national security agency

good evening. welcome to al jazeera america. i'm john siegenthaler in new york. tough new abortion restrictions and taxes are likely to wind up before the u.s. supreme court reacts from state with bipartison support. also tonight - i always tell people if they want to dozens of people tweeting the name. >> finding hate on line. the >> >> we gee bin tonight with a federal judge's decision to stop controversial restrictions on an

abortion in texas. it comes hours before the new rule is to go into effect. a federal ruling

>> it's not just a human rights privacy issue, encryption is being compromised. that is a commercial issue. >> we are asking where we are making deals like swift and all these things, that we get to the truth. you have too re-establish trust. this is important. secondly we are saying get proportionality we are not expecting admissions tomorrow, but let's start a process of some accountability. we have member states with bad accountability in relation to service, and surveillance. we have a problem, and we are

dealing with that too in this inquiry. this is part of a process to get this right. we are moving into a world where electronic communication now is a much bigger priority than it was. this is something we have to get done. i know this is not a simple and easy answer, it's not a simple and easy set of allegations either. >> clive with the european delegation, that is scheduled to meet with the state department and other members of the barack obama administration during the visit to the u.s. >> president obama's new fbi director was sworn in. james b. comey was installed as the new leader, replacing robert mueller. president obama praised james b. comey for his hard work. he was a deputy attorney-general during george w. bush's administration, serving under john ashcroft. >> the federal bureau of investigation's intel risy is a

gift, given to every employee by those that went before. it must be protected and earned every say. we protect that gift by making mistakes and admitting them, by making promises and keeping them, and by realising that nothing, no case, no source, no fear of embarrassment is worth jeopardising the gift of integrity. >> during his ten u in the attorney-general's office james b. comey blocked senior bush administration officials from getting a controversial wire tapping program reauthorised. james b. comey is the 7th director of the federal bureau of investigation. >> the u.n.'s special envoy to syria is in damascus on his latest round of diplomacy, trying to bring together all sides in the conflict to peace talks in geneva. rob matheson has the story.

>> many called it a near impossible task - a return to damascus to muster some or, indeed, any enthusiasm for talks finding a way out of syria's crisis. it's not just a matter of getting two sides to the table. before that he has to try to knit together a fractured rebel opposition - much of which doesn't want to be involved. >> translation: the international community wants to support the syrian regime in geneva, they don't want to weaken them. that's why we reject the conference. when we see promises toppling the assad reej aim leading to an -- regime leading to an international court, then yes we will negotiate it. first there needs to be a statement. in the absence of political

solution the military solution is the only one on the table. >> elsewhere in syria the deadline for destroying equipment used to produce chemical weapons is three days away. inspectors managed to get to 21 of 23 sites where syria says it's been making or storing the weapons. fighting prevented them getting to the other two. the battle continues. a few kilometres where lakhdar brahimi is beginning the slow process of persuasion, the pictures show rebels firing at government forces in the countryside around daraya. here in deir el-zour, they are using rocket propelled grenades and automatic weapons. al jazeera can't verify the pictures. >> again, the fighting spills into neighbouring lebanon. the gunfire is in tripoli. the

army is called in as assad supporters and fighters trade bullets in a battle that has gone on for a week. and the political fallout continues to spread across the middle east. hezbollah's leader accuses the saudi arabia of blocking a political solution for syria. >> the acceptable and available solution in syria is the political solution, the weight of a political solution is through political dialogue without preconditions. of course, there is a state in the region which is furious about the geneva ii peace conference. its name is saudi arabia. >> and in the middle of this difficult diplomacy and distrust is lakhdar brahimi, and rt future of the geneva ii talks. . the united nations submitted its first progress report on chemical weapons. superiors have not been able to

reach all the sites, other milestones are met. they are in the process of destroying equipment that mrures chemical weapons, ambassador richard butler is a former unchief weapons inspector. i asked what he thought about the report. >> you see, the chemicals are held in binary fashion, two parts that have to be mixed and filled into mun eyeingses. that equipment is crucial. this report shows that they have almost completed that already. so i think progress is quite encouraging. >> when we talk about this to begin with, you suggested this would be a very, very difficult process. it would be time-consuming. >> that's right. >> it might take years to wrap all of this up. so you are more optimistic now. >> well, having been around this business for a long time,

optimism is not my easy suit. what i did say earlier on, john, is this can be done. the time frame is breath takingly short. great pressure to get it done by the middle of next year. i have said and i continue to believe that with the cooperation of the syrian government, and that seems to be being given - that's what this report says... ..through the application of sufficient resource, this breath takingly short time frame can be reach. they are big krnings i really admit. syria has to continue to cooperate. that is where politics comes into it. there needs to be enough resources. it's going to be as hard as hell. so far the progress is looking okay. i think we can possibly get there. >> you talk about the cooperation. again, when we talked earlier,

they were - there were questions about whether the assad range im would, once it got down to it. really cop right. really allow the weapons inspectors. based on this report, that is happening. >> yes, it's happening. if i may, i'd like to speculate the politics of that. they used the weapons on 21 august. the world saw that. in my opinion they can never use them again. they have become useless. lord knows what would happen to them in they did it again. secondly, the russians moved in very firmly behind them. they said plainly "if you want our continued support, you will do this." you think about it. in without russia's support the only big friend in the world, the assad regime, would be finished. i think they have every political incentive to get rid

of these useless weapons, rendered useless to cooperate with the process and keep their russian friend. if that politics were to change because of refusal to cooperate by them, or some other reason, russia was less enchanted with them, the assad's position would be powerless to say the least. >> one of the big problems, of course is the civil war, and the report suggests that the security environment remains difficult and unpredictable. it seems to me how has this - u.n. inspection teams been able to cope with that problem? >> well, it is difficult and that's what i have not gotten to the two sites that you rightly mentioned at the beginning. those two sites can't be secured. the syrian government has been helping in providing that

security. the u.n. has got some security in there. it's not over yet. and, you know, i don't know whether we'll actually get to those sites as long as the war continues. but that raises the other truly significant question. i am sure you and other people reading reports in rooent days have been just as horrified as i have been about the state of affairs as a consequence of the war. the people who were starving, the ememory eps of polio amongst children and so on. what is desparately needed it to build on the agreement that was reached on chemical weapons, and get that peace conference underway that is scheduled for about three or four weeks from now, and see if an end can be brought to the truly serious syrian problem and that's the continuation of this war. >> you bring up an important

point. in fact, on the program for the last several nights we talked to a journalist in syria who has been brings us exclusive reports and showing pictures of the devastation and the starvation and horror that is going on during the civil war. you know, as someone who has been part of the u.n., what - is there - what can the u.n. do to address that problem. the weapons inspection clearly haven't addressed that problem. >> no, it hasn't. it's not designed to do so. the agreement on the weapons inspection illustrates something which in my almost 30 years experience of the u.n. is central. nothing will happen, no goodwill come out of the security council unless all are agreed. that is why we have the chemical weapons process under way. because all were agreed. >> it is time for the security

council to... > problems with our - technical problems with ambassador richard butler. we thank him for our help. a pro-syrian government group claims it hacked into president obama's official twitter account. a tweet from the presidential feed intended to think users to a "the washington post" article lipped to a youtube video syrian truth. on other twitter feeds the syrian electronic army boasted about the tweeting saying:>> th

video says it shows hostages shouting at the army not to shoot. they are waving the white flag of they are said to be from the national liberation front rebels. the philippine military is believed to have opened fire. others scampered for safety. >> junior santander morte is no stranger to conflict. he fought as a soldier for the mlmf at the end of the 196 0s. the same mighters are the ones that hold him hostage. >> translation: we were so

happy because we thought a caef fire had been declared. the mlms were the first to retaliate. hostages were shot. i was hit in the head with shrapnel. a student lost an arm, another shot in the stomach. >> the philippine government of president benigno aquino questioned the authenticity of video, suggesting that it may be fake. they are taking allegations seriously. >> they are claims that will be investigated. if there are cases that have to be filed, they'll be filed. at the same time i should caution that that it snacks of a bit of propa ganned ape -- propaganda. the bottom lining is the actions by the mlf brought about the crisis. >> it's weeks since the benigno aquino government declared the crisis over. many questions remained - what happened during the 19-day

siege, and who is responsible for the death of many civilians? over 200 people have been killed. mlf fighters took over 200 civilians hostage. they demanded to be allowed to hoist their flag at the center of the city. no clear negotiation with the philippine government took place, and in the weeks that followed. thousands of military troops surged in. the city became a battlefield. still, junior says he doesn't blame anyone. he has come to accept that to survive he only has himself to rely on. >> it was one of the most powerful storms to hit europe in years. at least 13 people were killed. hundreds of thousands left without power. many were stranded after transportation was shut down by high winds.

the storm, named st. jude hit britain, germany and denmark the hardest. hello. metrologist - europe is not out of the woods. we are talking about poland, baltics and finland - they'll see strong winds as well. i'll take you back a year. this is what it looked like when hurricane sandy was off the coast of new jersey. this is when it - about 12 to 18 hours before it made landfall here and in parts of new jersey. that particular storm - i'll go backwards. that storm was the second strongest hurricane to ever hit the united states at 65 billion worth of damage. for katrina, that was the strongest, hitting the gulf coast.

back in florida it caused $46 billion damage there. we'll talk about this during the day tomorrow on the anniversary. the other big story is the snow, the rain across the west. more details on this and the warnings in effect. >> thank you. we'll talk later. drug cartels, soldiers and vigilantes opened fire. civilians run for cover. the latest on the gun battles next. nearly a near after their lives were turned upside down, some of the children who lived through hurricane sandy open up about their fears. government ha

>> >> michael is here with sports. expect the unexpected in this world series. >> that's pretty much been the story line through the four games. tonight, game 5 was extremely crucial for both the red sox and the cardinals as the winner would take a 3-2 series advantage back to boston, and

it's the red sox who hold advantage after the 3-1 win. david ross with the game-winning run with a double in the seventh innings. the red sox have a chance wednesday night to win a third world series title in the last 10 years. in the nfl - redskins brendan merewether said in the wake of an inspection, he will have to target the knees of opposing players making tackles out of fear from the punishment from the league. merewether has been punished for helmet hicks. >> in hockey, a day after the buffalo traders was banished to the islands, mulsen responded by supporting two goals with his new team. it was not enough. buffalo losing to the dallas

stars giving sabre's coach a triumphant homecoming back in buffalo. those are the sports headlines for the hour. more from game 5. world series coming up in a few minutes. >> a report reveals more about the nsa spying program. president obama faces questions from international leaders. the reaction from the white house and overseas next. >> and a company promises to crackdown on abuse as it prepares to go public.

>> air and rail travel has been interrupted. thousands are without power. >> outrage over reports the nsa has been spying an world leaders grows louder by the day. president obama is ordering a review of spy policies. lawmakers in the house and senate plan to introduce legislation aimed at limiting the national security agency. it's expected to be called the usa freedom map. authored by a democratic senator and republican senator. the measure would hamper the nsa's ability to collect bulk phone records, provide restrictions against who the nsa can target and requires the government to delete information it collects accidentally.

in an op-ed piece for the political.com, the sponsors write: >> the freedom act has a dozen co-spoon stores in the senate. >> the nsa is accused of listening to 60 million always. the u.s. ambassador in madrid was summoned to spain's office to answer questions. >> questions from president obama's party, the head of the senate committee said:

>> more on that story. >> the white house unwilling to dress the specific allegations of mass surveillance in spain that have been revealed in the press over the last few days. they talked in more general terms about the scope of their surveillance. anonymously the white house is briefing the press after its side of the story, when it comes to angela merkel's surveillance. >> at the how's the presidential spokesman refused to be drawn on reports the u.s. tracked millions of spanish phone calls. it repeated the nsa's surveillance programs - that they are being examined. >> we are conducting a review. we are mindful that some of

these disclosures have caused tension in our relationships. with new capabilities we recognise there needs to be additional constraints on how we gather and use intelligence. >> tensions spiked with reports in germany suggesting president obama was briefed on the surveillance of german chancellor angela merkel's phone in 2010, and fast-tracked information gathered directly to the white house. in the past few days anonymous administration officials told the u.s. media that that was false, and that a white house review only discovered the surveillance of world leaders in the summer. the bugging of merkel's phone ended soon after. for a european parliamentary delegation its long-planned visit to washington is about more than the bugging of world leaders. it's about the surveillance of tens of millions of its

constituents. >> trust has to be rebuilt. we have to figure out why this kind of activity is happening and what kind of trust needs to be rebuilt. in the end we are fighting a battle in terms of security. we need to get the balance right. we made it clear. also, there is a balance to be struck with the privacy of citizens. the changes need to be rebuilt. >> the meeting was with the intelligence committee chairman.

they said europeans should be grateful for surveillance, as it's keeping them safe. it's echoed by the white house, and officials are briefing journalists that european governments should be aware that more information from whistle blower edward snowden may emerge detailing cooperation and the dragnet surveillance of citizens, if not the monitoring of leaders' phone calls. >> that delegation will be in washington until wednesday. we are also expecting delegations from the french and german intelligence agencies at some point in the coming days and weeks. the question is whether they are truly concerned about the surveillance of their citizens or the surveillance of their leaders, political and business. >> we have reports that there'll be more talks on spying held in europe. >> tens of millions of twitter

users around the world are expressing their thoughts in 140 characters or less. many want to the crackdown on the growing hate speech on the social media platform. we have this story. >> twitter is becoming a favourite spot for tech-savvy hate monningers. that's according to a report by a center in international human rights. the center gave twitter an f grade when it came to policing the hate messages on its fight. >> facebook was the best to deal with issues. twitter was the worst.

we. the rabi is the east director which runs the museum of tolerance in new york. the museum of tolerance has a special section dedicated to digital terrorism and hate. one of the exhibits features twitter. >> i tell people if you want to understand twitter, type in hitler's name. dozens of people will tweet under his name. for example, if you type it in, you find dictator hitler. every single day that twit site is putting out how jews should be killed or cased. there's 215,000 followers. there has been a surge. 20,000 hate-laced hash tags and handles, upped from 15,000 the

year before. it's not just jewish groups being targeted with hateful tweets. >> jews, muslims, christians and everyone - it has brought them together. they have the ability now. you can come together and find like-minded people in hate. last month twitter erupted in racist remarks after nina was crowneded the first miss america of indian descrept. a woman's right activist found herself the tart of hate speech and tweet after a campaign to get the author featured on british currency. response on twitter got ugly, with comments regarding threats of rape. it prompted a petition online, calling for the site, adding for

a report abuse button. similar to facebook's. the petition got more than 100,000 signatures and twitter responded in a blog titled, "we hear you", promising improvement. some critics feel twitter is not responding fast enough. >> >> joining us from philadelphia to talk about this is stephanie humphrey, a tech writer. and a social media analyst. welcome, good to see you. >> thank you. good to be here. >> tell me, how can twitter deal with this, what can they do. >> unfortunately there's not a lot they can do, just because of the sheer volume of tweeters out there. there's almost half a billion tweets going back and forward.

trying to maintain control over that volume is a little daunting. i don't know that twitter wants to do that. they are proudly stating in their policy that they do not actively mediate content or control or screen content in any way. it's a reason a lot of folks are on the service. it's a catch 22. there's not a lot they want to do to quash the free speech aspect of the network. there's so many people on there that it's tough to get your arms around the whole thing. >> isn't a big part of this that these people are anonymous, they can say what they want and no one knows who they are. >> absolutely, absolutely. that is one thing that twitter could do if they had the mind to do it, would be to require folks to use their real names when they are logging in and creating accounts. it deterse some people from the speech they have. right now twitter doesn't have a

policy stating that speech that is racist or homophobic or sexist or anti-sem etic is not allowed. they don't call that out. they talk about abuse of speech in general terms, and it has to be tarted abuse as well. it leaves a lot of loopholes for folks to say whatever they want. >> as they go public, don't they face pressure to do something about this? >> absolutely. absolutely. they have an agreement coming up. where they'll try to provide television content. those advertisers are not going to take too kindly to the backlash they get from allowing this thing to happen on the network. >> there are limits, you can report someone you think is abusing the privilege of using twitter. what happens when you do that?

>> well, you can - they did change their feed so that there's the one click process to report abuse. but what happens is it kind of goes in the bucket with everything else, and that whole volume issue comes into play. you don't know when they'll get to your situation in particular. once that happens somebody is determining using some sort of subjective interpretation of their policy as to whether or not your particular report was actually abusive, because if it doesn't contain language that specifically threatens you directly or is targeted towards you specifically, they may not consider it abuse. they may consider it offensive. and in that case they just recommend that you block that person. >> i don't want to minimise this, because i mean, there's some really horrible things that are on line, and it's not - it's

not just twitter, what has happened through social media and the anonymity of the net is that you see websites, hate-filled websites targetting all sorts of groups, popping up. there has been a huge number of those that exist as well. so it's not just twitter, right? >> no, no, it's all across the web. that whole cloak of anonymity is what gives people courage. what has been happening to twitter is it with some other sites... >> or cowardize. >> absolutely. what has happened with twitter and other sites is that the community has started to say some of these hate of things. when the tweets come out about miss america, there were a couple of people that have a whole lot of backlash from the

twitter community in general and closed their accounts, and there has been a lot of blogs and websites that are dedicated really to putting these people out there publicly shaming them and trying to get the behaviour to change that way. so it has become a situation where the community is policing the network. >> we hope to talk again about this. it's a fascinating topic. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> so jessica taff is live in st louis where the red sox are one win away from a world series title. >> thank you very much. game 5 of the world series, it's been a slug fest back and forth. we'll show you how they got it done together, and who has the advantage going into fenway when we come back in sports.

michael is back with sport. you have to give the advantage, i would think, to boston, but you'd never know. >> you never know. that's why they have to play all the games until the winner is decided. regardless of the sport, when it comes to a 7-game series, game 5 may be the most pivotal in the series. that was the situation based on the cardinals and red sox. the winner of the game will take a 3-2 lead back to boston, giving them a chance to close off the series at fenway park. >> st louis's leading man alan craig was back to first base since the first time in the first week of september. let's pick up the action in the fourth. david ortiz followed with a double, past craig.

ortiz was hitting 7-27, he raised the average on the play there. the red sox taking a 1-0 lead. bottom third. cardinals threatened with a man on second. the offer from jon lester - he didn't like the call. he'd have to go back to the dug out. matt halliday takes lester deep. four home runs for halliday. red sox threatening in the fifth. wayne wright strikes out dakoby ending the innings. he is in trouble in the 7th. runners on first and second. david ross rips a down field. the red sox 2-1. two batters later it's two out. runners on second and third. ellsbury loops one into center.

one run would be in, another - ross tries to come home. he would be tagged out, keeping the score at 3-1. it will stay that way in the ninth. the red sox sealed a 3-1 win, giving them a 3-2 series advantage. joining us now from bush stadium in st louis is jessica taff. what can the cardinals give us? they gave us a thrilling game and boston has a 3-2 series lead. >> absolutely. obstruction call. boston forgot about that. the guy they talked about, david ortiz, his play this entire series has been phenomenal. look at the numbers, the fact that he is 11 of 15, batting 7-33. as he came out of the game rhyt

whatever reason. early on we went back to the game plan from game one. it fell back on that, and made them swing the bat. we did that until the pitch count down, and tried to grind out later innings. >> at the time of the year you have to bring everything you have got. you work for that. i prefer to be at this stage every year, and this is - as i say, it's not tomorrow. >> our guys have been backed up against the wall before. this is something that isn't foreign to them. they know what we have to do - play our game. >> >> now the series goes back to boston with the red sox up 3-2, the chance to bin a third world series title in the last 10 games, we have a good pitching match-up in game 6 with john lackey, going again for the red sox against the rookie. michael walker, lachie having a

good start. he'll be back on the starting hill again. >> it's a different situation, but he's such a veteran pitcher, it's one of the things that i talked to some of the pitchers, and they said the fact that he's been able to do that, he's a veteran that has been around for a while. he knows how to get the situation situated. pitchers are creatures of habit. he's been doing it for a long time, but they have the utmost - the utmost respect that he'll come out and get them and be able to do it in front of a home crowd at boston in fenway. >> did you get a sense that the life was sucked out of the stadium and the cardinals players after they lost tonight? >> a little bit. one of the things you get is it seems everybody is exhausted out of here. the entire series is

gut wrenching with momentum swinging this way and that way. with each win it takes a bit out of them. they knew they needed the win, because going boston and getting two wins - very, very difficult. >> jessica taff life to bush stadium. boston red sox lead 3-2. there's a bit of hope if you are the cardinals' fans, the game winner won the series three out of 10 times when the series was tide. >> it's not over until it's over. stay with us, kevin corriveau has weather after this. and for the children that lived through hurricane sandy, much of the pain is still fresh. their stories and how they are dealing with their new life coming up.

with thousands of families hit hard by superstorm sandy, it's been a long road to recovery. tomorrow marks a year since the storm devastated parts of new york and new jersey. as part of our series surviving sandy we sat down with some of the children deeply affected by the storm. >> we have seen men and women break down crying over the stress of the storm and the recovery, and while we can imagine thousands of children felt the same stress, we haven't heard much from them until now. i sat with an inspiring group of kids who shared their own stories - some expressing their feeling for the first time since sandy hit a year ago.

>> we are by a beach. >> it's like a tsunami. >> the water came so fast: seven children from five families suffered through sand, when it hit staten island a year ago. >> dad was screaming for help. he was screaming at the firemen. we were waiting. everything was in the box, the dog was ready. they never came. >> i was in the hotel that night. my brother and my father stayed home. we were split. we couldn't get in touch with them. we thought they had died.

>> when the storm passed, what did you think the next day. >> that we were safe. >> and is that all that matters? >> yes. >> everyone was okay. thank god. but, yes. we didn't expect this to happen the an all. >> i didn't care about anything else at my house, and all my stuff. i was happy i was alive at that point. >> alive, yes, but their lives were upside down. >> shares and everything. >> all my toys were gone. >> for most of them rebuilding was rough. >> it seems like it had taken forever to get the house rebuilt. we had to stay in