what's happening folks i'm abby martin this is breaking this set so alabama isn't exactly a state known for being on the cutting edge of progressive politics in fact the state still in forced a ban on consensual homosexual sex until last week on friday the alabama court of appeals overturned the ruling in that sense the man who had a gaijin sodomy to a year in prison but as shocking as it may be that alabama was still criminalizing sex between two consenting adults this case had no business even being argued in a district court that's because all the way back in two thousand and three the supreme court ruled that anti sodomy laws were illegal and

a violation of the fourteenth amendment but despite that ruling many states continue to uphold their anti sodomy laws refusing to acknowledge the ruling in fact a stunning eleven states in the u.s. still have anti sodomy laws on the books including everywhere from florida to utah there are two states to actually comply with the supreme court's decision on montana and virginia so if you think that this is an antiquated law i'm sorry if you think that this is just an antiquated law that isn't really in force consider that last year police in baton rouge louisiana set up a sting operation against gay men fern gay gene and homosexuals sex although luckily the district attorney refused to bring charges against them but these in defensible laws are not salute disgrace and they are two thousand and fourteen and with gay marriage sweeping across the country it's beyond upsurge that some states are still banning gay sex let's break this.

they believe very hard to tell. you. that back with the earthquake there. when you think of conflict minerals the film blood diamond might come to mind are images of guerrilla fighters overseeing the mining of precious gems and some work on country and while many of diamonds and gems sold in jewelry stores do have questionable origins a conflict mineral can be any mineral or resource in

a part of the world extracted under conditions of armed conflict and human rights abuse some examples include ten tungsten and tanta light and gold all of which serve as essential components for everything from automobiles to electronics most of these minerals however are mine of the democratic republic of the congo along with nine of its neighboring african countries where warlords militia armies and rebel groups profit from the sale of these minerals all the while perpetuating regional wars the conditions found at the conflict mineral mines can be downright abysmal were laborers aren't hired but often forced to work at gunpoint threatened with their lives and expected to do a job that will likely kill them the human cost of mining for this buried treasure is almost unthinkable tens of thousands of young boys forced to work in mud pits digging with their bare hands for metal or the irony of it all is that buried. of the ground in countries like the congo there's a mineral wealth or trillions of dollars but it's

a wealth that is traumatized and poor population the country will never see thanks to a forever war that's the result of what many call the resource curse so how does a conflict taking place far away across the ocean affect you and me the consumer most recent disclosures by giant tech companies like google apple and intel reveal the components found in their products may have their origins in armed conflict in the d r c and its surrounding countries take a look at apple for example as recently as two thousand and ten apple was listed as being among the worst electronics companies in terms of relying on conflict minerals for its products and it wasn't until last year after public pressure and government oversight that apple began to make pledges to pursue a conflict free trade finally now the reason large multinational corporations are even making these disclosures is because of the wall street reform act better known as dodd frank see one of the very few positives to come out about law is that it requires that companies identify where minerals used in their products come from

but even as more companies are forced to disclose the source of these minerals and detailed reports for the first time conflict mineral watchdogs like global witness argue that the first finally ones are simply inadequate take for example blue box jury icon tiffany's record of the company's disclosure report there were at least five a whole categories of its products where the source of the materials was put on the terminable and google's documents reveal that only thirty six percent of a company's suppliers in the dear sea were certified as conflict free and in fact in the findings for the larger tech giants not a single company was able to definitively prove their suppliers are not using conflict minerals the move for more accountability from the companies that purchased these resources is still a good first step but considering the lives that are at stake these reports fall short of real transparency in the internet. national rescue committee estimates that upwards of five point four million individuals have died as

a direct result of the regional conflict with millions more displaced more deaths than any other world conflict since world war two and unfortunately there is no point turn around for end in the ongoing humanitarian crisis that's driven by the profits of these conflict minerals so the importance of accurate reporting is the bare minimum we should expect. this problem is so widespread it's almost impossible boycott the purchase of these conflict in electronics but it's very important to understand the sacrifice made to build every i phone every laptop and every television so that one day a public pressure can finally ensure that not one more dollar will contribute to these deaths. drug addiction and abuse has reached on the president at levels in the us and it's having deadly results in fact since one thousand eighty the number of deaths

attributed to drug overdoses in the country has risen over five hundred forty percent according to the partment of health and human services but nowhere is this more evident than with opioid prescription medications such as oxycontin and percocet does a lot of alone one point four million americans went to the emergency room for overdosing on these pills resulting and twenty two thousand deaths but now to a district attorneys in california are taking matters into their own hands and filing a lawsuit against five pharmaceutical companies last month da's in orange county and sac clarified a lawsuit against these corporations for their role in promoting new drugs despite knowing the risks of addiction and this month the city of chicago filed its own lawsuit against big pharma as well the companies include subsidiaries of johnson and johnson and have two of the largest pharma companies in the world joining me now to discuss the details of these lawsuits as well as the larger issue of opium. diction i'm joined now by our correspondent megan. thank you for coming in on the

on so record levels in the u.s. i mean this is just i'm saying the u.s. is one of two countries in the world with even director consumer advertising for pharmaceutical companies could that be a reason why we've seen such a massive rise in addiction that is absolutely the reason why these two counties in california are saying that we are seeing this rise in addiction so just to kind of be some context and to put this into a bit of verse perspective the centers for disease control is calling this the worst epidemic in the united states history when it comes to drugs so that is surprising thinking of back to tobacco and think you know of things that are much more dangerous than you would kind of associate cocaine and heroin and whatnot but just to give you some numbers two thousand and ten study by the national institute for drug abuse said that five point one million americans abuse opioid pain relievers and to show you how big of a problem it's become over the last couple of decades or so since one thousand nine

hundred nine twenty nine states have reported that the numbers of overdose emergency room visits caused by opioids has doubled ten states report that those numbers have tripled and four states report that those numbers have quadrupled now another study found that twenty five hundred used between the ages of twelve and seventeen try and abuse these drugs every single year within the united states so that is just a really shocking kind of statistic when you think about how prevalent these are and how serious the problem could be in the future that's unbelievable megan it really is shocking statistics there let's talk about the california lawsuit what are its allegations there are a number of allegations that it kind of. incorporates so first of all it says that these companies are responsible for false and deceptive marketing campaigns so that makes that makes a lot of sense because as you said this is one of the only countries that can really appeal to. doctors and to others and kind of market their own drugs and some

of them it also accuses these companies of promising unsubstantiated benefits and for downplaying the substance abuse and addiction kind of problems that stem from these drugs and then also it kind of looks into the false advertising so there's a number of different kind of allegations that go into these these are behemoth lawsuits with very serious allegations very serious language but also very broad language serious indeed i have to ask though why are the specifically targeting the drug manufacturers not the positions that are over prescribing the medications because we know that they get kickbacks to absolutely so that was one of the first questions i asked is why are you going after the doctors why take on these behemoth companies and the reasons that the d.a. is gave me an orange county california and also from santa clara is because these people who are abusers are going to get their drugs no matter what they are going to find some doctor and some situation who will prescribe them so what these d. is are trying to do is attack the culture as

a whole to really minimize the number of perspiration that are being sent out to minimize the number of people who potentially could abuse them and also do you know to kind of just raise awareness even if this lawsuit isn't successful it does raise awareness about the fact that these drugs are being so commonly prescribed and for such a long time these are very serious drugs they were only supposed to be described for people that were suffering exposure really horrible pain for cancer and now they have wide wide range of uses yeah i mean i think all of us knows some people who've had their lives utterly destroyed by the pharmaceutical drugs making it is very serious very very serious issue for the pharmaceutical companies responding to this claim well their defense right now is no comment so they're not really responding i think they're kind of taking this case by case obviously we're still very early in the trial in this lawsuit they've got as you mentioned two different . lawsuits kind of go through one from santa clara in orange county teaming up and

one from chicago so they have to take each of those by the head but again they're not responding to anybody questions about the case in chicago and how it specifically relates to veterans so the case in chicago really goes above and beyond and what it says is that these a pharmaceutical companies weren't only targeting doctors for anyone that might be suffering from anything really they were saying that these pharmaceutical companies were specifically talking targeting doctors of elderly patients and also doctors of veterans so what we know right now is that despite the veterans affairs administration being in disarray veterans themselves have a very good insurance system meaning that the insurance companies are willing to pay top dollar in order to get them treated and or to get the medications so the pharmaceutical companies or is being alleged they are a really targeting those doctors and putting up these so-called front groups to essentially pay off doctors to write the reviews that make these medications seen

a lot safer and a lot more prevalent and then they need to be really you know. dr goober mob is an addiction specialist on the show last week and he his whole theory is that behavior is the primary influencing factor in addict and addiction and i just wanted to see what you thought about how this relates to the soldiers especially those returning with p.t.s.d. because i feel like we're not getting to the root of the problem here of why there's so much addiction so i had the doctor nearest to him and he said that there was a lack of information a loss of control uncertainty insecurity and stress now if you're thinking about somebody that's going into that combat environment and somebody that has studied combat environment quite closely that describes a combat environment they don't know what they're going into every day and many of them are coming back with p.t.s.d. so right now at least twenty percent of our veterans returning from iraq and afghanistan have suffered from some form of p.t.s.d. . many many more are undiagnosed and up to thirty percent of our vietnam era

veterans are suffering from some form of p.t.s.d. whether it is diagnosed or undiagnosed so those are one of the some of the problems also they're coming back with horrific injuries that obviously are not going to see in many other places or as they just threw out these these farmers who go pills and we have about twenty left but will the set a precedent this lawsuit that might be huge and absolutely could set a precedent now something that's interesting is that they are comparing this lawsuit to the back o. industry lawsuits that we saw back in the one nine hundred fifty s. just going after this industry as a whole so who knows but at least it's getting the conversation going it is going to we really need to start because america has a whole problem about is for sure thank you so much for coming on. coming up you guys find out why the government isn't the only sector spying on you my interview with a former computer technician is after the break. washington will submit. a list. from the candidates

for congress to you are going to do that actually that doesn't do too much to add revenue line tech agriculture giant teeth on a seventy six year old american farmer in the studio fallout do you think this is going to create for the cia do you think this is what's triggering a great return to civil rights to but it's also the largest debtor nation in the history of breaking the set is mostly about alternatives to the status quo but when i give you all the points that works for the american dream the next day we're just trying to survive it's time for americans and lawmakers are forced to wake up and start talking about the real causes of. in the short time since n.s.a.

whistleblower edward snowden the v a trove of highly classified documents former agency insiders like bill bennett and promise straight or thrust into the spotlight their claims of illegal spying finally vindicated snowden's leaks didn't just reveal the role of government surveillance they also expose the extent of government cooperation with the private sector in supplying consumer data is explosive findings absolved another man former eight hundred communications technician mark klein said klein blew the whistle back in two thousand and six on the fact that his job entailed room browsing internet traffic made via hardware that allowed the government to directly indiscriminately suck up private data this is being done in a secret room one thousand nine hundred seven cisco office and duplicated across the country but klein didn't speak out for years for fear of retribution instead he took documents proving his case and waited until the tide turned before bringing a story to the press or earlier i spoke to mark klein about why americans should be just as concerned with private sector surveillance of their with government spying

i first asked him what recourse he experienced from speaking out. if anything. she's threatened was to sue me for taking it to put it documents. engineering documents but can never do. this because they didn't want any more bad publicity. it wasn't couldn't get me because i didn't work for the government so they couldn't convict me of breaking security oaths because i never saw anybody your experience of discovering the n.s.a. room at eighty predated all forms of corporate data mining that exists now on google e-mail sniffer google street view facebook facial recognition etc i mean the list goes on and on do you think that these things in the age of digital technology creates a conditioning problem among the general populace to not be upset at us government surveillance. well as i say you know people who are

just out there are not political i don't think about it they just fade i'm not doing anything wrong and they don't feel threatened but once they get over it goes they have to you begin to realize how dangerous this is. and so particularly people who were involved in protest movements and find that they've been singled out in one way or another. they feel definitely that the government's activities or threats it's the pains and pains of people's knowledge about it governments and what people's activities are right now i guess we're about to find out really more on not as glenn greenwald been hinting mark recently facebook c.e.o. mark zuckerberg google's eric schmidt have lambasted the n.s.a. for using a backdoor to spy on their data centers do you believe them do you believe the tech companies when they claim that they were in the complete dark about the extent of

the spying here. to some extent. i think some of them providing some stuff about how knowledgeable they were but also. i think there is evidence that some companies like google who had cooperated well basically double crossed and so why the way and starts to go. through the front door as a result of some legal order the n.s.a. was top was also taking vastly more through the back to work. companies like google probably didn't know about and they actually got pissed off and i think it's genuine anger on their for their part to quit this stuff about how the n.s.a. was intercepting. between international servers. google servers and international countries they were exchanging data at cade it was

not not encrypted and so to say was just intercepting it and storing it i suspect that google didn't wasn't aware of that because they probably figured they were cooperating so i think there's anyone to think or there. mark in two thousand and eight eighteen t. was given retroactive immunity for its cooperation with the government regarding illegal surveillance and pretty unprecedented move there how did this decision influence private public surveillance cooperation today. well i think certainly it put a legal standpoint what they were doing illegally before that and so i'm sure the phone companies and other companies that still work. some confidence if they can collaborate with the n.s.a. without any problems others probably there are other companies that might have wanted to receive just and there and felt that they couldn't resist anymore because

congress had put its own stamp of approval on the whole thing so congress basically joined the system helped it is say legalize everything and undermine any resistance that might have been health care along the companies. as someone who studied history and participated in protests against a vietnam war marc and then became a whistleblower against the n.s.a. or how have your feelings evolved regarding government surveillance over the decades and into today. well i guess my eyes were open long ago so i guess i didn't trust again the government in case you go away i knew about it back in the seventy's. so. l.b.j. and nixon were using the n.s.a. to to domestic spying against antiwar movement states they have what they call

operation man or a which is to collect. the names of if they were people and track what they were doing so i knew about this all along so i was suspicious when the n.s.a. showed up at the phone company in two thousand and three at eighteen t.v. so i was not. exactly a surprise to me but i was still outraged and must have an amazing night and kind of be right in the middle of this scandal essentially i mean since that his home was plainly illegal and unconstitutional mark you've also called the democratic party at crap and you know we kind of hear often we hear that one party is more pro civil liberties pro privacy i mean what do you mean by that statement mark in sixty four it was the l.b.j. the peace candidate supposedly against goldwater the republican warmonger. and l.b.j. was closing as a peace candidate and the slogan on the left was part of the way when o.b.j.

. and i believe it i had inklings that l.b.j. was going to escalate as he had done work there were people about that and sure enough right after i got elected he said one hundred thousand troops if you're not in the paper or you know got bigger and bigger. and the pentagon papers revealed later. l.b.j. was planning to escalate the war even as it was running as a peace candidate is sixty four so he was it was a total lie democratic party was a trap. for the left it's a trap today obama functions in the same fashion as open aged in his posturing in the when he first got elected people can hold sort of him as the if he wore a candidate and it would clean up those flying and all that stuff it is music it's

collated the war it continued to spying it kept the same you know running the program defense robert gates and it continued bush's policies and they actually expanded the so people got fooled because obama had a friendlier face. at this point mark do you think it's possible for the government to internally reform itself to not violate the constitution and our privacy rights . no i'm convinced this is not possible to do in several recent forms i mean i tried to help when others wanted to try that route in congress. i had faith in what really happened and it was even worse than i expected the congress put its stamp of approval on what bush was doing bush was caught out doing things that was completely illegal he even had bypassed the foreign intelligence

surveillance act in the face of court and just with arised spying by his own signature completely illegal issue has been impeached for that instead congress has to do the same for a couple years past the unity law which covered the phone companies and. it hasn't been a backhanded way covered bush's blockade that was the purpose of it to pay basically legalize with bush was doing and that is evidence of internal reform is not possible that the police state its surveillance they need three president red is as just what they need to run their system it's an approval or system of the rich oppressing the poor what recourse do we have as a society you know to instill privacy rights in adherence of the constitution once again mark we have about a minute left where the old they haven't hears of change as it's called are just

blocks who are people have no say in congress and congress is run by ritual obvious and the military industrial complex and then people seek channels outside of government and then it is usually becomes some kind of social explosion . in the states which generates so you order which interest to ordinary working people how that happens you can't predict but that's the route that's going to happen thank you so much marc lyon of putting your neck out there speaking the truth. really appreciate you coming on. thank you. of an evolving political crisis continues to grip ukraine eastern part of the country has become the site of a growing death toll for civilians are penned in the middle of the violence just today two russians state t.v. journalists were killed in a mortar attack while on assignment correspondent igor cornell ego and sound

engineer entente ball ocean were killed while reporting from. one of the eastern most cities in ukraine takes tremendous courage to go into a combat zone great court on a story and my heart goes out to not only these families of the men but also the many innocent ukrainians caught in the cross-hairs. i marinate in the financial world. series to go home and i am not stopping

c.d.'s only taking out the demand for credit not going to get any economic benefit in life there are. your friend posts a photo from a vacation you can't afford college it's different. the boss repeats the same old joke of course you like. your ex-girlfriend still pens tear jerking poetry keep john norris. we post only what really matters at r.t. to your facebook news feed. the swaziland washington well it's a mess that is being suggested in the latest numbers among the media candidates

prophecy of current issues actually expect to and doesn't do too much for ad revenue my own tech agriculture giant tits on a seventy six year old american farmer based in indiana fallout do you think this is going to create for the cia do you think this is what's triggering a race america's the largest economy in the world it's also the largest debtor nation in the history of the world breaking the set is mostly about alternatives to the status quo but want to get real alternatives to the points on the working toward the american dream the next they were just trying to survive it's time for americans and lawmakers in washington to wake up and start talking about the real causes problems for. the shans are forced. to. cut.