how do you folks i'm out here martin and this is breaking this yes i'm still a little sick so please bear with me on the heels of the chemical spill in west virginia coal ash dump in north carolina and fourteen thousand other oil spills that happened in the last year residents of bob town pennsylvania are the latest victims of america's addiction to dirty energy and last week a tanker at a fracking well owned by chevron exploded and caused an enormous fire that lasted five entire days michelle popper nack a resident half a mile from the explosion told a local c.b.s. affiliate it was very very scary you knew somebody had to be hurt somewhere with that explosion well she was right because at least one person near the accident

site is presumed to be dead this latest tragedy highlights the many other dangers associated with a practice of hydraulic fracturing including artificial earthquakes and birth defects so what is chevron doing to quell the worries of the shaken up town up in their safety regulations is the corporation set up a compensation fund for those affected pocono no better free pizza actually free pizza coupons you know what chevron is throwing in a two bitter bottle of soda as well i wish i were making this up aftermath of this terrible explosion chevron sent one hundred to certificates along with a cheery note from the chevron a community outreach team to town residents apparently these people are you're supposed to forget about the health and environmental risk associated living next to a giant exploding fracking rig and lower themselves to sleep with cheese and bread sticks you know would be even cooler than free pizza seeing chevron actually held accountable for poisoning the planet and the charade and let's break the set.

the. it was a. very hard to take a. look. at her act with that her right there. on the surface the announcement of last month's six point six percent unemployment rate is an encouraging sign for the american public in fact the white house

repeatedly refers to the forty seven straight months of private sector job growth as one of the administration's most prized accomplishments but as with any talking point to come out of washington these successes need to be taken with an enormous grain of salt despite the improving job numbers a gallup poll released just yesterday shows that the unemployment rate is now the number one concern of americans twenty three percent of americans say unemployment is their most pressing problem surpassing incompetent government and politicians for the first time since last october the primary reason the unemployment rate is dropping as because more and more job seekers are simply becoming too disheartened by continuous rejection that they're giving up on the search altogether in fact if you combine individuals who are unemployed underemployed and discouraged a rate the bureau of labor statistics calls the six rate the real unemployment rate stands at twelve point seven percent this bleak reality is why. what congress did

to unemployment benefits last december excuse me is unconscionable lawmakers declined to renew emergency aid for one point three million americans who exhausted their six months unemployment benefits on the name of fiscal responsibility well that number has now expanded to one point seven million people and while the common narrative is to blame the unemployed for being lazy people are required to prove that they truly can't find a job and three not one out of two college graduates are unemployed i don't think there's a lot of nanny state exploiters out there right now also keep in mind this was a program that only cost six billion dollars and while that may sound like a lot to you consider that the two thousand and fourteen budget for overseas contingency operations a cave funding the us war machine only abroad is about eighty five billion dollars six billion dollars higher than obama even requested so is all that money better

spent creating more jobs for defense contractors and private mercenary forces abroad or protecting the jobless here at home you tell me. almost three years ago then secretary of state hillary clinton gave a speech at george washington university here in d.c. the talk was about internet freedom where clinton honed in on the egyptian government shutdown of the internet and criticize countries that restricted freedom of speech. pictures and videos from egypt flooded the web on facebook and twitter journalists posted on the spot reports protesters cord needed their next moves and citizens of all stripes shared their hopes and fears about this pivotal moment in the history of their country. but only

a few minutes into her speech as you child regimes for stifling protests something happened there can only be described as the pinnacle of irony. then the government pulled the plug cellphone service was cut off t.v. satellite signals were jammed and internet access was blocked for nearly the entire population of america the government did not want the people to communicate with each other. she didn't even skip a beat the man you saw in that video getting manhandled dragged out and subsequently arrested as ray mcgovern former cia analyst and a vocal and you were activist all they did was simply stand up turn his back to mrs clinton displaying a shirt bearing the logo of veterans for peace for the last three years one organization has uncovered that seemingly innocuous chain of events spans far beyond just that one day for me now to talk about this case is the executive director of the partnership for civil justice fun mara her head in healthier thank

you so much for coming on marc thanks for having me so marc how did he get these injuries when he was arrested that he was assaulted in such a way that you just showed as secretary clinton was giving a speech in which she was said ma machine other governments about the importance of defending dissent and allowing free speech and allowing protests mr mcgovern stood completely silently and he turned his back completely silently and that's all he did and then he was grabbed brutally assaulted by officers inside the auditorium just feet away from secretary clinton they put him in a headlock they grabbed him and put him in a contorted position he was terribly bruised he had lacerations they put him in tight metal cuffs two pairs of tight metal cuffs he was bleeding all over and he had to have treatment at the scene but while this is going on they drug him out and then he was interrogated by someone who was with the department of state security division and what we learned subsequently after this was that mom only to be

interrogated there but the open investigation into it and so this was so you guys represented and their charges were eventually dropped initially after the charges were dropped organization filed of oil investigation try to get information what did you uncover this is absolutely fascinating right well they did drop the charges i mean they had charged him with disorderly conduct first thing is they stand silent with us back to your and. which is a traditional form of bearing witness and expressing dissent in the most the most violent most peaceful way possible so after that after the charges were dropped we undertook an investigation and freedom of information act work in which we were able to eventually uncover more recently uncover that the state department opened an investigation into mr mcgovern that focused entirely on his lawful peaceful political free speech first amendment protected activities his associations his writings his interviews on on television other media and his associations but they

kept this investigation open for seven months even though the charges were dropped in their own file show that there was no criminal conduct and then what we found was extremely disturbing we found a document that showed that the state department placed him on the lookout alert and this alert a bolo alert isn't just merely look out for mr mcgovern it was a long foresman directive that anyone that saw ray mcgovern wants to stop him and question him which is the fourth amendment seizure i had noticed being harassed or interrogated anymore after this incident during those seven months he has not been seized under this order as far as we're aware of there isn't a circumstance like that the problem with this is that it's a directive to law enforcement that targets him for his free speech activity the ball alert itself actually identify that he has been gauged in what they said a considerable amount of political activism quote primarily antiwar and then it

directs that if you see mr mcgovern who your audience i'm sure is the in many times these seventy seventy one at the time he's now seventy four that they use caution this is in big capital letters and stop him in question unbelievable you know the most amazing thing about this though is that he already wasn't the person who we're talking about a former cia analyst you know he's met with edward snowden it sounds like the exact person that you would. expect to be watched i guess well i think it would surprise any of us you know in terms of even just the work that we've uncovered at the partnership with civil justice over the years in terms of the use of national security and quote unquote antiterrorism authorities against political movements groups dissenters within the united states but having a long force one arm of the state department explicitly put out a directive to other law enforcement agents that a person should be seized and stopped and questioned just because of their political activity is very very disturbing and so we filed

a lawsuit to try and get an injunction against the state department over this right i mean the resources time energy spent on re of all people i mean the most gentle guy you could ever meet yeah so what are you hoping to have with the outcome of the lawsuit that you're now filing where we found the lawsuit to challenge both the illegal unlawful arrest and the brutal force that he was subjected to and so there are first and fourth amendment claims in the lawsuit but it also seeks injunctive relief what we want is the state department to in essence rescind this to change their records to eliminate these files to not have ray mcgovern on this target list you know i guess this begs the question given the fact that all he did was literally stand there put his back to hillary clinton and turn around. is it safe to assume that anyone who's attended a protest or an event where they've done anything similar maybe more than ray is also on some sort of list it's very clear that that long for some of the united

states federal law enforcement those who have national security or antiterrorism criminal for it is feel bound in the abuse of authority against people engage in charity free speech activities and the very fact that secretary clinton and secretary kerry routinely want to speak up and use our hard fought free speech rights as sort of a propaganda tool to chastize selected other governments around. world but then here at home we've represented so many demonstrators who have been mass arrests brutalized purely for lawful free speech activity i think it's a really important question and something that as a society we have to challenge and change it so someone like ray who has represented his country fought for his country you know served as a number the cia analysts and also just as he's walking out of which he says this is america now you know and it really has turned around and it's time to take it back thank you so much for coming on breaking on the case barbara had and how they had executive director partnership for civil justice thanks for actually that you

guys coming up i'll be talking about a paperwork error that cost taxpayers almost four million dollars stick around.

and some are forcing that. six nations around the finish line of the marathon. well make mistakes some small some not so small but they usually don't cost three point eight million dollars and seven years of litigation to correct a recently we learn that that's the price it takes to remove yourself from the

government's no fly list so all the way back in january of two thousand and five malaysian doctoral student stanford scholar. eva him was detained while traveling from san francisco to malaysia even to him and a place on the no fly list and was imprisoned for two hours searching a culturally insensitive manner and prevented from accessing medication she was taking for a recent surgery that can find her to a wheelchair eventually officials let her fly back to malaysia but she was prohibited from returning to the united states doesn't six even him sue the u.s. government to clear her name and get off the no fly list but it took until january of this year two thousand and fourteen for a judge to finally rule in favor of able to him and remove her name from the stigmatic list so why was even him placed on the list in the first place or court in the court documents released earlier this month an f.b.i. agent mistakenly checked the wrong box on a terrorism formal investigating her and other muslims in the bay area in two

thousand and four believe it or not that's probably the most innocuous part of this entire story so the reason this lawsuit took seven years and nearly four million dollars of attorney time is just because instead of just admitting the error the justice department and national security officials and invoked the state secrets privilege allowing the government to withhold the reason even to him was no fly list it but you might remember that bush. officials were awfully fond of this tactic when trying to get lawsuits against its administration thrown out in fact obama himself spoke out against the practice soon after he took office saying quote we must not protect information merely because it reveals the violation of the law or embarrassment to the government i will never hide the truth because it's uncomfortable and i guess the horror of admitting that f.b.i. agent could be incompetent are just too much for obama to handle but even his case is far from unique and reveals

a much larger problem with no fly list procedures in fact according to a government accountability report the number of people on the government's no fly list has doubled since two thousand and nine according to associated press had at least twenty one thousand individuals on it in two thousand and twelve not to mention the nearly five hundred fifty thousand people on the terrorism watch list according to the f.b.i. well it's no surprise that the rapid pace of marking guilty until proven innocent people as threats is leading to some agree just mistakes such as an eighteen month old toddler who was put on the no fly list in two thousand and twelve or two thousand and ten new york to dubai a flight that was held up after passenger was mistakenly confuse with another no fly lists name they have guys gone even as far as using the list as a tool to threaten individuals into spying on their own communities as detailed in law suit marine veteran amir maché another american and i. believe they were told by f.b.i.

agents that they would only be removed from the list if they became informants for the bureau so maybe it's time we call the no fly list for what it is just another pollen in the government's game of security. february is black history month and here in america this time is used to pay homage to thousands of african-americans who changed the course of history across all facets of life from frederick douglass who was born to slavery but became a famous abolitionist leader to rosa parks dedicated activists whose civil disobedience inspired millions of people malcolm x. a voice of strength an inspiration for a generation and of course martin luther king jr the great philosopher who helped cement a legal precedent for the rights and equality of black americans and those of course great artists like spike lee alice walker and the list goes on but is

a month of reverence for recognizing past struggles and honoring the contributions of the black community anough slavery may have ended over a century ago with institutionalized racism found in policies like stand your ground stop and frisk coupled with the fact that there are more blacks in prison today than were slaves in eight hundred fifty according to the book the new jim crow how much progress has this country really made well joining me now to discuss black history and what this month may be missing howard university professor dr william always a pleasure to have you on thank you how are you doing great i wanted to bring up the recent atlantic article that quoted heroes like frederick douglass and rosa parks feel like characters in a novel a world away from the clicking locks and nervous glances that plague millions of ordinary people dr leon do you sympathize with that sentiment do you think that this month maybe glosses over some of the struggles that the black community still

face not only do i have sympathy sympathize with it i empathize with. the answer i think it is yes for a number of reasons too which would probably be that. it's great to have a black history month is great to have these stories told but the context of the story in many instances is as important as the story so until these narratives are actually woven into and considered to be part of the american historical narrative then they'll they'll always be this this disconnect the other problem is that in many instances the story is told from the perspective of america's relationship to the individual instead of the individuals relationship to america and a an example that i would use of that would be the movie twelve years a slave sol solomon northup story one of the things that makes that story so so

powerful so relevant was it was told from solomon northrop's. relationship to america and so you've got a much richer more more more cutting and powerful narrative than if it had been the typical slave narrative or the way that that story is conveyed so that the interests of america are protected instead of the realities that. that africans and in africans in america have been and african-americans have been enduring since since sixty one thousand in those twenty some odd slaves arrived at jamestown virginia really really great point there and let's move on to the op ed that you just wrote titled jordan davis another victim of a murderous historical continuum dr i think a lot of us were expecting a more cut and dry verdict here with what seemed to be

a cut and dry case were you surprised at the outcome. disappointed but not surprised because we've seen this we just saw this with trayvon martin and we've seen this story all too often in the piece that i wrote getting back to the context i i felt it necessary to take this back to and understand let me say one of the things the big problems with with with these types of analysis is that we tend to think that they exist in a back that that that. the davis case happened in some in a vacuum and what i was trying to show in my piece was we have a historical continuum here where since we've been in this country. we have been struggling to have our humanity recognize we have been struggling to be recognized as human and i cited some legal. cases in some supreme court references such as the dred scott case where justice chief justice

taney says that you know we don't have any right to why people are bound to respect . so when you look at what's happened in this case in a larger historical continuum that it's not for as disappointing as it is it's not surprising and you go over a lot of cases unfortunately there are a lot of cases just too many to list and even though people claim over and over again that stand your ground was not used in both cases it obviously wasn't influencing factor i was wonder if you could just break that down of how it actually was a contribution to the outcome of these verdicts this inherently racist law well it's it is it factor directly into the into the case because dunn's defense as well as zimmerman's defense was i felt threatened and what stand your ground is it is it is it changes the analysis from

did you use every effort to flee the threat which used to be the standard in most states that that that you had to you had to try to flee before deadly force was used. to to a new paradigm. i felt threatened i was armed therefore i used deadly force to vanquish the threat and in the instance of trayvon martin. no weapon in the instance of jordan davis no weapon but the narrative that the defense was able to construct and unfortunately i think the prosecutor corey is just it's just inept. is that is that they were able to play to a sense ability of some of those jurors that these were black males we know these black males are threatening therefore it was rational for michael dunn to feel

threatened even though no weapon was found and i have to just state that stand your ground isn't bedded in florida's law dealing with the use of deadly force of course the jury's going to take into consideration and just the whole concept of using deadly force and the jurors some of them came out and said that that was part of the jury instruction that they were given and if it wasn't part of the jury instruction they were given i know that they talked about that that was part of the analysis that they or the rationale that they used in order to support a those not voting and wound it winding up in the in the dunn case with a with that with a hung jury unreal and considering that marissa alexander also a florida case the woman who shot of want of a good morning shot at her abusive husband goes to jail for twenty years i think there's a lot of pressure on that firm retrial but when unarmed black teenagers are killed and their perpetrators are released what's your response people who say this is not about race as you said you know it's happened

a vacuum case by case basis it has nothing to do with race well i think race plays a an incredibly. important element in first of all in michael dunn's assessment that he could or should be able to tell a group of kids to turn their music down and when he is then challenged by them he feels empowered to take matters into his. own hands that's white privilege i don't know of anybody i mean i've spoken to a lot of people you know if you pulled up to a seven eleven and you heard some kids playing a musical would you feel empowered to go to them and tell them who in a public space to turn their music down it's inception alina and we know that he's written letters from jail about about trey about. young mr davis being a we know that he told his girlfriend that he hated this music all of that is basic

code language in a rachael kohn we have only about a minute left but you know despite civil rights legislation we talked about there's stop and frisk there's a stand your ground laws shocking statistics that a high school i'm sorry that a black male without a high school degree is more likely than up in prison and with a job how can we expand the consciousness of americans to realize that we don't have true equality of opportunity in the african-american community has to take it upon itself we have to we have to turn to our organizations such as the n.w. c.p. and we have to create new think tanks and other types of organizations that are going to speak to him and that are going to be able to articulate these issues so that we can bring affective pressure upon the upon the the political process the same way that alec the the think tank the conserve the think tank has done that and brought us stand your ground brought us right to vote or id laws and so many other

incredibly bad pieces of legislation that are now law of the land absolutely dr wilmer leon everyone check out as a bad professor howard university really i think your time thank you. that's our show you guys join me again tomorrow and i break that all over again. i marinate join me. in our cold and financial report very good news and much much. only on from past and.

crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want to. i'm the best at it and i think a society that i think corporation kind of can. do and the bankers try to get all that all about money and i was fascinated that for a politician writing the laws and regulations to tax bankers.

there's just too much is it a diet. that. when i close my eyes i see people in mosques. but people are member best of all of it come back to us and they're all wearing masks. sometimes i think that you are my gun itself is a face covered by a mosque. just on me but if there are people in mosques on both sides of the barricades and sometimes he says it feels as if all of you crave is no mosque.