hello people of earth i might be martin this is breaking the set well after publicly opposing government surveillance last week internet search giant google has enjoyed a wave of good press before we all decide to instill our full faith and trust the benevolent an almighty google we might just want to use their search bar to google boston dynamics he said yesterday sergey brin the little company purchased boston dynamics an engineering firm with strong ties to the military as defense advanced research projects agency or darpa so what is boston dynamics all about this terrifying and shah dropping robot such as big dog four legged robot that can climb hills or cheetah

a robot that can run at twenty nine miles an hour and most lifelike man humanoid robot that can move around like a human and detect chemical leaks so what the hell is one of the biggest internet companies in the world doing purchasing these spooky cyborgs all telling me in google's keeping tight lipped about its intentions but keep in mind the corporation has a newly created secretive robot division and it's that it will honor the contracts that boston and previously had with the u.s. military great so i guess the real question here is why should we trust a corporation that holds so much of our personal information to develop absurd war machines for ethical purposes after all we really want private companies and you know up with robots that can do this. i don't know if i'm ready for google to have a. army of iron man and let's break this up.

in the piece. it was a. very hard to take. a look at how to act with the terror threat there. there's absolutely no doubt that there is a mental health epidemic in the u.s.

military in fact in two thousand and twelve alone there was a shocking fifteen percent rise in the suicide rate from just the previous year but at least nowadays being neglected by the department of veterans affairs and being pumped full of pharmaceuticals doesn't compare to the insane method of treatment of veterans he used to receive for p.t.s.d. so every minute their brain stems up last week the wall street journal published a stunning report about a world war two era government program and valving mentally ill vets from the late one nine hundred forty s. to the early one nine hundred fifty s. v.a. doctors performed forced the bottom needs a nearly two thousand veterans who've been diagnosed as quote depressives psychotics and schizophrenia and occasionally on people identified as homosexuals and although this practice was known in small medical circles at the time the dark stain on america's past had been largely forgotten until now according to medical journals that documented these procedures these low bottom use were sometimes used when soldiers exhibited some. of what today would be called p.t.s.d.

these brain operations would often give the veteran seizures and motor function lost every virgin back to small children in some cases even lead to death but as disturbing as the concept of love bottom izing human beings against their will may be this revelation is only a microcosm of this country's gross history of unethical human experimentation take for example one of the most well known human research projects and just a few years at the v.a. performed these veterans the bottom is the cia began a program with the stated goal of influencing and controlling the mind the agency use unwitting us and canadian test subjects to carry out mind control experiments using psychedelic drugs hypnosis sensory deprivation verbal and sexual abuse and torture these experiments took place in the course of two decades and involved the compliance of at least forty four different colleges and universities or we can point to the infamous to stevie experiment which involved the us public health

service injecting deadly syphilis and to rule african-american men who thought that they were receiving free health care on believe ability this went on for forty years and wasn't stopped all the way up until the one nine hundred seventy three it took up until one thousand nine hundred seven or for victims of this despicable cruelty to even receive an apology from their own government jump forward to a couple decades of work and rational report issued by sen john rockefeller revealed the department defense had intentionally exposed test subjects to mustard and nerve gas radiation and psycho chemicals for at least thirty years. the list goes on and on from operation paperclip to the intentional spraying of chemicals over communities unfortunately we don't ever learn about these things until much much later so the real question is what sort of human experimentation is going on right now we don't know about and if this is the way our government treats. what

makes you think gives you. a second thought. if you've grown up watching t.v. like me and you already know that dinah are forever and they're a girl's best friend in fact to be hard pressed to find a female doesn't have diamonds doesn't wear diamonds or doesn't want diamonds but the giant diamond corporations slick advertising campaign is masking a horrific and deadly reality of how these diamonds are retrieved from there oftentimes the method of extraction leaves a child slavery mass armed conflict and even death you know calm blood diamonds for nothin but what you're also not hearing is that diamonds are actually not rare at all in the hole would they be remotely expensive if it weren't for companies like the beers that have in the novel the on mining because of this to beers is able to

hoard at the rocks and create a completely artificial market the reality is that diamonds are valueless stones have been propagated in the global culture as a rare unless you're buying a certified non-conflict i mean it's almost impossible to know whether or not the worthless rock was brought to you at the cost of human life that's why the international community has an act of the kimberly process a mechanism aimed at cutting the flow of blood diamonds earlier i was joined by alan martin director of research and partnership africa canada to discuss the current state of the diamond trade i first asked him how the kimberley process came about and if it's doing enough to curb the violence surrounding these gems. or or. very valuable the very small the very valuable and the very easy to move across borders and that means that they are. essentially the reason why you. should be for us today is because. ten years ago fifteen years ago were. were

mining and trading these things often include with a company such as de beers and mining centers or trading centers and hoping to look even elsewhere they were quite happy to take your time in this without asking many difficult questions. so if you think about the cost of funding a civil war for example you go to places where there's in the middle east or whether it's asia or even. by an eight hundred forty seven four hundred bucks if you would if you're trading diamonds with a couple million that's that's that's one of the here forty seven to buy a lot of mayhem you can cause and what countries do you see conflict diamonds mean produce the most and what makes these places more susceptible to conflicts funded by mineral extraction. well i think it's important to point out at the onset about how. this change and how diamonds are related to that conflict ten years ago when the k.p. would create it it was done as

a response to civil wars not gold with jonas savimbi and also. the same phone liberia and sierra leone. these were rebel groups that were funding civil wars with the help of diamonds. now ten years later if you're looking at. violence in the diamond zones you're more likely to see the state actors or private security companies who are responsible for those those human rights abuses so one thing that is being calling out for the last several years of this broadening of what's called the diamond definition is that the kimberly process needed nations considered to be a conflict diamond right now all the cells with our visas perpetrated by by rebel groups. certainly that is something that should be continued to be part of the definition but i think that it's. you know. more responsible thing would to do

would be to actually include. and respond to rights abuses by private security companies and. state security forces a good point i think that's something that people take into account when they're looking at the conflicts diamonds are often called a resource curse can you talk about why despite the great economic promise of these resources there are usually turned and put into two different uses. so you see this with a lot a lot of minerals not just diamonds or gold. for example in the form of the farm bill perhaps the biggest the biggest been rushed out of there with the gold your so-called. things that essentially go into things like buckley's and computers and digital cameras. much anything technical and technological that no runs on like gold chain tunks maternal those are all minerals in. place like clothes you know see how our state bodies are corporations made to comply or held accountable if it

is discovered that they're extracting and are selling conflict minerals aside from the kimberley process it is being very tough actually example taken against. countries like brazil which the slope of africa going to is also being made to to bring itself to compliance the concerns but if you are truly venezuela which is one of oil or symbolic way which is being. under if you review between two thousand and nine and she doesn't have been. suppressed the worst human rights abuses since the process started. in some i was curious that they would have to fifteen a pretty percent of the world's. supply play by production up a valuable production and that buys you better that. you process it so it's a consensus based organization or initiative so all you need to do is find one for . to to to be on your side to to start

a consensus decision on something and bob's your uncle i won't wear diamonds but i know a lot of people really love them and you know this christmas what advice can you give to people to buy them and know that they're not getting a conflict diamond. good question i think that a lot of times. the onus is as much on on the consumer as it is only on the jewelry company itself who you know that the jewelry company has a responsibility to to ask questions and do due diligence on who's supplying it with with stone letting the committee process itself is no longer the. becoming guaranteed that i think most people most consumers have a right to since that seems that us here is the you've got to have them so i think if you're a consumer certainly questions about where it's from and what kind of things that the jury company has done to to do due diligence thank you so much alan martin

director of research partnerships africa canada appreciate it you very much. after the break you guys are talking off he's on medical guardian to break down the extent of corporate espionage among global activist stick around. plus how is the new alert animation scripts scare me a little bit. there is breaking news tonight and we are continuing to.

the breaking news. alexander's family cry tears of joy and. that have you ever read it or. is this story. playing out in real life. in the post snowden age it's no surprise that governments extensively spy on activists all around the world they're enough to live in a corporatocracy it's not too much of a leap to assume that corporations are conducting their own surveillance on activists communities see a new report by the center for corporate policy has not only confirm this but as exposed just how far reaching corporate infiltration of activist groups really is

the report also outlines the private public partnership for madrid intelligence agencies and state governments to provide legal protection for corporate c.e.o.'s to care and espionage while subverting the democratic process amazingly according to this report as many as one in four activists could be a corporate spy and what these spies do once they get on the inside is unconscionable dirty tricks and crude hacking tapping blackmail and even the undermining of legitimate research and science on behalf of their corporate paymasters now fears are met there of a crisis on civilization and investigative journalist for the guardian wrote about the recent report in an article titled the war on democracy he joined me earlier to break down the report and how corporate espionage ties into the potentially cataclysmic environmental crises we face today i first asked him to explain a program called in for guard. which is really interesting because in for gawd's is this partnership between the f.b.i. . u.s. department of. security and a whole range of

a very large network of private companies many of. basically fortune five hundred companies and it's something like i mean the figure in the report was twenty thousand but actually it's. an old figure it's more it's approaching thousands of your thirty thousand just under thirty thousand a very very large corporations in partnership with the f.b.i. and this partnership basically involves them basically feeding information into the f.b.i. guiding them on what they want the f.b.i. to basically. get involved in in terms of espionage in terms of intelligence activity so it's no surprise. range of various leaked documents and other kinds of information that has come out over the last year or so shows that the f.b.i. has been systematically spying. and systematically helping corporate entities to spy on. civil society groups occupy wall street activists were

spied on organizations like greenpeace have been spied on and the pretext fortunately has been terrorism they've actually used the specter of terrorism to justify some of these operations but there was an investigation by the office of inspector general in the u.s. department of justice which looked into some of the f.b.i.'s practices over about a five year period in relation to these organizations and they found out that actually there was no justification. in any way resemble terrorism there was no threat of violence there was no criminal activity that in fact this investigation condemned the f.b.i. and said that they really shouldn't really open these investigations and continue these investigations that he again is speaking of justification to how is how is this legal and what does a vacation is the u.s. government using to share classified material with these giant corporations and furthermore what is this kind of partnership doing to the democratic process. well

you know this is the thing for the legal justification we hear the same old mantra as you know of national security everything can be justified on the national security but as you know we've kind of become come to realize that nauseum now this justification is no justification at all in fact what we see is that very very fundamental human rights and civil liberties fundamental laws of the u.s. constitution of being systematically violated in the name of national security but what we're seeing with this kind of corporate espionage is actually national security is not at stake it's not it's not the public interest that is being protected here it's a very narrow vested interests of a large number of very powerful corporate entities which are increasingly encroaching it seems on the authority of the state and interfering with that i mean we've got to the point where cia active cia officers can actually moonlights and

and sell their services to a corporation and if you look at the existing mechanisms of accountability to inspect you know what is the transparency what is the accountability for this process is there really isn't any any oversight actually so effectively you've got this situation where hedge funds by corporations can hire these guys and basically get them to do what they want it's truly astounding and to say the least that is i mean i don't know i'm surprised it just keeps getting worse and worse and i'm sure corporate c.e.o.'s are inherently evil and i'm sure in their own minds that they're doing the right thing nothing is how do we get to the tangible facts of their policies well i think one of the issues is when you have a complex you know large company which is the only goal is essentially maximization of profits and the people working there you know they're just on the job even the c.e.o. is maybe you know he sees this is what his job is his job is to make sure that this comes. any shares go up that the profits of maximizing the revenue goes up in the

next quarter or whatever it is now when you have that kind of incentive it's very very narrow any kind of anything which would challenge that namely you know democrat democratic action by civil society groups which may damage the reputation of the company or expose some of the questionable things the company is doing or just bring to light more scrutiny all of these things could be seen as dangers now when you when you have you know this kind of revolving door situation between u.s. corporations and u.s. state where you know people who are sitting on boards are also sitting on boards of the think tanks and also involved in national security that's when the lines become very blurred and vested interests you know because. public interest and state interest in this ideology of power begins actually to confuse the two and of course you know you have people who are probably have people who maybe are fairly

machiavellian and are just doing things for their own interests and don't really care about the public good either and that can create a very toxic mix so i think what's what's necessary here is one you know activists need to become more savvy about what happens when you get involved in activism and the dangers but also there were a number of very interesting recommendations in the report by the sense of across parts of the for corporate policy i don't want them world getting congress involved congressman to pass more legislation and you know so obviously there needs to be more lobbying and more activity in that sense but at the same time also i think activists need to be a lot more aware of security issues and how they can protect themselves against this kind of speed or just kind of intrusion we need to be more tech savvy. and more conscious of how we can actually make sure that this kind of activism is not subject to very easily. intelligence agencies all.

getting involved in on duty kind of looking at what is going on so i'm glad you brought up kind of how everything's interconnected here because of course the crisis civilization does point out very lucidly and your article of the same article that you wrote you also talk about how the same corporations that is conducting this corporate espionage are largely responsible for climate change not fees i mean you write let me grab that quote here just last week the guardian revealed that ninety of some of the biggest corporations generate nearly two thirds of greenhouse gas emissions and are overwhelmingly responsible for climate change duffy's why is the burden of this issue on the consumer rather than these and massive corporations absolutely it's it's a major imbalance and i think you know i think i think it's right to just kind of say it is just i mean obviously consumers do play a role we all play a role in this kind of you know in this industrial juggle that we live in you know we buy the products we watch the programs you know because we all we are complicit

in to that extent so we have to acknowledge that but at the same time you know it's doesn't make sense when you look at when you look at the tiny number of corporations who are responsible with ninety corporations the most powerful corporation the wall of. greenhouse gas emissions you know id isn't just about consumption is also the fact that those companies are. dominating the airwaves that dominating consumer culture and they are the ones that all making the most benefit out of it so you know there is an imbalance there and even though we should recognize the world the consumer we also have to acknowledge the overwhelming role of these companies and that's a very worrying because there is recent research that has just come out in the last week which i wrote about today in the guardian which just shows how devastating climate change could be in terms of its impact its social consequences economic consequences. by. the national academy of sciences has just put out

a range of studies peer reviewed studies which show. the impact of droughts the impacts of water scarcity the impact of agricultural collapse as well as today makes in diseases and things like that could be interacting they could actually have a worst case scenario global impact which could be very very devastating for societies including. north america the most studies kind of emphasize you know the role of developing countries or poor countries but i see this study says europe and north america could be really really badly affected by some of these impacts so that's just highlights you know even if we don't you know even if we kind of just turn a blind eye and say well if the companies fall in the day we're the ones who are going to face to face the brunt of this i understand these companies are going to continue doing what they're doing so we really do have to start thinking about innovative ways we can challenge these companies in the way that they do things

yeah and here we are still arguing about whether or not climate change is a real nazis i mean it's happening right in front of us i just think that there's so many people who think that environmental regulation or environment or informal somehow inhibit their personal sovereignty and it's really just beyond that and we really need to start talking about solutions here let's move on to those innovative solutions how can we take back this planet for the benefit of the people of the land and create a system that's harmonious not combative with nature yeah absolutely i mean the people who are skeptical of what governments are doing in terms of environmental regulation know i sympathize with them because the reality is that you know if you look at what president obama for example was pushing through not only is it highly inadequate. but actually you know a lot of those policies do benefit large corporations a lot of those policies are about you know creating a big and bubble that will benefit you know the energy industry so there is reason to be skeptical of the way in which government and corporations are exploiting climate change for their own interests as. well using it to empower themselves for

the words what we really need is a decentralization of power and we need from them is the as you mentioned which is really important we need to really. control owns and controls the world the planet's resources and it is these tiny minority of corporations we need to find a way to equalize the situation how can we get to a position we're actually it's the public is able to have a stake in how energy how water and how all of these things are used. we have to have to have a fundamental shift. now a consciousness of what we what we see is as important in terms of you know what are our values as human beings what do we see as important is it basically a life of individualistic materialism or is it actually do we see ourselves as interconnected with other human beings and i see the benefit of others is the same is out in the foot and i would say that part of cultural shift is also very very important thank you so much unfortunately we're out of time the nazis are mad

investigative reporter from the guardian really appreciate your insight. for i get out of here you guys let me tell you all about my twitter check out twitter at abby martin if you like what you see you can follow me there you'll find all my tweets linking to all the segments from the show including random thoughts i have throughout the day everyone to check out my interview with phyllis bennis yesterday and she breaks down the true extent of the humanitarian crisis in gaza amid the heavy flooding also please help us get a break in the set. i threw out some hash tags randomly speaking it turning on the twitter sphere like today and turning all the shocking things israel blockades from gaza so head to twitter check me out at abby martin and that's our show guys thanks for watching join me again tomorrow when i set all over again.

put it on your comment i should be polish face time you know. a pleasure to have you with us here on t.v. today i'm sure. i would rather ask questions to people in positions of power instead of speaking on

their behalf and that's why you can find my show larry king now right here on our t.v. question for. please . please. please. crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want.

but i think. 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 which threaten all books. the one. that i know i'm sorry and i'm going to show we were revealed the picture of what's actually going out into the world we go beyond identifying the problem to try to rational debate and a real discussion critical issues facing america by a deliberate ready to join the movement then welcome to the big picture. oh i'm tarbet washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight.