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221. Be Our Guest
America's guest worker program is coming under increasing scrutiny as Congress scrambles to find a solution to the country's immigration crisis and considers expanding the current program. But how is America treating guest workers who are already here? Are we welcoming temporary employees with open arms, or are they being exploited in ways that make employee rights groups cringe? This week on NOW we travel to the remote mountains of Montana and follow a number of guest workers, most of them from Mexico, to find out what life is really like on this side of the border. Program Resources: » Listen to this show [mp3] » Transcript » E-mail this page to a friend "That's why we Hispanics are here. Because of the difficult work. [Americans] wouldn't do it, and much less for the pay that one makes," says Ausencio, a guest worker from Mexico. Ausencio is one of thousands of guest workers, mostly Latinos, who toil in America's forests performing tough, repetitive, physical labor. He says he often works six days a week, sometimes more. Once hired, a guest worker cannot switch employers, which some say has led to widespread abuse. Ausencio is one of many men nicknamed 'los pineros', which means 'men of the pines' in Spanish, who work for companies contracted by the U.S. Forest Service. View a photo essay on guest workers Roman Ramos, a paralegal with the Texas Rio Grande Legal Aide, has worked as an advocate for many guest workers in their complaints against unfair treatment by U.S. companies. "[The guest worker] has to put up with whatever crap that employer wants to put on him ... I've seen workers get fired for asking for clean drinking water," Ramos said. One guest worker who says he was threatened for demanding his paycheck is Hugo Martin Recinos Recinos, from Guatemala, who worked for Express Forestry for four seasons. He says he paid a recruiter in his home country around $1,580, which did not include his travel expenses, to come to the U.S. He says he also handed over the deed to his family's home as collateral. "We had to leave the deed with them so once we got here, no one would run off, no one would leave the company ... If you left the company, and broke the contract, then you would lose the property, according to them," he says. Recinos says the company paid him for piece work rather than an hourly wage, and deducted the cost of equipment from his paycheck; both actions are illegal under the terms of his visa. He adds that he worked 60-70 hour weeks with no overtime, and after taxes and expenses were taken from his check, and sometimes he received as little as $50 a day. To save money he shared a hotel room with four or five other workers. Don Mooers, an immigration attorney, says while there has been some exploitation of guest workers, it is far from the norm. "For workers ... they're able to go back home with usually a lot of money in their pockets," he said. Is the guest worker program the fulfillment of an American dream or a nightmare of exploitation? This week on NOW.
222. Tangled Web
STORY UPDATE (2.14.08): Congress may step up efforts to regulate broadband Internet providers and enforce what's known as "net neutrality" - allowing open access to Internet content. In February 2008, Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., introduced legislation to prevent broadband Internet providers from interfering with subscribers' access to content. The bill would authorize the Federal Communications Commission to monitor Internet providers to make sure they're delivering traffic fairly. Is the wild west culture of the Internet about to become a thing of the past? Big business is staking its claim on the information superhighway, lobbying Congress for an exclusive faster lane, which consumers could end up paying for. This week on NOW we look at a major battle brewing in Washington D.C. over the future of the Internet. We follow the story of Blip.tv, an ambitious video-streaming startup. They're fighting for a corner of the Internet marketplace in the midst of a battle over so-called 'net neutrality' -- the idea that all Internet content and websites are given the same access to audiences and customers. Program Resources: » Listen to this show [mp3] » Transcript » E-mail this page to a friend If telecommunication giants have their way, companies like Blip.tv might be forced to compete in a marketplace wherein firms with large coffers can buy access to greater bandwidth and faster Internet speeds, leaving sites who can't afford to pay in the slow lane. Craig Aaron of Free Press, a media watchdog group, says big telecom companies have declared open season on 'Net neutrality.' He's afraid these companies will dictate how we use the Internet. "I think one of the beauties of the Internet is that it's been open to views across the political spectrum. And if you hand the control of the information so that some can be preferred over others, you're going to be handing that control to the big media companies that already control our television, airwaves, radio, you name it," Aaron says. For their part, telecom companies argue that a fast lane on the Internet for those willing to pay will allow them to make a return on their multibillion-dollar investment in broadband infrastructure. At present, companies such as Verizon and AT&T only charge for access to the Internet, but make virtually no money from content. "It's just, by the way, the same reason why we take 18 wheeler semi-trailers and make them pay more in federal highway taxes than someone who drives their family in a mini-van: because they are putting more load on the infrastructure and therefore should pay a higher rate," says Mike McCurry, head of Hands Off the Internet. His group, backed by a number of telecom companies, says that many web companies are making billions off the Internet but are not willing to pitch in to upgrade its infrastructure. The telecom companies have launched an aggressive, multi-million dollar advertising campaign against web giants such as Google and Amazon arguing "they don't want to pay for anything." Those who support net neutrality -- including a broad coalition of consumer groups, higher education organizations, special interests, and Internet companies -- say the telecoms just want to increase their profits. They fear that the proposed two-tiered Internet would kill a democratic marketplace wherein small businesses compete on an equal footing with giants of commerce. Whose Internet is it anyway?
307. For Your Eyes Only?
This week, NOW reports on new evidence suggesting the existence of a secret government program that intercepts millions of private e-mails each day in the name of terrorist surveillance. News about the alleged program came to light when a former AT&T employee, Mark Klein, blew the whistle on what he believes to be a large-scale installation of secret Internet monitoring equipment deep inside AT&T's San Francisco office. The equipment, he contends, was created at the request of the U.S. government to spy on e-mail traffic across the entire Internet. Though the government and AT&T refuse to address the issue directly, Klein backs up his charges with internal company documents and personal photos. Program Resources » Video » Audio [mp3, 48kbps]: Stream, Download, Podcast » Transcript » Print » Feedback » E-mail this page to a friend Criminal Defense Lawyer Nancy Hollander, who represents several Muslim-Americans, feels her confidential e-mails are anything but secure. "I've personally never been afraid of my government until now. And now I feel personally afraid that I could be locked up tomorrow," she told NOW. Who might be eyeing the hundreds of millions of e-mails Americans send out each day, and to what end?