i'm amy goodman with nermeen shaikh. >> welcome to all our listeners and viewers from around the country and around the world. we begin today's show looking at a scandal gripping israel and australia centered on a man once known simply as prisoner x. he was found dead in a maximum- security prison in israel in 2010. israeli official said he committed suicide. a gag order was placed on the israeli media barring reporters from revealing any information about the prisoner. his identity remained unknown -- until last week when the australian broadcasting corporation ran an exposÉ about the case on their program "foreign correspondent." the episode began like this. >> it was a peephole look into a top secret world, just enough to grip the nation's attention and pose disturbing questions. what was the identity of a mysterious prisoner in one of israel's toughest jails and why the secrecy behind his extraordinary incarceration? when the media began to ask questions, the state's mobilized to push through one of the harshest and

i'm amy goodman with nermeen shaikh. >> a federal appeals court has ruled the government can continue to keep secret its efforts to pursue the private and permission of internet users without a warrant as part of its probe into the whistleblowing website wikileaks. the case involved three people connected to wikileaks whose twitter and enol records were sought by the government, including computer security researcher jacob appelbaum and icelandic parliamentarian birgitta jonsdottir. >> the aclu and the electronic frontier foundation, which represented the account holders, argued the subpoena violated there's -- the privacy rights and they should know why the government wanted their information. late last month, the court rejected a request to unseal all orders relating to the three individuals that may have been sent to companies other than twitter. we're joined by jacob appelbaum himself, a developer and advocate for the tor project, system enabling its users to communicate anonymously on the internet. well, reid i am glad we did not have to subpoena you to get here. >> i imagine i w

. >> i'm nermeen shaikh. today we spend the hour looking at president obama's state of the union address and proposals on the economy, climate change, afghanistan, and immigration. we begin with his call for new gun control. obama called on congress to reform gun-control measures, including background checks and bans and what he described as weapons of war and massive ammunition magazines. obama said each of these proposals deserves a vote in congress. >> if you want to vote no, that is your choice, but the proposal deserves a vote. in the two months since the newtown, or the 1000 birthdays, graduations, anniversaries, have been stolen from our lives by a bullet from a gun. more than 1000. one of those we lost was a young girl named hadiya pendleton. she was 15 years old. she loved fake newtons she was so good to her friends, they all thought they were her best friend. just three weeks ago, she was here in washington with her classmates, performing for her country and my inauguration. one week later, she was

i spoke with her along with nermeen shaikh from "democracy now!" >> of course the case is hard to know exactly how the supreme court will end up ruling, whether it be narrow or broadly, but the reason why we wrote a brief and in this report supporting hugh bowman is to point out the fact that unfortunately this is a microcosm of a bigger issue of seed patenting and the question of who should own products of life, if you will, living organisms. monsanto has already sued around or has about 144 lawsuits involving about 406 farmers and about 50 plus small farm businesses across 27 states. they -- farmers have already paid monsanto in these cases about $20 million. there are thousands of cases settled out of court or monsanto comes after farmers to investigate them for alleged seed patent infringement. they have had thousands of cases in our investigation is shown thousands of cases settled out of court in confidential arrangements. this has implications not only for farmers, but rural america. as well as the question of who should be owning seeds. rig