well coming up on our t.v. protest against months santo will soon become global and activists have announced plans to host demonstrations in dozens of countries to voice their concerns over many months santo's genetically modified food and we'll give you a preview of things to come to us from representative alley engle was introducing a bill that would blacklist any stolen electronic device from getting service ok that actually happened or we'll look at that in his efforts to secure our online data later on in the show. the people of pakistan are experiencing a hectic election season with a series of attacks that take place around the country now we'll have a report from the ground on that violence this election he.

will it's friday may tenth eight pm in washington d.c. i'm margaret how well you're watching our t.v. . we started this hour with a movement that's getting everyone from environmentalists to regular consumers questioning just what they're consuming now activist against genetically modified organisms are organizing a worldwide protest against this biotech santa later on this month now on may twenty fifth at eleven am pacific time the march against month santa is expected by organizers to hit over two hundred fifty cities across six continents now this coming on the heels of congress's passage of what is being coy and by the critics as the month santo protection act a bill that protects companies that produce genetically modified products from litigation so r.t. contacted month santo but that company did not provide a statement in time for this newscast now in the press release from the event to me monroe canel from seattle one of the organizers she said she got it going because

she was concerned for her own two children she said i quote i feel one santo threatens their generation's health fertility and longevity i couldn't sit by idly just to wait for some someone else to do something now she certainly isn't alone in her sentiment activists across thirty six nations are organizing facebook to make their voices heard to understand about what they're protesting against i was joined earlier by nec burnaby the social media director for march against monsanto and he started by explaining to me just what people are so up in arms about. 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 one entity and you know 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 it 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 monsanto i'm clarence thomas a supreme court judge he was he's a former monsanto attorney and you know those are just the tops you there there's tons of just intertwining and another thing to do is hire bill hire former politicians former congressmen to become lobbyists for their companies so there it really didn't work in the inside of washington 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 means of dollars coming in from companies like monsanto to to keep the to keep these laws from being and you know in my opinion the easiest way to know what's in your food is by growing your own 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 something 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 skyrocketing profits garnering twenty two percent an increase in april alone so 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 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 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. a lot of information quickly tell me nic 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 it's in your food is to grow your own started there at the very top is you know where we want labeling on a ban but i think we should work from the ground up to have the best results we've got and we've got to leave it there nic that was the march against month and us director and social professional media nick barnaby and you will now in the chevron that company finds itself in court this time trying to reverse an earlier ruling

granting billions in damages to an ecuadorian villagers this when the circuit finds chevron liable to the tune of nine hundred billion dollars for the deliberate dumping of toxic waste and ecuador as far back as thirty years chevron has hired almost two thousand lawyers to fight this payment well arty's 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 chevron 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 there's 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 and 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 and 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 deny 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 perp or actual treatment big oil has received from congress and the over the top profits that lawmakers hope oil giants like chevron secure you're in in euro properties that are then used by go on to crush david in struggles just like this so just like wall street big oil is too big to jail in washington same sex are to earlier this week pretrial hearings continued in the case against private bradley manning however not much is known about this latest round of court

proceedings why because 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 well 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 one organization is trying to change all that for the freedom of the press foundation announced a new fund raising campaign designed to raise money to hire a professional stenographer to cover that manning trial the money would go towards hiring a court reporter that would transcribe every event of this manning trial as of right now there is no officials to niagara for and the only information regarding the trial comes to reporters on the scene so over the next three to four months the group hopes to raise between forty to fifty thousand dollars. now the foundation that is this project it will help a journalist and get the information surrounding the case quickly of the trial is

slated to start on june the third. congressional approval rating has remained below twenty percent since october a new gallup poll released yesterday places congressional approval at sixteen percent in may from cyber security and surveillance legislation to immigration issues there's a lot of legislative legislation of the docket but there's one issue that combines these topics warrantless suspiciously searches of electronics at the border and the department of homeland security says that this practice is within the letter of the law but one congressman is trying to change that r.t. producers rachel curteous went to the hill yesterday to meet with congressman eliot engel of new york to talk about the ongoing concern of privacy issues like this one and i spoke to her earlier first asking her if she saw any laptops or cell phones laying around the congressman's office due to the legislation that he's trying to pass. that's

a funny question i'm glad you brought that up so you're right that congressman engel has been working as 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 laptops like that but it is 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 chess 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 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 and 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 we'll 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 anything like that. it's private and i don't think it should be given unless there is suspicion unless there's due cause unless there's 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 allies 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 the experience that some people have had with this people are really to shock they never thought about it before so we were getting some steam and hopefully in the

not too distant future will be able to 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 sad 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 it's a good it's a very good question i think that. we had archie covered 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. all right so 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 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 wondering if we change it now

what will happen in two years we'll have to change again i think we should worry about what problems we have now and not worry about what problems we may have in the future we'll worry about the future when we're in the future right now in the more in the present and we need to stop the laws that may have been ok in the past but are really no longer relevant in around data. 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. taking a closer look at what's happening on the ground their parliament seats along with the highest office in the land are all up for grabs eighty six million pakistanis are eligible to vote in these elections but the days leading up to the vote have been filled with violence and strife artie's international correspondent lucy kavanagh is in pakistan 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 a country that's gearing up for its first ever democratic transition from one elected government to another but recent bomb and gun attacks by militants against

religious minorities and secular politicians have called the country's stability into question and so on fear among pakistani voters. everyone is scared of bombs and nobody feels safe so very few people will go and vote because they're scared to go to you know those who will be the women of. the pakistani taliban has vowed to target the country secular parties and they've made good on that threat the national party or the and p. has borne the brunt of the attacks forced to campaign in the shadows and get people who really can't campaign we can't arrange meetings all parties are doing rallies with millions of people which we can only do is run with two hundred men and even when we do that terrorists still target tossers that is on the parties have been targeted to this is the aftermath of an attack against a political party seen as being sympathetic to the taliban but the latter have condemned to 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 but that's not exactly a comforting sight for a country that's been ruled by the military for almost half of life as an independent state the violence isn't just political in a country where the majority faith is islamic religious minorities have accused the mainstream political parties of not doing enough to protect them against attacks that could hurt the willing party in the polls seem to. be. security. 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 successive floods which severely 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 to tackle these bread and butter issues but few have outlined exactly how the voters skeptical to start their selections are implementations make promises to give. it everything it's 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 pakistan's 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 ridden a wave of popularity among younger voters this promise to clamp down on corruption at the tight race that's been overshadowed by violence landmark election. bloodiest in the country's history the attacks are

a stark reminder that politics in pakistan is a dangerous game and that democracy can be deadly. islamabad pakistan. so that armed services committee chairman carl levin is calling on president barack obama to reappoint a white house envoy to spur efforts to transfer some guantanamo bay detainee is out of the island president the chairman urged president obama in an open letter stating the following i urge the president to appoint an official inside the white house to spearhead an inner agency effort to determine which of the more than eight eighty detainee is a. already been cleared for transfer by the guantanamo detainee review task force meet the certification and waiver requirements and to actively work for their transfer high level leadership on detainee transfers is critical to advancing the goal of closing getgo well so far today the detainees on hunger strike have reached

ninety four days and the president has yet to respond to the chairman's appeal to facilitate this closing of guantanamo bay we'll keep you updated as the story develops. here in the states it seems like we've grown accustomed to politicians having questionable ideas about monogamy now it's another story when politicians bounce back from these scandals while the resident story harshness 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 public and 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 beyond the girlfriend after a couple of years had made it 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 represented new york in congress from one thousand nine hundred nine to 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 with 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 scandal 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 win. how additions and sex scandals are nothing now bill clinton had a sexual relationship with white house intern monica lewinsky in one thousand nine hundred eighty eight and he looked straight into a camera and straight out lied about it that when it 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 leaner acting idiotically is no oil ation of the law and michael feldman another democratic consultant said new yorkers respect resilience they encourage redemption and they love a comeback so why should the winner 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 is abusing their public offices setting aside the mindblower that this is supposedly a christian nation and so we should have your own tolerance for men who cheat on their wives let's just focus on this fact when a man cannot be honest in his own life why in the world would we ever trust him to be honest in the office. tonight to talk about that by following me on twitter at the red button. that's going to do for now for more on these stories we've covered go to youtube dot com slash r t america check out our website at r.t. dot com slash usa you can also follow me on twitter at m underscore j underscore how for now have a great night. old

. technology innovation all the developments around russia we've got the future of coverage. that afternoon to welcome the prime interest i'm sorry i'm boring here in the washington d.c. gets a headline. of a family growing and it revenue that is coming and going taxes the fannie and freddie bailout repayments the u.s. is in the black but only temporary the treasury really.