just to. go and i'm abby martin and this is rick in the set so as you know this country is struggling mass water shut off in detroit homes are being foreclosed upon and our infrastructure is collapsing of course the reason we're not fixing these problems is because we don't have enough money right oddly enough it looks like we just don't have a billion dollars in the oval office couch so the obama administration just asked congress to authorize a whopping five hundred million dollars to further train and equip the so-called moderate members of the syrian opposition and considering how strong support from across the aisle looks like is going to get his way because there's anything both

republicans and democrats going to agree on its funding disasters foreign policy interventions my right don't worry obama's insisted that these groups were properly vetted before handing them over weapons in a country to total state of chaos what could possibly go wrong especially since the arms could very well end up in the hands of the same terrorist group this government is looking to bomb in iraq but hey it's not like the five thousand detroit hers who had their water shut off could you use the five hundred million dollars oh that's right when there is an actual humanitarian crisis in the us that's just detroit's problem but further in the military industrial complex under the cloak of humanitarianism about the cause our government can get behind and let's break the set. please please they are looking very hard to take that leap in logic. that he ever had sex with that hurt there are those.

that believe. in the. little. league. league. it's been over a year since the very first revelations about the u.s. government's dragnet spying apparatus and since we found that the n.s.a. has approached a data collection is basically just one giant sweep gathering up all data from private e-mails to online purchases and storing it and massive facilities just like this one bluffdale you top the bottle center is a two billion dollar facility spanning one million square feet for the sole purpose

of tracking and storing communications data and bluffdale just one of many data facilities that serve various purposes for the n.s.a. computer servers that bluffdale hold five zero bytes of data according to former n.s.a. whistleblower bill benny just for reference one say to buy it as a quibble and the amount of data that would fit on two hundred fifty billion d.v.d.'s so you can imagine that bluffdale is a perfect target to highlight the n.s.a. is a legal spying program which is exactly what greenpeace environmental activists and organizers from the electronic frontier foundation did over the weekend they flew a blimp a thousand feet above the data center displaying big letters reading an essay a legal spine below. greenpeace won its airship with a demonstration to call attention to an ongoing lawsuit filed by and numerous organizations of the collection of its phone records but the day of action wasn't only about a dramatic demonstration it was about engaging the american people in the debate

see the pfaff along with the twenty two member coalition just launched a stand against spying dot org a website that gives online users a chance to rate their congressional representatives and how they're voting on issues related to mass surveillance following the launch of a new website if director raney rate men said that quote we must hold members of congress accountable by making clear to the public who in congress is standing up for surveillance reform who is acting as a roadblock and who is failing to take a stand in deed accountability began with transparency so if you're one of the millions of americans concerned that surveillance is gone too far go to stand against spying dot org and start calling out those facilitating the problem.

just when you thought corporate personhood couldn't get any more entrenched today the supreme court further cemented the notion corporations are people to the high court handed down its decision in the hobby lobby vs the bilious case in a five to four ruling said that the company is not required to offer some forms of birth control for its employees due to the religious beliefs of the company's owners now although many are calling the ruling narrow that only applies to closely held corporations and not those that are publicly traded the decision sets a precedent that a company can pick and choose what laws to adhere to based on religious beliefs this latest decision comes on the heels of another ruling last a week with in the court of limited protest buffer zones around abortion clinics. here to discuss the magnitude of both of these rulings i'm joined now by activists in abortion clinic katie thank you so much for coming on katie thanks for having me so i want to start with the hobby lobby ruling by reading you something that

justice alito wrote in the majority opinion he said that this ruling core protects the religious liberty of the humans who own control them and that any suggestion that for profit corporations aren't capable of exercising religion because their purpose is simply to make money flies in the face of modern corporate law what is your response to his statement well the only thing that the closely held company is me and is that they're not publicly traded so it would be like facebook before it went public and they're still a break in and money and they're still owned by a couple of guys usually a couple of guys so the idea that the three billion dollars that they pulled in last year somehow makes them a mom and pop store on the corner whose religious beliefs are like super important is just really ridiculous to me. and your interpretation of this is you know what larger precedent does this ruling call the trouble is that it doesn't really rely on any previous president so in ginsburg's dissent her scathing besides she talks about how there's really nothing in it that would keep it narrow so people are

calling it narrow but there's nothing that says say if your boss is a scientologist who's against certain medications or your boss is a different religion although let's face it if it was a muslim company that had gone in for the supreme court right wingers would have been screaming about sharia law and there's no way this decision would have come down this way so this is just caught if i specific extremists quote unquote christian beliefs into law. i mean could there be a president overturning this earlier but if homosexual couple wanted to buy something from a business and could they say my religion doesn't i mean isn't this just a president and woman's reproductive rights the decision is written so as to stay narrow where if you have a uterus you're the old. well that's affected by this law so basically if you if you have the correct equipment you're basically the last political stomping ground in fact makes a point to say that this is only that you can only discriminate against actual real

you know believable religious beliefs well the problem with that is that you're basically saying well the supreme court may be massaging those but we're not bigoted like i mean where is the where is the law in there. i've been hearing from people. you know they're saying well hey this still cover sixteen out of twenty birth control methods mandated by obamacare what's the big deal kate if we still have these sixteen to twenty one what is it about those other four that we should be concerned with how do you lobby and the dozens of other plaintiffs the whole foods owners and there's a bunch of other people that are in there with it have decided based on faulty science faulty science meaning stuff that they've created that these particular forms of birth control actually cause abortion. and for some women hormonal birth control just isn't something they can use it doesn't personally work for me until the affordable care act meant that i could get an i.u.d. without a co-pay i couldn't afford birth control either so there are lots of different reasons why this is troubling and it shouldn't be between anyone except

a doctor and a patient what form of contraception is best for them right and i don't know if people actually realize that the plan b. polls literally like a seventy two hour birth control pill that tastes like a bunch of birth control but. i don't really understand about the divorce. it's not . you know what do you think a hobby lobby still willing to cover of a sect to me and even via agro of course ginsburg's made this point your dissent that even some interviewer in vices cost as much as a four month's pay on minimum wage sure there's two fires in there that can cost somewhere between eight hundred thousand dollars up front will last for about five years so over the course of using that particular device of mine was eight hundred dollars over the five years it works it's actually way too. both for me and for the insurance company to use the device rather than to the monthly you have to fill up prescription and take a pill every day it's just that that's cost prohibitive for low income communities there's just no way that you can come up with a hundred dollars upfront so it's just more discrimination against people who are

already marginalized. i don't know. i mean that's i mean that's basically what it comes down to there's nobody in the know that supreme court who issued this decision or agreed with it whose family members or anyone they know will ever have to understand what this decision means there's never been marginalized against they've never had to scrape together or birth control or prescription of any kind. i mean i suppose they've probably complained about the cost of their but it's just always been covered. i mean the second thing to do is just bizarre. you know why one and not the other and my whole thing is that ok so corporations are allowed to choose what laws to adhere to based on their religious beliefs if i have a religious or moral hundred to war or can i pick and choose what taxes i want to pay to not fund or i mean it's just an absurd premise that's how i felt forever like i don't want my tax dollars going overseas either even if even if there are tax dollars going into this for a hobby lobby is decision for them to be complaining about i don't get to pick

where my money goes either i just have to pay and i'm still required to pay and i mean hobby lobby already gets all kinds of tax breaks you know i mean they've already got they've got the best of both worlds most of the really great writers just. makes the point that they're there person when it suits them they're not a person when it doesn't suit. exactly let's talk about the other ruling the other thirty five foot buffer zones that used to be in place around abortion clinics no more what was the original justification for implementing this ruling so the only buffer zone that's magically gone after the decision is the thirty five foot zone in massachusetts in the early ninety's there were several murders. garden doctor were all killed. just attempting to go to work. to health care facilities and the state of massachusetts decided that it would balance first amendment rights based on public safety is something we've been doing since the founding of this country and that they would push people back about thirty five feet from the door where

they could still exercise their political beliefs i don't they. doctor's office is a place for your political beliefs but it's a public sidewalk so they can be there if they want to be. but supreme court justice roberts has decided that he thinks that thirty five feet is too far away something that anyone who's ever been in line for a disney movie was screaming children can tell you it's just not true you could you can hear pretty well from thirty five feet. he wants people to be up in your face and so on last your buffer zone in your state city county or around your clinic is specifically designed in tailored to that one facility it's now up for a challenge but i guess how do i mean how could you argue that it's not subject to the free speech laws of a public sidewalk and not anything else i mean why is why should that have disproportionate trouble with other public three hundred incidents of violence just between twenty ten and twenty there's a real public safety risk the supreme court has ruled previously woman's right to

privacy ensures her right to terminate a pregnancy if that's still the case then i should also be able to walk into my doctor's office without having to literally navigate a sidewalk covered in four foot placards and surrounded by screaming people i mean just in new jersey inglewood new jersey before the buffer zone was passed at the end of march i saw every saturday women try to walk to the door i saw a medical transport vehicles with patients in physical distress surrounded by picketers and have them not be able to walk in the door that's just ridiculous that's not free speech that's harassment if you want to stand off to the side with the pamphlets or say something or even stand with a rosary exercising your conscience that's absolutely free speech but you being up in my space threatening me is not and you are. to abortion clinics of course you are you have a very personal stake in this thank you so much for coming down and breaking on these two very very important cases katie women's reproductive rights activists really appreciate thanks for having me. coming up i'll talk about the link but

a lot of water is going to go to get its way so i turned. this was in the washington well it's a list that is being suggested in the latest numbers among the many candidates former prophecy of current issues actually back to a new doesn't do too much for ad revenue my own tech agriculture giant keystone a seventy six year old american farmer based in indiana is 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 when i give you all of those points on the working poor the american dream the next they were just trying to survive it's time for americans and lawmakers are forced to wake up and start talking about the real causes of problem.

one of the most despicable aspects of today's military industrial complex is the outsourcing of the armed forces something the establishment quickly learned in the wake of the backlash of the vietnam war nowadays going to war doesn't even mean sending american military personnel as long as you can contract killers for hire with zero allegiance to any country or constitution that's exactly what we've seen proliferate on the war on terror contractors from k.b.r. to dine corp are shipped to war zones and usually kept there long after the last us troops as evident by iraq and afghanistan today but there's no other contractor firm more insanely corrupt and criminal than blackwater oh sorry did i say bill hotwater i meant zero. to me actually yes in a poor effort to distance itself from that sort of war crimes and black market

deals blackwater has changed its name three times already so during the iraq occupation blackwater made headlines for its rampant unaccountability and murder sprees whether it was guards indiscriminately firing on passing cars animals or human beings you may remember during the height of the occupation and two thousand and seven blackwater guards straight up slaughtered seventeen civilians in the service square and baghdad the incident caused justifiable uproar on behalf of iraqis but its prime minister calling it quote deliberate murder and feigned outrage on behalf of the u.s. government which passed a bill subjecting the contractors to u.s. courts because for some reason they weren't before now three years of legal red tape and government mishaps over what had been quite in the my lai moment iraq three contractors are currently in the midst of a trial over manslaughter charges however as new york times journalist james rosen just broke weeks before that a sort of tragedy the state department already begun investigating the company's

operations in iraq but according to rise in. the inquiry was abandoned after blackwater's top manager there issued a threat that he could kill the government's chief investigator and no one could or would do anything about it as we were in iraq according to apartment reports yes you heard that right blackwater's top commander in iraq so that it would simply kill anyone investigating this company so after threatening the life of officials in the state department clearly this guy was promptly fired put in jail right not exactly and fact american embassy officials in baghdad sided with blackwater rather than the state department as the review intensified according to rise and the officials told investigators that they had disrupted the embassy's relationship with the security contractor and ordered them to leave the country not blackwater was in order to leave the investigators were well understandably upon returning to

washington the investigator named jean richer hershey rebuked blackwater's conduct claiming that they acted as that they were above the law and i quote the management structures in place to manage and monitor our contracts in iraq have become subservient to the contractors themselves in deed this reckless arrogance came to define blackwater's presence in iraq and relationship with the us government but at least after this over blackwater how to hold contracts cut right nope. less than a year after the service square massacre the state department renewed blackwater's contract to protect diplomats in iraq for another year and in fact since two thousand and seven the us has handed this criminal enterprise at least two hundred forty two million dollars in contracts including one hundred million dollars from the cia under obama in two thousand and ten and another with the d.o.d. in may of this year now is the unchecked hubris of this murder for hire force

disgusts you you might be even more shocked to learn that this wasn't the first time that block water from the. lives of people trying to undermine it in fact jeremy scahill author of blackwater the rise of the world's most powerful mercenary army blackwater founder erik prince might have actually ordered the execution of people in the past according to sworn affidavits by former blackwater employees the company who only regularly smuggled weapons into iraq and destroyed evidence that could implicate itself but in a sworn declaration john doe number two alleges that it appears mr prince and his employees murdered or had murdered one or more persons who have provided information or were planning to provide information to the federal authorities about the ongoing criminal conduct don't number two also alleges that quote on several occasions after my departure from mr prince's employ mr prince as management has personally threatened me with death and violence gee sounds just

like the kind of company that you would want to be showering with hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts doesn't it but see it makes more sense when you realize the disturbing plane of reality that erik prince finds himself living on according to these employees prince considered himself a christian crusader a kin to the knights of templar who truly believe that he was personally tasked by god to eliminate most limbs in the islamic faith from the globe but if you listen to prince he's just the biggest victim of all so we have a say in this online on a clip from the daily show. so you feel that the government actually. actively turned against you and began to to persecute you and someone indeed and you know meeting with congressional staffs me for years said look there's a matter what you guys going to do we're going to ride you into you're out of business. maybe what he meant by out of business is total legal immunity safe harbor and be hundreds of millions more in contracts and no justice for countless

dead iraqis. in the last decade police forces across the us to become increasingly militarized and outfitted with equipment better suited for all out warfare and the so-called protection of civilians case in point mine resistant ambush protected armored personnel vehicles or m. wraps these babies weigh about fourteen tons of were built to withstand improvised explosive devices in iraq and afghanistan the war in iraq has ended the number of troops in afghanistan decreasing raps need a new home what better place than american streets in fact the pentagon is so desperate to get rid of its thirteen thousand or so i'm wrapped up literally giving them away to take a look at the towns that have recently received them quoting everywhere from michigan an enormous city of thirty nine hundred people to the bustling metropolis of madison indiana with twelve thousand residents keep in mind the pentagon

provides absolutely no training or instruction manual for operating these vehicles i mean how to discuss the am rob occasion and militarization of america's police forces as a journalist and author of police state usa cheryl thank you so much for coming on and cheryl so why does a town of three thousand people need and map the police justification for buying and maps is to keep their officers safe as they fight crime the problem is there's not too many criminals out there that have any type of weaponry that can take out an m. route so it leads leads most americans to wonder why indeed all. local police having this equipment i don't imagine it's kind of scary for citizens as well to kind of see these these heavily armored vehicles going throughout the cities i want to point to a very incredible info graphic that i found online of how police uniforms that evolved from one thousand nine hundred sixty eight to two thousand and eleven if you look i mean blue shirt building clubs to now all on swat team militarized

police i don't know if you have got to show our audience how what have you found to be the driving force behind this evolution is a little bit of right here it is alarming especially the progression is occurred in so few years the genesis behind this is that the department of defense has been offering for a low cost to local police departments all types and grades of military equipment that are straight off the battlefields of say afghanistan and we're not talking just kev law are an armored vehicles full body gear we're also talking weapons ammunition night vision goggles the most alarming thing i found was that they actually have. scopes that can take out snipers and why would a local police officer need that type of equipment it's a really good question you've also been pretty critical of you know face recognition technology police drones why is this equipment problematic or why is this technology problematic if it could indeed capture criminals will two points on that first off it's problematic because privacy issues americans cherish their

privacy as you know it's imbedded in our in our d.n.a. and in our constitution but the second problem with that is the justification for using so much of this technology is to battle terrorism the problem is and hearings on capitol hill bear this out they're often not getting any counterterrorism type intel from this so what's happening is police are using this type of equipment just to go after regular criminals wanted to bring up another point where book which i found very fascinated to know about before it's called civil asset forfeiture as a way for police to scam people essentially out of their property can you break down what this means and kind of give us a case. you outline ok two words cash cow that's what it means for local police departments but it is back in the one nine hundred seventy s. the u.s. justice department started this program as a means of law enforcement fighting drugs but what it's morphed into through the years is no longer is it criminal asset forfeiture where you have to have due cause to get a warrant it's morphed into civil ass asset forfeiture where you don't need

a warrant you don't even need a suspicion of any crime that can be borne out in court you just need a police officer pulling somebody over for a crime that they suspect and during that process of search they can take their cars their cash their cell phones which i chronicle in my book has happened over a thousand times on one particular portion of texas roadway the a.c.l.u. came in and sued found it was completely discriminatory against the law and what under what premise started doing this i mean what justification of the police during the justification at the start of this program was that if you allow police to confiscate properties used during the commission of a crime it serves as a deterrent for other would be criminals and they also say that it helps police safety which i'm not sure about the logic behind that but what it is is millions upon millions and millions of dollars for local police departments because the properties that they confiscate whether it's cash cars or anything else they get to keep a portion of it for their local revenues you know sure when people hear the term

poly state i think they think of martial law on the streets but really the insidiousness of surveillance i'm going to be encroaching on on civil liberties here it could mean something else about that visual aspect as one of you can outline if you think that we're already living in one i do and you know i challenge people to read my book read through the hundreds of case you know the news reports that i cite and so forth and give me a different definition of it i don't like announcing that that we're living in a police state but the problem is our government has overreach so far and they do it as use as you allude to they do it with a smile so most people don't know it's just. the good of the nation for the good of security and so forth you kind of outline the scenario of what the country might look like in twenty five years if we do not curb back these or roshan cheryl what would that look like five years from now it's going to look like clamp down drones in the air probably watching every move in addition to all the cameras law enforcement with you know military grade type of equipment that have an attitude

not so much serve and protect but you know aggression and intimidation police people who don't have the constitutional rights borne out in court it's just going to be a really tough time for americans you need to implement these private privacy protections now shall thank you for the urgency of my washington times reporter author of police state usa really appreciate it thank you. for months now ukraine has been host to heavy political infighting the ongoing violence continues to threaten not only the territorial integrity of the country but the lives of thousands of civilians caught in the crossfire and just today as reported that another journalist has been killed sixty eight year old and.

there are now. i marinate in the financial world. series to go home and i mean i started a family take note of it it's really not going to get me in life there are. the for.

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