long live video for your media project c.e.o. don carty dot com. what's going on guys i'm abby martin welcome the break in the set so if you haven't heard x. in general david petraeus has a new gig as a professor he said in public policy at the city university of new york now put it lightly students aren't exactly happy to war criminals now lecturing them on conflict resolution and fact of the past few weeks dozens of students have protested as crossover and academic. put. on a warm well deserved welcome from mr petraeus and just last night students held another demonstration against the retired general calling is a rival cooney a move to militarize the university despite the fact that this bill was

a peaceful protest when the n.y.p.d. is involved things tend to get a little out of hand. exe. i. was it was exactly. that's right brutally accosting protesters before hauling at least six of them off to jail can't seem to surprise and the n.y.p.d. seems to have a violent response reserved for activists these days but i hope these students aren't too discouraged because they're right why would a former general who oversaw the use of white phosphorus in iraq and drone strikes on civilians and hired thugs to torture insurgents be a suitable professor of public policy you know it's a sign of the times when students are more concerned with the professor's criminal history and the academic institution that hired him.

the. it's a. very hard to think. that had sex with her right there. so facebook c.e.o. mark zuckerberg is in d.c. this week and know not to meet with the cia's top brass to talk about how to make

facebook more efficient for data mining but surprisingly to lobby for immigration reform now during one media appearance the talk alternately turned to n.s.a. surveillance and facebook's role in providing user information to the government zuckerberg amended the fact that snowden's revelations made facebook years trust the company less but defended the social networking sharing policy saying quote we look at every request individually and then push back on ones that we think are overly broad or aren't legal know of course facebook wants to maintain the illusion of transparency al it's even gone as far as suing the file is a court to lift the gag order that prevents facebook from disclosing how it deals with government data requests but even though facebook would like to think that it's on the right side of the privacy debate its entire operation is a wet dream for the surveillance state side from users voluntarily sharing with the world every private detail of their lives like where they are every single moment what they ate for breakfast and how their babies grown a new tooth. there are other data mining tools facebook users that are less

apparent but equally concerning go back to two thousand and eleven when an australian tech writer discovered that facebook tracks your web behavior even when you're logged out how is this possible the site uses tracking cookies that send information to facebook every time a user visits a page installed with some kind of facebook plug in which is estimated to be almost fifty percent of the top ten thousand websites in the world. now after these allegations facebook change some aspects of the practice but maintain that they have to continue tracking users after logging out for safety and spam purposes safety and spam purposes that doesn't sound vague at all but some forward to this year we are being pressured from several prominent technophiles facebook announced it has finally fixed the bug that exposed the private information of six million users over the course of a year this revelation alone is bad enough walk confessing to this data leak

facebook affirmed something even more disturbing the site secretly collects information on its users that they haven't even shared with the network now let me explain after denying it for years the social media giant admitted to creating shadow profiles of its members now these profiles are essentially made up of emails phone numbers and contact connections that facebook collects through your friends friends of friends and friends of friends of friends it's information that's being gathered behind closed doors and without user consent but not only does the social media behemoth collect this info on its own users it goes after non facebook users as well that's room even if you're not on facebook there's a shadow profile waiting for you is the corporation rolled out a mobile download your information tool in two thousand and ten to get users to integrate their address books with their accounts shockingly this move a lot of the site to compile shadow profiles on every one possible. but in those

without accounts so the networks basic policy on this matter is that your personal data isn't really yours belongs to your friends and if your friends share that information with the site tough luck it can do whatever the hell it wants with it which brings us full circle to zuckerberg is claim that facebook pushes back on many of the government's data requests in just the first half of two thousand and thirteen seventy four different countries have sought data on thirty eight thousand facebook users and guess which country is responsible for almost a third of those requests you guessed it the good old u.s. of a and how often did facebook comply with those requests according to its own reports nearly eighty percent of the time. so knowing that the network is essentially the data mining arm of the n.s.a. is it any wonder eleven million people have dropped their accounts over privacy concerns but if you like me rely on the site to promote your business or spread

information here are some measures you can take to make it more difficult for the site to track you first scrub your system clean of all facebook cookies after you log out or in seoul browser extension to block facebook services on third party sites like add book plus adblock plus and facebook disconnect look in the world of social networking it's almost impossible to hide and you can at least take some steps to become more invisible from big brother's roving eye. just ahead of a white house visit by israeli prime minister bibi netanyahu looks like obama will be meeting with the wrongs of recently elected president of haiti at the u.n. general assembly and amid the international debate over the syria crisis and the instability that continues to grip the region news of obama's meeting with the

wrongs leadership is saying a breath of optimism however any ron economy continues a steady decline is partly the result of crippling sanctions that experts say are having an opposite effect than what u.s. leaders allege in the people of iran more than its regime so what does this renewed dialogue signify and what can be done to reverse the disastrous effects sanctions that have so far on the country to discuss this i'm joined by jamal policy director for the iranian american council thanks so much for coming on jamal so you have a hunch or so there hasn't been a functional diplomatic ties with iran in the u.s. for about thirty years how realistic is it to think that now might be the time well look i mean there's a lot to overcome here thirty years as you said thirty years of institutionalized and maybe thirty years of sanctions legislation that is now taking an extreme toll . lot a lot of trip wires in place to prevent this from happening that being said there are so many positive signs we're seeing now iran's new president rouhani has gone

on a sort of personality offensive to try to basically deliver the message that look iran is ready for compromise and iran is ready to sit at the table and have. a real negotiated process to resolve the nuclear issue to resolve the sanctions issue and potentially to resolve a lot of the other issues that are bubbling up between the two countries i want to talk to both of you you mentioned and what i was saying before about the sanctions you said that it's kind of taken a devastating toll on the country it's become such a media buzz word i feel like a lot of people don't really understand what they do what what's happening to the country as a result of them when they start and really what have they done. well the sections have been in place you know since since. one hundred seventy nine but they've really been ratcheted up over the last five years president obama actually managed to usher in sort of unprecedented sanctions on iraq and he's had congress's help in doing that and the effect that they've had i mean one of the big effects that we've seen is that iran can't get patented lifesaving medicine so all the medicine that

is you know processed in western countries it's patented you can't get it anywhere else iran can't find ways to actually import that medicine and so you know everything from you know serious diseases you know cancer and he will feel to even just every day ailments it's very difficult to actually find the medicine to treat those and this is hitting ordinary people this is hitting you know people have nothing to do obviously with the nuclear program but also iranians who you know are not necessarily in favor of some of the policies of their own government but don't have time to participate in civil society you know stand up for human rights or civil society but who are more concerned with putting food on the table that's harder and harder to get and finding ways to treat their kids when they when they get sick would you say that the things that hurt the average iranian more than the regime. absolutely have in the regime is doing fine the regime is not in

a particularly bad place i mean they have definitely lost a lot of money but government officials are still getting paid this is trickle up sanctions that's how sanctions work these are not targeted at one or two people or even sectors but this is broad sanctions designed to cripple the entire iranian economy and everybody operating in that economy ordinary people people just trying to do their jobs they're the ones who are the targets of these sanctions knowingness i can't help but ask why do you think congress is pushing for even more rounds of sanctions and what windows and tail there's a disagreement i think it's not necessarily a public disagreement but it's one that is definitely. sort of undermining this process in which you have some who say. look sanctions are a tool to be used in diplomacy we're going to go into negotiations with iran and we're going to say we can lift the sanctions if they do. take some steps on the nuclear program but there are others who are really driving the sanctions debate who view this much differently they view say actions as

a way to put pressure on iran in such a matter that to basically prevent diplomacy from going forward they want to make the sanctions on lift a bill there's a bill that mark kirk senator from illinois is talking about introducing that would say that sanctions can't be lifted unless there is regime change now this sounds familiar this is what we did. with saddam we said we're going to sanction you unless you give up unless you allow inspections and this or that and if you do allow those things we're still not going to lift the sanctions because we only will allow for regime change to to invite sanctions it just sounds like the new thing the cruel punishment for the people who have nothing to do with this policy well mark kirk and others would say look this is a regime that punishes punishes its people and so these are all legitimate ways to put pressure on that regime you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet this whole thing but they really they take out any agency for ordinary people inside of iran and iran does have a vibrant you know civil society

a vibrant pro-democracy movement and some of these leaders in washington think that they know better than the people of iran as far as what he wants future should look like and what about the iranian nuclear officials kind of hinting at the fact that they would forego uranium enrichment if the sanctions were lifted do you think that the u.s. would bend at all that way well i don't think that for going uranium enrichment is is ever going to be on the table iran's going to want a peaceful program and with moderates like rouhani in place they're saying look we're willing to make it absolutely clear have the transparency have the inspections that we can prove that this is a peaceful program i do think that obama has been good on this front as of late he has initiated a series of letter exchanges with wrong. any there are even rumors that rouhani and obama are going to meet at the u.n. and so this may be a way to find an off ramp from a military confrontation i wanted to get this last question and your opinion looking at what's happening with syria look at what happened with iraq libya do you

think that sovereign nation should disarm at the request of western forces i think rule of law here is really important i think that you know as a signatory to the nonproliferation treaty iran is entitled to having the nuclear program but that does come with obligations and all sides of this need to view this as you are entitled to your rights if you live up to your obligations and right now it's a matter of getting that sides at the table figuring out a way to sequence a deal in which those rights and those obligations are all observed but the lesson from some of these other cases for some folks in iran is going to be if you comply you're going to get burned and we need to in the u.s. washington needs to make sure that that's not the message is being conveyed well hopefully this is a really great avenue for peaceful resolution here thank you so much policy director of the iranian american council appreciate it thank you. ever heard of the council on foreign relations we'll find out how much influence a think tank really has of our washington d.c. stick around.

time of the new alert and if they should scare me a little bit. there is breaking news tonight and we are continuing to follow the breaking news. alexander's family cry tears and so will i and a great thing. that had ever read in a court of law. is a story. playing out in real life. i would like to know that you know the price is the only industry specifically mentioned in the constitution and. that's because a free and open press is critical to our democracy albus. role. in

fact the single biggest threat facing our nation today is the corporate takeover of our government and across several we've been hijacked right handful of trans national corporations that will profit by destroying what our founding fathers once will just my job market and on this show we reveal the big picture of what's actually going on in the world we go beyond identifying the problem trying to rationalize based on a real discussion critical issues facing to find a job ready to join the movement then welcome the third. leg of.

the. of the the. top form pols who is supposed to be drafted between the president and congress but these days legislation is outsourced now n.g.o.s and think tanks provide policy first scription to elected officials who in turn consult with these groups to make any and all policy decisions for those influential these groups is called the council on foreign relations or the c.f.r. according to its mission statement the c.f.r. sponsors independent task forces that produce reports of findings and policy prescriptions on the most important foreign policy topics well that sounds harmless enough but what sort of pose a person. can we expect from an organization whose board members have included some of the most influential politicians as stablish mint journalists and corporate c.e.o.'s from almost every industry and moreover how much influence does this

organization really have on actual policy and lamentation well just to give you an idea this is what hillary clinton said to the council on our very first visit as secretary of state. we get a lot of advice from the council so this will mean i won't have as far to go to be told what we should be doing and how we should think about the future. wow what you should be doing sounds like a theater has a lot of coal earlier i spoke to one of the primary researchers on the group warrant shoop his book imperial brain trust lays out multiple case studies about the role of the policy group behind the scenes and outlines how the group is shaped some of the most important foreign policy decisions over the last century and i first asked him why the thea far is so different than any other think tank in d.c. . first of all it's not just a think tank it's also a membership organization so it's unique in that sense so if you look at brookings or there it is institute or the american enterprise or the heritage foundation or

the american enterprise institute or any number of other think tanks you might mention there are think tanks the council on foreign relations is a think tank which is why it's one of the biggest and oldest and most influential or i should say the most influential but it's also a membership organization that has almost five thousand members and their membership is you know the who's who of the power structure since one thousand nine hundred seventy six i looked at the top eighty had two hundred it's if you can see five or something policymakers the united states president vice president secretary of state secretary of treasury so you're a defense that now security advisor and so on seventy five percent of those were members of the council on foreign relations seventy five percent of all the top policymakers since one nine hundred seventy six a bit members of this one organization no other whether it's brookings institute or any of the others you might name have anywhere close to that coverage of top leadership as and their members. you could talk about other things there are they

have they also have besides their members individual members. they also have corporate members and if you look at the list of their corporate members you find all the top you know multinational transnational corporations in there you know whether it. exxon mobile was chase manhattan j.p. morgan chase whether it's mckinsey whether it's show or you know or barclays or deutsche of bank or whatever they're members of the council on foreign relations. corporate membership and well as one of these massive corporations getting out of it if they're actually financially backing the council oh well they're they're getting advice from the council think tank people they have fellows they have something like one hundred fellows at the council you know we had there's a pretty big endowment so it's it's yearly budget is somewhere around sixty seventy

million dollars so with that they buy some top talent. you know thinkers flaws from observation and so on and those of those people advice so if the g.p. morgan chase was to know about where this should they should get into some country you know did and maybe they're already in. most countries in the world but maybe they want to add one some obscure country then and do much about they can go and talk to the council senior fellows that are experts in that particular country and as with looks like a good investment so you've also said that at least fourteen cia directors have been among its members how influential do you think the theeye has been on c.f.r. policy recommendations. i think that it's part of an overall picture you know the cia doesn't dominate the council of the council brings together and the other thing i should mention about the council it's a capitalist class organisation if you look at the leadership the board of

directors which is the the top you know people that make the decisions at the council a good percentage of them are catholics class that is ten million dollars or more worth of wealth and if you start naming the names you see they're even more than those who are there most of them are more than ten million david rockefeller. was the chairman for many years of course a billionaire in the wealthiest families in the history of humanity then peter peterson took over as the chair and he's was blackstone he was with the lehman brothers and did other things he was for the nixon secretary of commerce and he went into blackstone and founded it with stephen schwarzman and then became a billionaire then the current leadership is robert rubin and carly hill's ruben of course made a lot of money at goldman sachs and then went on to citibank after he was in the search area treasury so the best just the very top leadership the vice one of the

vice chairman is david rubenstein another billionaire with carlyle a private equity firm so we're talking the highest wealth levels in the world here in this organization so they have a lot of power just in the private private market but still for as you are looking at the organizations and there's no direct evidence that you know they actually a purse cry of policy recommendations that are actually put into effect and you outline the evidence that you presented back of that there that the c.f.r. was largely responsible for laying out post world war two plans for international order and also today in more recent history what have they done that has been put into effect when we were two broke out in europe the united states was going to be involved of course for several more years but in one nine hundred thirty nine when the war broke out in europe twelve days on september twelfth one thousand thirty nine twelve days after the war broke out the council on foreign relations was meeting with a deputy secretary of state talking about we need to start working on post world

war two plans so the word was just started twelve days before and the council is talking about making plans for the coast war world and the united states wasn't going to be involved in this war for several years so they went to the rock of the deputy secretary of state said that's fine once you go ahead and do that. council members of course or work together in the sky. council member so they went to the rockefeller foundation got fifty thousand dollars and one hundred thirty nine that's quite a bit of money fifty thousand dollars to set up study groups for the post world war two world order and they set up for study groups one of was the economic another was the polish political another was a territorial and then that was it wasn't a war aims with the you know in any way the they started doing studies of the the world as it existed in that period one thousand nine hundred forty forty one and they determined that the if the axis powers that is. the germany and japan had would conquer

a certain part of the world that would be very dangerous the united states that what they wanted to find out where they needed to draw the line on an expansion of germany already was controlling lots of europe especially after it conquered france and in may of and in june one thousand forty. but the japan was particularly dangerous because it was expanding into areas that the that the council and the u.s. happens class you know it's really what i call the us ruling class was looking at it as important sources were materials and markets that is southeast asia so they ate outline what they called the grand area that is the grand area was the british empire plus southeast asia was really the rest of the world except for continental europe that was the grand area they outlined this and says we have this in imperial brain trust the tail it's all underground area and they said any time a country trespasses into the grand area we have to go to war so japan of course stressed as you know the grand area with its push to southeast asia so the united

states got into the war of the you know there's much more complexity of what i can give you know a few minutes but then they outlined what the new world order should look like and it should have something like the idea method should have something like the world bank and to have something like the united nations integrate to. wait a new world order that would the united states was be the dominant power in this new world order i have to i have to jump in here really i mean i'd jump in here really quickly because you mention the term new world order and there is an alternative community of people who suggest that the trilateral commission to build a better group and the council on foreign relations are three organizations responsible for pretty much shaping all global policy trends are these three groups really running the show what's your assessment of that claim i think they are that's what my chapter four of my new book which i'm going to be calling a wall street's think tank i think is you know outlines the builder berger the trilateral council and the council's international advisory board as as

these you know it's a transnational capitalist class that does pretty much run things now the builder berger and the trilateral are qualitatively different than the council because the builder berger meets once a year you know so obviously they're not planning to do a policy the trilateral has a yearly conference and they do other activities in between that time but they're nothing like the council the council is the root of the builder berger how dangerous is it to have shadow organizations and government policies out as a democratic process and is there anything that we can do as regular citizens to ensure that these organizations are held accountable and more transparent it's well that's an excellent question and certainly the question is yes it's very dangerous for democracy and i think we have a you know how without democracy it's not a real democracy it's the mark receiving plutocracy and the councils one aspect there's a lot of other aspects the media the funding of the candidates except so what we

can do as individuals is first become aware of this secondly join alternative political parties the main political parties the democrats the republicans are under the the jesus of the council on foreign relations that really you know largely controlled people have to get active they can't be happy episodic they have to understand these various. things and start organizing alternative politics and direct action as well against the powers that be. that's it for us now you guys join us going to. put it on your. face.

a pleasure to have you with us here today. wealthy british style it's time to. market. find out what's really happening to the global economy stronger for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines two kinds of reports.

technology innovation all the latest developments from around russia we've. covered. think. that you know the prize is the only industry specifically mention in the constitution which says that's because a free and open press is critical to our democracy shrek albus. well i'm. going to go on i'm sorry and on this show we were real the picture of what's actually going on we go beyond identifying a problem to try to fix rational debate a real discussion critical issues facing america about the book go ready to join the movement then welcome to the big picture. but i'm tom hartman in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight.