachment charges of perjury anyway and the american people continue to support him as a public figure they love him regardless of the fact that they know he's a cheater and a liar. as hank sheinkopf a democratic consultant in new york said in support of wiener acting idiotically is no royal ation of the law all and michael feldman another democratic consultant said new yorkers respect resilience they encourage redemption and they love would

come back so why shouldn't we be mayor of new york gosh i don't know maybe because he's a liar and a cheater seriously why does america keep granting such huge amounts of power to people who are found guilty of lying and cheating and of abusing their public offices setting aside the mind blower that this is supposedly a christian nation and so we should have zero tolerance for men who cheat on their wives let's just focus on this fact with a man cannot be honest in his own life why in the world would we ever trust him to be honest in office tonight let's talk about that by following me on twitter at the resident. that's going to do it for now for more on these stories we've covered go to youtube dot com slash our team america check out our website at r t dot com slash usa you

can also follow me on twitter it underscored che underscore how see what a. technology innovation all the developments around russia. the future covered. be able to compete to be able to eat seafood. ilim. since.