restorers 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 tampa light and gold all of which serve as essential components for everything from automobiles to electronics most of these minerals however are mind a 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 labour's aren't hired but often forced to work at gunpoint threatened with their lives than expected to do a job that will likely kill them the human cost of mining if 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 under the ground in countries like the congo there's

a mineral wealth worth trying and some 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 every . wires 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 mines are simply inadequate take for example blue box jury icon tiffany's record of the company's disclosure report there were at least five four 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 the company's suppliers in the d.r. see or certified as quote 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 the international 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's no point turn around for and 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 to 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 public pressure can finally ensure that not one more dollar will contribute to these deaths. drug addiction and abuse have reached on the precedent and levels in the us. it's

having deadly results in fact since nine hundred 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 in two thousand and eleven alone one point four million americans went to the emergency room for overdosing on these pills resulting in twenty two thousand but now two district attorneys in california are taking matters into their own hands and filing a lawsuit against five pharmaceutical companies last month in orange county and sent clarified a lawsuit against these corporations for their role in promoting these 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 addiction i'm joined now by our correspondent megan. thank you for coming on i

mean thanks for having me 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 there is absolutely the reason why 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 first person active the center 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 two. 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 of 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 the 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.'s gave me they want to county california and also from santa clara is because these people who are abusers are going to get their drugs no matter what they're going to find some doctor and some situation who will prescribe them. so what these da's are trying to do is attack the culture as

a whole to really minimize the number of per script 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 expose 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 by 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 to 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 as mark 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 friendly 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 than then they need to be really you know. dr gabe ramapo he's an addiction specialist on the show last week and he his whole theory is that behavior is the primary influencing factor in addiction 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 right 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 if they just free up these these pharmacy go pills and we have about twenty left but will the set a precedent this lawsuit 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 what the government isn't the only sector spying on you my interview with a former mission is after the break. i

marinate join me. in that impartial and financial reporting commentary contributor and much much. only on the bus and on a. plane right on the scene. first street. and i think you're. on our reporters' twitter. and instagram. claim to be in the no clothes on mom. claim. is the true nature of the iraqi regime and the insurgency sweeping across the

country and is iraq facing the grim reality of becoming a failed state or facing partition. but. did you know the price is the only industry specifically mentioned in the constitution and. that's because a free and open process is critical to our democracy which albus. role. in fact the single biggest threat facing our nation today is the corporate takeover of our government and our craft several we've been hijacked why a handful of transnational corporations that will profit by destroying what our founding fathers once will just i'm tom are gone 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 fix rational debate and a real discussion of critical issues facing america by the book ready to join the

movement then walk a little bit of. the interview. feel. good. there's a medium leave us a wee bit maybe. i will see motion security for your party there's

a goal. for shoes that no one is asking with the guests that you deserve answers from it's all on politics only on our t.v. .

in the short time since n.s.a. whistleblower edward snowden the 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 client klein blew the whistle back in two thousand and six on the fact that his job entailed rerouting internet traffic from eighteen thousand via hardware allow 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 the story to prague to marc klaas in about why american 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. and she straightened was to sue me for taking it to put it documents. engineering documents but it can never do you suppose it's 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 breaking security oaths because i never saw anybody your experience of discovering the n.s.a. room at eighteen d. printed 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 in the political 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 after you 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. chill definitely that the government's activities or threats it's a pains depends on people's knowledge about it government and what people's activities are right now and 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 cooperate is basically double crossed and so why the way and starts to go. through the front door as a result of some legal order n.s.a. was top was also taking a vastly more through the back to work. companies like google probably didn't know about and they actually got pissed off and i think that's genuine anger on their poor on 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 that kate 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 on price and i did 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 us and there and felt that they couldn't resist any more because congress and 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 out there along the companies. as someone who studied history and participated in protests against the anon mormon mark 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 didn't i didn't trust the government ok so you go right i knew about it back in the seventy's. so l.b.j. nixon was using the n.s.a.

to to domestic spying against him if they were movement states they have what they called operation man or a which was to collect. the names of antiwar people and tracks what they were doing so i knew about this all along so i was suspicious when the n.s.a. showed up at the whole company in two thousand and three. so it was not. exactly a surprise to me but i was still outraged and must have an amazing night of 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 osing as the peace candidate and the slogan on the left was part of the way with o.b.j. . and i believe it i've had in claims that tell me shit 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 whole democratic party was a trap. for the left it's a trap today obama functions in the same fashion as old he did in his posturing in the when he first got elected people pinned hopes on him as the it's a war candidate and it what you would clean up those lying and all that stuff it is

some years ago 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 actually expand 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 . you know i'm convinced this is not possible to do in several recent forms i mean i'm trying to help when others want to try that route in congress. i had faith in what would happen 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 had bypassed the foreign intelligence surveillance act in the face of court and just with arised spying by his own signature completely illegal he should have been impeached for that instead congress has to do things for a couple years past that he needed a law which covered the phone companies and in it hasn't been a backhanded way covered pushes the whole idea that was the purpose of it to pay basically legalized would push was the way it is evidence of internal reform is not possible that the police state it's surveillance they need three president red is as just what they need to run their system it's an approach or system of the rich oppressing the poor and what recourse do we have as a society you know to instill privacy rights in adherence to the constitution once

again mark we have about a minute left where the old heaven hears of changes the schools 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 that it eventually becomes some kind of social explosion. in the states which generates so you order which interest to ordinary working people happens you can't predict the cage the route it'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. as an evolving political crisis continues to grip ukraine the 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 russian state t.v.

journalists were killed in a mortar attack on assignment correspondent igor cornell yoke and sound engineer on tomball ocean were killed while reporting from blowguns one of the eastern most cities in ukraine takes tremendous courage to go into a combat zone and report on a story my heart goes out to not only these families of the men but also the many innocent ukrainians caught in the crosshairs. seriously school basis try to play players play polo going to. want to get much more interesting taking every minute.

cut may nolasco a. mile or less like the claim. was false to say the. places is most elite clubs. sometimes for nothing which lead this season and it's important. to look just keep up the still we can still be just a.b.c. be a stage eight look to be dealt with but the speech was. plenty . one of the wonderful show coming along the bank of new knowledge base i'm sure i'm getting a bone. pleasure

to have you with us here on t.v. today i'm researcher. jennings was the genesis vulgarized darwin science punishment for an uncommitted crying. in eighty feebleminded stills a day of. genetic improvement through forced sterilization the basis for nazi ideology. to the point of death. for years. discussed.

a. good lover. was able to build a most sophisticated robots. mission

to teach creation why it should care about humans. this is why you should care only. as ukraine's president promises his troops will soon lay down arms a graphic video surfaces online showing body parts gathered across a residential area after the latest on the shelling in kids military crackdown. the u.n. condemns the killing of two russian journalists in eastern ukraine and calls for a full investigation the pair died during the army shelling while filming fleeing refugees. militants close the end on baghdad after ransacking helped the country trying to see the largest oil refinery u.s. troops have been sent to secure their embassy.