coming up on r t the n.y.p.d. stop and frisk program was dealt a serious blow today a federal court ruled the police department has violated the constitutional rights of minorities for years with excessive stop and frisks so what does this mean for the practice moving forward find out in a moment and you've likely heard a lot about immigrants trying to enter the u.s. but how about americans who want to leave the number of people renouncing their citizenship from the u.s. is on the rise we'll explore why. do you have a student loan a group is launching a nationwide video campaign to raise awareness of the student loan crisis look at the campaign layer and today show.

it's monday august twelfth five pm in washington d.c. i'm meghan lopez and you are watching r t well a major federal court ruling came out today that will have huge ramifications for the new york police department's controversial stop and frisk policy federal judge . handed down a one hundred ninety five page decision that says new york city's finest have violated the constitutional rights of minorities for years here's part of that ruling the city acted with deliberate indifference toward the n.y.p.d. is practice of making unconstitutional stops and conducting unconstitutional frisks even if the city had not been deliberately indifferent the n.y.p.d. is unconstitutional practices were sufficiently widespread as to have the force of law in addition the city adopted a policy of indirect racial profiling by targeting racially defined groups for stops based on local crime suspect data but while this ruling is

a major victory for opponents of the stop and frisk law is. does fall short of repealing it altogether to talk about why this ruling is what it is and what it actually means i was joined earlier by carl dix he's the co-founder of the stop stop and frisk movement and i asked him to explain why he thinks this ruling fall short. you know it doesn't go far enough because what stop and frisk is it's a policy of treating black and latino as especially youths as criminals guilty until proven innocent if they can survive to prove their innocence and that's not just me trying to hype this marley graham was a stop and frisk that went fatal he's dead in the cop is now free to walk the streets so that's why this policy was no good it was illegitimate and it needed to be gotten rid of this ruling is not any reason for us to stop our resistance

not only to stop and frisk but to mass incarceration overall and all of its consequences including the criminalization of black and latino youth now carl part of this ruling requires a monitor to oversee the stop and frisk actions undertaken by the n.y.p.d. already former assistant district attorney and n.y.c. lead attorney peter and then roth has been selected for the job do you think that this monitor position will have an effective check and balance kind of effect on the discrimination that the judge alleges. well i think that if the monitor is acting under the direction of the justice department then i have a problem with it because the justice department has presided over racial profiling . law enforcement targeting black and latino communities across the country and what we're going to have here is maybe a rounding of the edges of the racist be

a legitimate policy that's why i said last year when cornell west and i issued the call to stop stop and frisk and founded the mass incarceration network that reforms and tweaks won't cut it stop and frisk has got to go now realistically how does this ruling change the lives of the people who have already been stopped and frisked of which there are. only five million in york city alone. well from one end it doesn't change what has already been done to people what it holds out is the potential promise that that practice will no longer be allowed to target blacks and latinos but we just have to remember that stop and frisk itself was a reform of previous abusive n.y.p.d. practices by the giuliani era street crimes unit so what we got was a policy that spread out the targeting of blacks and latino's from elite units to

the entire n.y.p.d. that's why i am. suspicious of the approach that says we're going to reform stop and frisk because if you allow the system that's been responsible for the abuse to reform itself and i'm not talking about new york because new york is not the only place that racial profiling goes down if this system is allowed to reform itself then expect those reforms to bring you the problems in another way similar to the way the jim crow segregation was gotten rid of in part by a powerful movement from among black people in others but today fifty years later we're facing mass incarceration with most of the people incarcerated black and latino we're facing torture in prisons and more so let me ask you this does this lawsuit have national implications for the practice of stop and frisk and this generally doesn't go beyond this lawsuit with the ruling of being unconstitutional

several of these top does it open the way for more lawsuits. it possibly opens the way for more lawsuits but let's just be clear what the judge did the judge did not rule that stop and frisk was unconstitutional the judge ruled that the n.y.p.d. application of it was unconstitutional and the monitor is going to oversee. see we're forming this stop and frisk policy so the policy is allowed to stay in the effect and they're going to hone it and round off some of the edge is my feeling is that this is came down to racial profiling illegitimately targeting blacks and latinos and it is a policy that was no good and needs to be stopped and it represents a system that has historically and current day targeted blacks latino's and other oppressed people and the fight is only self has got to go finally what is your response to the people who say that the huge racial disparities in the stop and

frisk program are a reflection of the people who actually commit the crimes in new york city well first off this is a criminal system let's look at what happened with the big recession and what the people on wall street did that violated numerous laws none of those people got targeted by law enforcement they are all walking around free today most with most of the wealth that they stole so don't tell me about it's blacks and latinos who commit the crime it is blacks and latinos who have been criminalized by this system and that's a part of why i say that we have to get rid of this system to revolution and nothing less carl dix co-founder of the stop stop and frisk movement thank you so much. thank you well also happening today u.s. attorney general eric holder announced eps that c. plans on taking to curb a minimum sentencing laws when it comes to minor drug offenders and a meeting with the american bar association in san francisco holder presented new policies to reserve the most severe sentencing penalties for serious high level or

violent drug traffickers his reasoning is straightforward the u.s. is wasting resources imprisoning nonviolent people. because the office of general. says. disrespect for the system when applied indiscriminately not serve public safety. they must be honest some of the enforcement priorities that we have set have had a destabilizing effect on particularly particular communities largely poor and of color and applied in appropriately they are ultimately counterproductive. and you know what statistics support his claims after all the u.s. spent a staggering eighty billion dollars and twenty ten alone incarcerating people also the federal prison population has grown by about eight hundred percent since one thousand a.d. you heard me right eight hundred percent forcing federal prisons to operate at

nearly forty percent above capacity now the smart on crime plan holder presented it today offers a number of changes in lieu of mandatory minimum sentences it allows judges to decide the sentence length here's how instead of listing the exact types of drugs and quantities collected when the offender was arrested holder has new instructions for federal prosecutors on how to write criminal complaints when charging low level drug offenders the plan will also allow for the possibility of early parole for nonviolent elderly prisoners who have served a significant portion of their sentences but again this plan does not work to repeal or to rewire minimum sentencing laws currently on the books. meanwhile u.s. drone strikes have ramped up in a major way in yemen at least nine strikes have been reported in the last ten days alone now this comes at the same time that the u.s. and other western nations tighten security at embassies across the middle east

after a tip came in about a potential terror attack yemeni president who do rob you months or heidi has been supportive of these strikes however critics argue that there are future consequences for these drone strikes in an article published by the independent yemeni journalist for ria. argues that the u.s. is running to drones every time its counterterrorism efforts fail on each occasion the public rage against al-qaeda in the arabian peninsula grows and its image is tarnished and the us via drone strikes restores it again in its recent actions the us has become a public relations officer political commentator sam sachs looks at these recent drone strikes and what they have or have not accomplished. last two weeks drone strikes have pummeled yemen here in the arabian peninsula we know there's been at least nine strikes in the last ten days and last thursday alone yemen was hit by three drone strikes and one dead thirty four so-called militants have been killed

in these strikes over the administration admits they're not entirely sure who's being killed and what effect it's having as the washington post reported officials said tuesday there is no indication that senior al qaeda operatives in yemen have been killed in the drone strikes it's too early to tell whether we've actually disrupted anything a senior u.s. official said and as american robots reign bombs on a foreign country like yemen there's not even an egg knowledge made by the president the united states that this is even taking place at all he was last friday when asked directly about it. i will not have a discussion about operational. issues now this is all in response to that terror threat allegedly gleaned from that legion of doom conference call but ask ordinary folks on the ground in yemen the only terror they see are robots with bombs talking with scott as one some based lawyer told the huffington post it's like there are two different yemen's the one that the u.s.

and yemeni government claims is always under a terrorist threat and the one that we actually live in with drones it's like they stepped through the looking glass and we can't know for sure but estimates suggest that as many as six hundred people perhaps more have been killed in both confirmed and unconfirmed drone strikes in yemen but as foreign policy noted this month for all the strikes and all the dead in the arabian peninsula continues to attract more members growing from three hundred in two thousand and nine to well over a thousand today and investigative journalist chris woods told me the u.s. is entirely unaware of the long term consequences of this drone campaign. or aware of the consequences of the invasion of iraq already the us some you. ten years ago and some of the consequences the. radicalization of many young muslim terrorists of course tend to disperse international united states some of which.

isn't going to. drone strikes and. then yemeni definitions of terrorism have been blurred where is the terror coming from murky al qaeda conference calls or killer robots stalking the skies if there are legitimate terror threats emanating from the arabian peninsula that is our drone bombing campaign they're keeping us safe or radicalizing more who want to do us harm those are questions for the administration once it comes around to acknowledging these strikes are even happening in the first place in washington same sex are to while president obama says he's had enough of n.s.a. leaks that only show half the picture when it comes to america's surveillance program on friday the president held a press conference to announce for major reforms in the increasing transparency and oversight of the program or as he describes it what i'm going to be pushing the i.c. to do is rather than have a funk come out here and like come out there and

a tail come out there let's just put out the whole elephant out there so people know exactly what they're looking at let's examine what is working what's not are there additional protections that could be put in place and let's move forward. president obama went on to say that it is not a not for him to have confidence in these programs but that it is important for the american people to understand and to support them as well here are the four proposed reforms first section two fifteen of the patriot act will be changed to allow for greater oversight and additional constraints although the exact plans are still very much unknown and second president obama says he wants to reform the foreign intelligence surveillance court by forcing the court to hear all sides of the story somehow it will also make public a twenty eleven fice a court ruling that found some spying the government does is unconstitutional third the n.s.a. will now work on appointing

a private and civil of privacy and civil liberties officer for oversight the intelligence community will launch a new website with information on what activities the agencies are involved in and finally a white house is creating an independent advisory group of outside experts to review the government surveillance activities and publish a public report with these suggestions so you haven't president obama has released his elephant in the room to the media circus. when congress comes back into session in september immigration reform will no doubt be on top of their agenda but while congress eyes the immigration ball perhaps lawmakers should not be the only ones worrying about keeping foreigners out they might also want to worry about keeping americans in why well a number of americans who have chosen to renounce their citizenship has increased six fold since the second quarter of this year as compared to last year to discuss

this story i was joined just short time ago by r t correspondent erin aid and i asked her to help break down the numbers of defecting americans lot of people are no longer not only do they don't want to stay they don't want to pay taxes they're willing to give up their or u.s. citizenship so it starts off key. q q two thousand and thirteen one thousand one hundred thirty residences according to an ira list of i r s a list of those who are not their citizenship this is in the second quarter of twenty thirteen they're gone no more u.s. citizenship and this is from the previous high set q four of two thousand and twelve of six hundred seventy nine people and that was the high of all time it was never above that so obviously seen an increase and their kind of the us estimates of tax evasion by u.s. citizens it results in as much as one hundred billion dollars in losses for the federal government so it's quite a bit of money that they're losing and they really want to stop and they're thinking that this is a way with this big bill that they're instituting is a way to kind of curve all of this exodus that is a lot of money that could be used on

a lot of different things what are some of the reasons that people are giving for this mass exodus is has to be more than that or is it really does it all come down to money well i actually think it's important to point out that it isn't necessarily a mass exodus is an exodus yes absolutely but mass not so much is a little over a thousand people and this is of the six million people that they have recorded globally working and living abroad so it's not a tremendous amount of people but yes it is an increase more than we've ever seen before and they're saying that a lot of the reason this is happening there could be personal reasons there could be professional reasons but a lot of it has to do with the provision within the hire act which was instituted two thousand and ten the provision in the act that specifically is the foreign account tax compliance act it's called kind of like the second c.n.n. account that's gone so the fact is basically what it says is they want international banks foreign banks to tell the i.r.s. they are a saying you have to tell us whatever u.s. citizen or green card holder has an account with in your bank we need to know withdrawals we need to know their address we need to know all this information

about him and basically what these foreign banks are saying or we don't want to do that so the easier way instead of going up against the i.r.s. in the federal government is to not accept u.s. citizens as clients so if we have a bunch of money we want to put in a bank overseas don't want to pay all the taxes they're like no no. munda prefer to work with a french person or german person or someone else not from the us to avoid having to deal with the i.r.s. and let's talk a little bit more in detail about the foreign account tax compliance act does the us have the only is it the us that does that or do other countries kind of implement this on other citizens that go and live abroad the us is the only truly developed country an economic power that institutes this on their citizens living abroad now there's three point port portions within that need to be addressed and the first one is it's requiring like i said before the us to disclose names account numbers account balances withdrawals etc whenever a us citizen does these sort of financial things within their own financial

institution that's number one number two you have people with foreign bank accounts with over fifty thousand dollars in a foreign bank account need to fill out paperwork it's just a new form just incredibly long tax returns that your citizens are subject to and it's not millions millions dollars it's yes it's a large amount of money fifty thousand dollars but it's not what we think you are thinking of like offshore bank accounts it's smaller than that relatively so that's another added negative for the individual with a foreign bank account and the third point is that it's trying to close this tax loophole that we see and we hear about all the time with foreign investments and foreign bankers just making all this money overseas so those are the three portions of the five that need to be looked at and dressed so not going after the mitt romney is of the world just going out exactly where people but can you give us some examples of famous people is there anyone that is notable that has a bunch actually which is really surprising and kind of makes you wonder hey if you had all this money would you do. the ones of no it's tina turner who knew tina turner she actually applied for citizenship and is in all the time because of your

husband have to travel a significant other is in zurich so she's going to be over there bobby fischer the chess player no longer an american as well denise rich she wrote amazing hits for marriage a drama she. wanted here in the u.s. she got out of here because of a daughter savva in a facebook you know that original investor he gave up his u.s. citizenship last year there was a big hoopla as well and he's in singapore now and there was a lot of noise those are the ones of note so apparently let's say that i have a bank account somewhere and i do withdraw my citizenship how could i get it back could i would be very difficult as a u.s. citizen to absolutely it once it's gone it's gone you actually elizabeth taylor in one thousand nine hundred sixty wanted to renounce your citizenship and she ended up not going through with it because there was a part there is a i actually of a quick break here she. reportedly balked at the ceremony where she was giora all

a line says and fidelity to the united states a marriage that she didn't want to say that so she didn't go all the way through that but like you said know that once it's gone it's gone you give up your citizenship. you're not going to get it back i was r.t. correspondent erin aid. one nonprofit organization based in new york wants to know what's their number but not in the sleazy half need rated boy comes up to a girl in a bar way this group is dedicated to raising awareness about student debt and they're telling college grads to stop being ashamed of their college debt numbers and to start showing off how this debt burdens even america's most successful student debt crisis dot org is launching a nationwide video campaign where participates participants from all over the country share their personal stories about how student debt has impacted their lives take a look at a few of the submissions. my name is emily and i am about ten months away from a medical doctor to greek i'm coming out with my student loan debt in currently one

hundred forty four thousand dollars in the home what would i do if i didn't have that student loan debt well first you know i probably wouldn't live in a one bedroom apartment for the rest of my life answers or my entire budget will go to my students if nothing changes for the rest of my life to talk about this campaign i was joined earlier by natalia abrams she's the co-founder of the student debt crisis and i first asked her about their new campaign and why she thinks it is important for these people to share their stories. well it's important to join the out with student debt campaign because we need to shed the stigma of student debt students no longer need to feel ashamed of their outstanding student loan debt it's it's everyone's feeling this or everyone with that is feeling this and they no longer need to hide and we took a point from the l g b t community which encouraged their members to come out over the last twenty thirty years and we've seen great achievements in legislation

coming out by putting a face to the name of the issue and that's what we're trying to do here we want to if we feel that if there's a face to the issue and people understand that this is everyone it's your brother it's your cousin it's your mailman with student debt then maybe you can help change the legislation because we can as i said before have a face to it and to tell you i hope you don't mind if i ask you but what's your number i know the last time that you were here you actually brought in your diploma and your educated shelley to everybody yep my number is quite low my number is fifteen thousand i'm lucky but i also only went to school for two years i was a transfer student to u.c.l.a. so my numbers fifteen thousand for two years i'm to tell you abrams and i had fifteen thousand dollars in student debt and talk about what that fifteen thousand dollars has mean for you personally and professionally when it comes to your finances and your career goals. right well for me like i said it's a smaller amount but i still spend one hundred fifty dollars

a month that could be sponsored on other things and it changed my whole career direction i saw how this problem has become worse and worse and donate a lot of my free time to student debt crisis that or where a nonprofit organization and you know i don't get paid for this this is out of the kindness of my heart but because i feel that there's a really big issue and so does all of our other co-founders that we need to talk with it so it's changed my life incredibly because i feel lucky to only have fifteen thousand and when as you saw in that video people are suffering with one hundred thirty two hundred thousand far more deaths than mine and thousand dollars is still a lot and a lot of interest can actually collect on that but i do want to quickly play another one of those submissions that your organization received. great back in one thousand nine hundred two to ninety four i went to graduate school and i borrowed money to do so asked a borrowed about fifteen thousand dollars. between seventy and there's it today.

eighty nine thousand dollars eighty nine thousand dollars natalia i can't believe that so as he showed there are some graduate students that is filing out of control like you say what kind of reform do you think would help these people that you show in these videos well first and foremost we have to restore restored consumer protection to the student loans and we're actually working on a new bill with the members of congress to create consumer protections they have been stripped away over the last twenty years where it's near impossible to declare bankruptcy that you know compound interest is out of control so that would be first and foremost the second step is where big advocates of h.r. thirteen thirty the student loan fairness act where we need to readjust lending programs that students can enroll into where they can pay off their debt in a reasonable amount of time and get out from under this overwhelming number so we believe in many reforms but first and foremost we need to restore consumer

financial protection for student loans specifically and all of those a reforms that you spoke about how realistic do you think they are in the short term versus the long term. or a bit discouraged in the short term especially after the new bill that president obama just signed which we don't feel goes at all far enough and actually can in the next few years hurt students but we're hopeful there's a lot more attention to this matter than there has been in the last two years my team members of my team have been fighting this for over the last four years and only in the last two have we really seen other organizations our legislation in our senate and congress come on board and care about this issue so i would say i feel more confident today than i did two years ago that we can actually see systematic change and italian people have been talking about student debt for years and years we've seen it on so many different news programs obviously a lot of people are talking about it is there something do you think is misrepresented or under republican or under reported in these public discussion.

absolutely i think that the students that are is viewed you know for lack of a better word as a loser when in fact as you can seem these videos these are people that would happily pay their loans back but they don't want to pay back eighty thousand dollars for a fifteen thousand dollar loan so something has to be done and that's why we're we want we launched this out with student debt campaign to show that face to show that that person once to pay their loan back they just want to fair deal on the table and i think that's been misrepresented that students are just trying to get by and it's actually you know it's education it's not student debt over sixty percent of the people with education that are over the age of thirty there myself there my my mother people like that so we really need to put it in a dull turn and face on this and show that this is everyone's problem not just students problem natalia abrams co-founder of the student debt crisis thank you so much thank you meghan. well we've heard of gag orders placed on adults when it

comes to the meat or to the oil industries we have even reported about a number of them here on our t.v. but one pennsylvania oil and gas trailer took that idea of agag orders one step further as part of a settlement with holloway's family range resources corp has placed a gag order on the entire family including two young children aged seven and eleven at the time the settlement was reached in two thousand and eleven and unsealed last week chris hall which and his wife had accused the oil and gas company of destroying their ten acre farm in mt pleasant pennsylvania and endangering the health of their children by contaminating the drinking water there the settlement gives the family seven hundred fifty thousand dollars and helps them relocate and it also provides continuing medical treatment for their children for any type of symptoms that might have occurred as a result of this contaminated drinking water the price is there absolutely lifelong silence about hydraulic fracturing the family says they agreed to the gag order

because they wanted the quickest way to move away from the dangers and into a safer place to raise their children instead of a drawn out court case the home which family lawyer says that in his thirty years of practice he has never heard of an ag gag order placed on children and if you've been around kids you know the golden rule telling a child not to talk about something automatically ensures that they're going to want to do it that's going to do it for now for more on the stories we covered go to youtube dot com slash r t america and check out our website r t dot com slash usa don't forget to follow me on twitter at meghan underscore lopez and breaking the set with host abby martin is coming up at the top of the hour now in tonight's think tank abby will sit down wish i had our he's the executive director of the bill of rights defense committee and she will discuss the new york stop and frisk policy so stay tuned.

hello and welcome to crossfire for all things are considered i'm peter lavelle bitcoins revolutionizing banking and finance or a nice political protest movement take your pick however there is no doubt this virtual currency is being given a careful look on the back of the global financial crisis and the stranglehold big finance has over the economy having an alternative currency appears to fit what is called the new economy. to cross-talk bitcoins i'm joined by mere talking in london he is a bit coin developer and owner.