agreement has just entered its eighteenth round of negotiations the problem is that these negotiations are being conducted in total secrecy but what's even more worrisome is that what is known reveals the agreement this is really about trade this is a t p p would play it put into place international laws that supersede state sovereignty in the taishan is to everything from food safety to internet freedoms eleven countries our current signatories to the t p p and most recently japan has announced that it also intends to join watchdog organizations have dubbed the nafta on steroids and it's called the secretive meetings between governments and hundreds of corporate advisors a slow motion crew to talk on the mock received so help me break down why you should care about the t.t.p. and how you can stop it i'm joined now by lori wallach director of global trade watch a public citizen thank you so much for coming on laurie. so you're an expert on trade policy how is the tepee different than let's say nafta. its scope is much more behind the borders so there's very little real trade of physical

things crossing borders rather it's something line a grinding and a trade agreement but really it's kind of diplomatic legislating so you have trade negotiators who think of their constituency as just the big u.s. businesses who are looking to bust up regulations in other countries or by companies and other countries and they are negotiating changes to all the laws behind our borders u.s. domestic laws that will affect every day of the day but congress is not involved the other agencies are involved or not involved so it's really like a slow motion coup d'état via trade agreements sounds terrifying loria a troubling aspect is the secrecy like you just mentioned very little people are in the loop six hundred corporate advisors though why can't we simply get a for your request demand to see the text of this document ok this is the really irritating thing is believe me we tried that in the past. believe it or not they

are classifying this agreement as a national security issue yes every other country can see that tax every other country can see the u.s. positions in the agreement but it's a national security issue if the american public on whose behalf ostensibly this is being negotiated actually also got to tell us justified how is that argument justified but you know so there is a legal way answer and there is the answer that we're getting the legal answer is in the courts because we challenge this obviously they come back with an exception to the freedom of information act and they say this is the exception of national security sorry so legally there's an enormous discretion for why those within the purview of the executive branch on this issue in the courts have not been friendly on this issue what they say is no country will trust us if we're not seen as reliable in our negotiations and of course we think. that with bigger issues like oh i don't know the n.s.a. for countries not arresting you when you know this but alas that has not won us freedom in court as i understand there is something called

a fast track that could be applied to the solution is that i mean is that something that we should we worry about now and what does that mean ok so this is you know if people have been watching your show and know what c.p.p. is now all of the threats it would pose to their day to day lives the food they feed their kids to their jobs to internet freedom to madison prices all this stuff that's going to affect us and they're worried the way we can effect is to make sure that there is normal procedure of congressional review so fast track is a very arcane and dangerous procedure that allows the trade agreement basically to go zooming through congress with no review to speak of and none of the normal congressional rights so the u.s. constitution actually gave exclusive authority over trade to congress passed tracks negs that drags that and sends it basically to the executive branch let's see exactly branch sign and enter into an agreement like t p p before congress about this dictatorial. and once congress finally gets

a post facto it's too late to do anything vote believe this or not no amendments twenty hours debate mandatory vote after sixty days it's congressional handcuffs on congress sets aside to do that so we as citizens every single one of us should be sent to members of congress the founding fathers were not mistaken when they put this into the constitution and ladies gentleman do not give away your authority no to fast track tell me your constituents you are not going to agree to give away your power it's not essential to washington it's certainly something we need to demand and let's talk really quickly about this international tribunal and that's really a really dangerous part about this bill and what could it do so these tribunals are in the tepee p. without an individual foreign corporation to be raised to the same level as our whole sovereign nation and directly sue our government as an equal status to privately enforce a public treaty practically let's just say united states government decided to go

to start regulating banks bathers the crash of our homes great i'm a foreign bank i'm now here from a t p p country in fact i can do i don't have to go to our courts in the us follow our laws you try and regulate me the same way you regulating the u.s. banks i drag you to a t p p tribunals i demand you pay me taxpayer money because you've undermined my new foreign investor rights agreements and if this sounds so crazy you can imagine because there's no outside appeal and the judges rotate between governments and big judges fifteen of them have fifty five percent of all the cases of which at this moment there are over two hundred right now under other agreements d.p.p. would literally ten thousand more corporations that could sue the u.s. so if this sounds too crazy folks can go to our website which is exposed. or and you can. all about this and link to some of the rulings because there's

a smaller version of this in nafta it's how we have been saying i mean this is almost one of the most important things going on in this country and are completely under the radar and let's talk really quickly about a specific example of what you just said japan has mandatorily labeled g.m.o. foods and if monsanto if they join in on the t.v. you could monsanto say we're not going to apply that ruling so if the t.p. were in fact in japan said mandatory label on the fact that monsanto says we're foreign investor and we have built market access in your country and now you can make us labeled us this undermines our investor rights our expectation is to future profits ok japan yet to compensate us from your tax dollars for undermining our new rights it's crazy and it doesn't matter if japan has the same law applied to companies for foreign investors get special treatment so a foreign firm in the u.s. gets treated better than a business in the u.s. . and i feel like if people knew what was going on i mean i know that there's

certain members of congress are going to the most people can't see it but how can we bring this to the light and out of the shadows so we can really prevent this from happening it's very fine you say light and shadows because we call this the dracula strategy this is the kind of thing that only will be in the dark if we can bring attention to it and that's what our. expose the t.p. that org website is about so this is a website that has among other things action ideas ways to get your member of congress involved and then we created one page easy for anyone fact sheets and all the different ways that will affect your life medicine prices jobs water services food safety chemical regulation your kids' toys safety you name it we have twenty five of these factions so pick the part that makes you and your friends not printed out modify it any way you want we've got post. cards you got funny means you've got

cartoons we've got videos it's basically free for everyone we want people to copy we're not pushing copyright so this is a website we explicitly designed to drag the dead into the sunshine all it certainly is something that affects every single person in this country lori wallach wallach i'm sorry i really appreciate your time bringing the darkness into the light thank you for highlighting it. i spent a good amount of time on the show talking about how us law enforcement regularly violates the first and fourth amendments by encroaching on privacy and free speech but have you ever heard of the third amendment because now they are violating that to just refresh your memory it states no soldier shall in time of peace be quartered in any house without the consent of the owner nor in time of war but in a manner to be person by law now while this amendment was added back in

a more relevant time when america was protecting itself from british forces it's now being used in a lawsuit against about a police the suit comes from a man named anthony mitchell and his dad who have neighboring homes in henderson nevada see nevada police approached the mitchells to use their homes as stake out spots for a criminal investigation but the mitchell family refused and instead of respecting the wishes of the law abiding citizens henderson police decided to force entry into one of the homes now according to court documents after breaking down and the door the cops yelled profanities and fired multiple pepper ball rounds at his dog and anthony all the way in a fetal position then they ransacked his home just before wait for it all right steve to him for obstructing a police officer what about his dad you may ask while they treated him in the exact same and humane manner and arrested him on false pride pretenses to both father and son sat in to jail for now. an hours while police use their homes for the stakeout

thankfully the charges were dropped against the mitchells but it hasn't stopped them from filing a lawsuit against the police department for a violation of the third amendment what happened here was outrageous not only because of the assault abuse and negligence but because of a blatant disregard and disrespect for human life and dignity this family had nothing to do with the people police were targeting they were just innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire of an overzealous and power trip in polies force you know at first glance the third amendment seems archaic after all who would think that we need to worry about soldiers occupying our homes in this day and age but in a time where police are overly militarize and now act as aggressively as while it's clear that we need this law now more than ever. we're taking a quick break guys but still ahead we'll speak to one of the most well known lobbyist in the us.

you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so poorly 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 knew or you don't. charge is a big. news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. trying to corporations rule the day. electrocute.

i'm not used to the tundra to freedom i am my dear. came. in second grade i ran away from the boarding school with two of my friends will be around to the tundra. to the tundra is just a mosquito that's practically i don't know how people can live there to get in there no t.v.'s in the tents how could i send my child to boarding school that i won't be able to sleep at night after that. they enter a life without knowledge of how to do basic things they don't get that in school. let. me be like. oh. you probably already know that there's five hundred thirty five congressmen in

the u.s. but what you might not know is that for every congressman there are twenty three lobbyists to break that math down for you that's twelve thousand seven hundred one thousand registered lobbyists operating in this all according to the numbers put out by the center for responsive politics perhaps this does disproportionate influence explains how the lobbying business has almost doubled in the last ten years from one point six billion dollars to three point three billion when the poll tax is something my next guest knows a lot about his name is jack ever mouth and as a former lobbyist himself he built his career off of washington's culture of cronyism it all came to a head in two thousand and six when everyone was charging sense to six years in prison for mail fraud conspiracy to bribe public officials and tax evasion it's a story that was a highly publicized event in the media at the time and even was the subject of a feature length film called casino jack take a look. country nothing is more important than influence. the wall

street journal is coming out with a piece called the supermodel. lobbyist. legally allowed to accept money from special interests in order to influence congress. so here to talk about the inside world of lobbying and politics can exist without money i'm joined now by jack every former lobbyist an author of the book capitol punishment the hard truth about washington corruption from america's most notorious lobbyist thank you so much for coming on dragster ever so what drove you to become a lobbyist when the bad said i guess. i was involved politically for years and i actually had a president reagan's grassroots lobby on capitol hill after i went away for a while became a motion picture producer came back republicans to. the congress and i thought it was just a good way to get involved politically again. and what jack you've called this a form of really legalized bribery break down exactly how this operates what what i

believe is the bribery bribery that i participated in the goes on every day in washington is where lobbyists are people trying to get things out of public officials give them something of value give the money give them gifts give them campaign contributions travel golf meals and that i've identified quite starkly as bribery is not something i believed at the time unfortunately i don't think it's people who are doing it believe it now but it clearly is the most lavish thing man you ever did well among them i guess i would take a congressman to scotland gulfstream stay at st andrews those were usually six speaker trips and so unfortunately they were there were many occasions like that at what percentage of bills introduced on the hill would you say are backed by lobbying forces well i think lobbying forces come into play in virtually every bill that comes on capitol hill and every little component of the bill people got to realize that legislation isn't just some small one page. of ideas it's usually two

thousand pages and within those two thousand pages you can have a lot of room for a lobbyist to play in effect you mentioned earlier that there are twelve thousand lobbyists the truth is there are many more than twelve thousand twelve thousand people have registered to lobby now most of the people don't register how does that operate well but there are loopholes within the system there are loopholes within the actual definition of what a lobbyist is that's enables people like newt gingrich and tom daschle will to say that there are strategic advisors or new skates a history professor instead of calling themselves a lobbyist and i think that there's an effort underway i'm involved with that myself to close that loophole so that people are lobbying should registered lobbyists i agree with you i think that there are aspects of lobbying forces behind every bill i mean we're talking about thousands of pages of bills that are barely any time to actually read these bills and i. wanted to say something from a report in california on a given year lobbyist sponsored bills account for about forty percent of total bills introduced and sixty percent of all legislation passed so basically half of sponsored bills become law as opposed to only one in five without sponsorship i

mean is this reflective of how pretty much works across the country that if you have the money and the lobby and you're i mean you're more likely to get the legislation that you know unfortunately i think people people who can speak with their money who can speak loudly through campaign contributions and the rest are able to implement the process because they can get more face time with the legislators and the congressmen and the rest and be able to push their bills for and they have the representatives the lobbyists they can afford to hire them to get right in there and play the game i think a lot of legislators look at the sponsored bills and they say well sure it might be sponsored by a lobbyist but i'm still crafting the language crafting the speeches to present it on the floor and also solicit the votes i mean how much influence do you say that the lobbyists exert on those aspects of the process well i think that one has to remember the lobby started necessarily controlling the process there influencing it at the margins when i was a lobbyist for both and a big deal for us we were focused on trying to get big things done he tried to move little things or move a big thing and in a literal way and i think in that regard congressmen are doing things i think they

generally believe it and i think you find a lot of congressmen when i was a lobbyist we never tried to get somebody to change their mind we tried to show them where they were hidden is general direction move them a little bit get them to focus more on one aspect i think that's where the lobbyist play they play on the margins and that's where the real power it give us an example that like our you talk about caviar earmarking and one bill kind of getting something through writing a broader package i think there is that you know the of course reduce the earmark potential of this point through legislation a few years ago but we're a lobbyist for example let's say there's a tax bill that's going forward and where they're going to stop the tax bill or try to stop the tax bill because that's just too big but they will work on a specific provision of the tax bill that may take up two sentences and that's worth of food. all their effort all their fire and all their contributions and they usually quite have an amazing effect and being in washington for so long what would you say the most powerful lobbying force is on the well i don't know that there is

a powerful force all the time it depends what's going on on capitol hill when the health care debate is going on and certain pharmaceutical companies in the health care or health care agencies and the rest they're powerful when the banking laws are there the bankers are the most powerful when something else is just depends what's happening but you have certain forces that are well organized and those that i think are the best organized the ones that have grassroots behind the people that have one hundred thousand two hundred thousand a million supporters they can speak with a much louder voice than even a corporation but just a bunch of checks and really the way. people speak a lot of the money john so maybe like. well you know let's talk about your book because you know obvious at the time of your case coming out movie made about you media smear campaign you wrote a book talked about your side of the story where you miss characterizing what happened well you know i didn't speak when i was attacked i basically batten down the hatches and just try to get through it i wanted to get back to my family at the end of it as quick as i could so a lot of things were said about me and

a lot of characterizations that were almost cartoonish i was blamed for example by some of the papers in louisiana for hurricane katrina i was and i thought it was a good lobby is going to go i didn't do that as i say i'll be all i'm telling you i didn't do it now so it's sort of got silly and i tried in the book at least to talk about what really happened to give of course my side of the story the other side was out there and you know to some degree put some balance to it all interestingly enough kevin spacey would play to your character in casino jack also is playing house of cards in the show about d.c. politics and you see that i mean do you have about an accurate portrayal of the wheelings and dealings that go on and i think it's pretty close but i think there are a lot of things in there that are quite high profile like obviously and so it is a t.v. show they have to make it more exciting than their life really is in this town or sometimes it says it is more a more realistic. then not jack you served forty three months in jail for conspiracy to bribe what do you think about the people who received the bribes i mean do you feel sometimes that you were scapegoated into a tear or two tiered justice system i don't look at it like that i basically look

at what i did that was inappropriate and wrong and i had a surfeit time for what i did and i don't try to focus on those who may have slipped the news because to be honest the i wouldn't want my worst enemies to have to serve in a prison as long as i did it it's a horrible thing and it's not something you want to see have happened unfortunately the way the system is designed people who sit on capitol hill have a certain immunity told this whole process and as a consequence they got so you're saying that the people who are doing what you did on a much larger scale you don't think that they should be prosecuted or held accountable well i mean this is where i actually differ with differ with some of the reform groups that i work with on the trying to make reforms i don't think it's a big victory to destroy somebody's family and throw them in prison and bankrupt them and humiliate them and i just don't sort of think that that's a nice thing to do to somebody having added so i don't focus on that what i'm trying to focus on instead is change the system fix those things in the system better wrong cut out the ability of lobbyists and others who are seeking in points

to give money and to control the process through money and cut out the revolving door and do certain things the thinks it so that there aren't any future instances of jackie of montgomery they can just keep getting thrown under the bus but the truth is it's codified it's made into the system that allows us to happen over to be able to talk about citizens united which obviously granted to corporations person a do you think that that's overblown do you think that it did as much damage as people say in terms of opening the floodgates i really don't because i've been involved in politics really actively on the federal level since the one nine hundred seventy s. and i don't remember an election ever any election where if money wanted to get in they couldn't get it it was just one method or another method citizens united in the attending cases with that provided another method the super pacs the system though on a systemic basis has a problem in the sense that people. you want something can give money and get what they want that's what has to be picks not necessarily who's giving in terms of citizens who are trying to get something back what form they're using a super pac a five twenty seven whatever it is so citizens united i think is probably

a little bit overblown in terms of presentation of the problem the amount of money again i have never witnessed money that wanted to get into the system that couldn't get into the system my entire life and so how do we get it out of the system well i think what we do is we the legislation we're working on is barring those special interest people who are properly registered lobbyists or their clients from giving any money politically on a federal basis super pacs campaign committees candidates whatever it is basically reduce them down to a constitutional minimum which our attorneys say is about five hundred dollars per two year cycle and that's it if you want something back from the federal government you can't give money if you want to give money you just can't answer something from the federal government especially for you know publicly financed elections you think that would help and i don't situation so i think the problem is people don't actually understand the cynicism and behooves i can often say that you know as soon as there's a government program like that who the poorest people wind up to figure out how to

take that money lobbyists so i know people who have told me the minute that there is public financing they're going to run candidates and fifty races across the country get publicly financed take their fees and become millionaires so there will always be some problem there also do we really want washington choosing who gets the money to run to control washington that's a perpetuation of the establishment perpetuation of the entrenched parties and i don't think that's for the benefit of the american people i'm just worried that any legislation can you know has the ability to move forward when the lobbying force is so strong to prevent it from doing so i mean are you seeing any sort of move well i think what has to happen in the plan that we're trying to execute is as follows we're crafting but we hope will be a absolutely perfect piece of legislation cutting out as many loopholes as we can to try to have a way to stop this. money coming in the system then we're not going to capitol hill with this bill we're going out to the districts and we're asking congressman candidates to sign on to the bill if they saw it out of the bill we will direct support to them if they don't sign the bill we're going to direct fire against that

we're going to change twelve districts perhaps six districts in the next election and we're going to focus the entire country on those races we hope that all goes well world our hope is that the people who opposed this reform effort will be defeated and they will be able to move on to do it again in the next election only when these guys realize they could lose their seats where they pay attention and they could so much jack hope more lobbyist see the light such as you have. a former lobbyist pushing a time for. coffee like you so you can head to our you tube channel at youtube dot com slash break in to send be sure to subscribe so you don't miss a single episode and also of all of our interviews posted separately and of the videos tab check out my interview with their version of n.s.a. whistleblower russ tice check it all that more at youtube dot com slash break in the set and guys that's it for us here in d.c. thank you for celebrating two hundred episodes with us tonight by kind of break with that tomorrow.

thank.

you.

for. what defines a country's success to go faceless figures of economic growth. for a factual standard of living live.

live. live. good speech. live live. being. good lists. and a. lot of little. whistleblower

edward snowden basks in an upsurge of support among americans while we report on one u.s. telecom company that is refusing to yield to government snooping. egypt will soon get a new batch of sixteen fighter jets from the united states despite promises to review its assistance program while a poll of egyptians shows that its weapons and money do more harm than good. and the u.n. chemical weapons you must up syria's invitation to conduct a fact finding mission in aleppo after russian investigators say they found evidence that the rebels not the regime used talks of gas there.