welcome to al jazeera america, i'm del walters. these are the top stories we are following for you at this hour. president obama expected to announce changes to the nsa's sweeping surveillance program. the address after new reports claiming the agency now collecting 200 million text messages every day from around the world. you can watch live right here at 11:00 am eastern time. vice president biden push for most troops to be out offing afghanistan. american troops are set to withdraw from afghanistan by the end of this year, unless a new

security agreement can be fined. los angeles suburb had to be evacuated because of this wildfire burning out of control. in that blaze is now 30% contained and no longer spreading, but is still hot and dry. at least 22 people were hurt in tyland after a an explosionive device went off. those are your headlines i'm del walters in new york. hard t

circumstances, but they certainly don't look good. >> mute waiting or mistreating the dead violates the laws of war according to the u.s. field manual, the u.s. instructors guide, and the u.s. naval handbook, not to mention the geneva convention. are our trooped this is something they could not and should not do? sdmrrjs yes, they are, and as far as what the law says you have to look at the treaties and uniform code of military justice. the various field manuals from

the army or naval handbook of depreciations those are basically interpretations and serve as guidance and instructional manuals for our troops, but are not the source of law per se. >> we saw those photos of the troops abusing the iraqis in prison in iraq. what sort of response will the iraqis have to these photos? >> it's hashed to say. we can assume a lot of people there are not going to be pleased. but what these photos show is how important leadership is, and discipline, and why you have to instill that. and that was something we tried to do while we were there, but as you can imagine, it's -- it's very difficult under those sorts of circumstances, but as far as the iraqis, we'll just have to see. you know, i think on one hand they have got a lot of other

issues to worry about now, and i'm not sure how -- how much impact this is actually going to have in iraq with everything else going on there. >> colonel i know there are no statute of limitations for these kinds of crimes, but could the marines involved be tried even if nay are no longer serving. >> first let me clarify with regard to the statute of limitations, the uniform code of military justice as well as federal penal code provide for five-year statute of limitations. there is an international treaty that would exempt war crimes from the statute of limitations, but i don't think believe the united states is part of that treaty. that aside, though, you have to get to the decision as to whether or not there is personal and subject matter jurisdiction of over the situation. with regard to personal

jurisdiction, and let's address that first, if -- we don't know if the -- once they identify who these people are who are in the pictures, if they are still on active duty, and it is possible, then the uniform code of military just diswould have personal jurisdiction over the individuals. or if these individuals spent at least 20 years and retired and are receiving retired pay, they would also be subject, otherwise they would not be subject to the uniform code of military justice, and then we would have to look to federal penal law as the potential forum in which to investigate and possibly prosecute. >> but you believe the statute of limitations has expired there? >> in the federal courts it's the same as the uniform code. it is generally five years. the congress has expanded -- well, unless it's a capital offense meaning it is

something they would be put to death for, and this would not be one of those cases. but for crimes against children and things like that congress has extended the statute to 8, 10 years, something along those lines. but i don't believe this would be one of those crimes. >> brandon in 2012 there was an incident where a videotape surfaced from afghanistan showing four marines urinating on the bodies of three dead afghan fighters believed to be talibans. two soldiers pleaded guilty, but were punished but not very sieve leerily. three troopers were punished, but not severely. and one of the soldiers even said he would do it again.

now, you wrote a book about the reality of war. this battle in fallujah was the worst since the vietnam war. >> yeah. >> is that what these pictures show the anger over the deaths of their fellow fighters? >> well, they could. i don't really know exactly what the pictures show, because we don't know the exact circumstances, but it's very difficult. when you are in very intense combat, it's very easy to let your emotions get the best of you, and that's why leadership is so important. and that's why it is taught for years, because when you get into those situations that training has to carry you through, and you cannot let your emotions get the best of you, and unfortunately what you see in combat a lot is that after a while, people's emotions do start to get the best of them, and they get angry, and you start to see stuff like this happen, but, you know,

ultimately this is what war is all about. you can instill leadership, and you can discipline your soldiers, but ultimately what i think americans see quite a bit is a very sanitized version of war, and what we see every once in a while when photos like this come out is that war is a very ugly thing, and we have to be very careful about when we decide to second people to war, because once you open that pandora's box, a lot of ugly things like this can start to happen. we can do everything as leaders that we can to prevent it, but at the end of the day, war is war it hasn't changed for thousands of years, and this is the sort of thing that can happen. it doesn't excuse it from happening, but it is in fact the reality of war. >> yeah, it is difficult to imagine the stress. colonel and mr. friedman i

appreciate your time. >> thanks for having us. now to an american correspondent who has been barred from russia, david satter, who had been working in moscow before he was banned from entering russia for five years. russian officials claim he committed quote multiple violations of migration law, which he said was nonsense. and they had ruled his presence on russian soil as undesirable. i'm joined by david sutter, who has covered the soviet union as well. david good to have you with us. would you please walk us through exactly what happened here? >> i called the russian embassy in keiv, and i was told by the

diplomat that i spoke to that he had a statement to read to me, and he read that statement. it was that the competent organs had decided that my presence on the territory of the russian federation was undesirable and i was banned from entering russia. now the phrase competent organs is used to refer to the security police. but in all of the years that i have been writing and -- and traveling to russia, i don't recall a single instance where that formula was used to justify the expulsion of a writer or a journalist. that's a formula that's usually used in espionage cases. and that indicates that for whatever reason the russian authorities considered that i

represented a threat. >> let's go what has been happening in russia. vladimir putin announced amnesty that freed two members of the pewsy riot labor camps, and an old enemy was released. given what putin has been doing, were you surprised that they went after you? >> yes, i was a little bit surprised, because the timing is not very convenient for them. after all as you point out, they were trying to improve their image, and then they do something which actually damages it. the only thing i can surmise is for whatever reasons they considered getting rid of me to be a very high priority. >> is there anything in your work with radio liberty that might have been threatening or disturbing to the russian

authorities? >> i was only there for three months, but they are very familiar with me, because i have been writing about russia for years. for decades actually. and they read attentively what i write. and my books have been translated into russian. in fact, just recently one of my books, darkness at dawn the rise of the russian criminal state, was reissued in russia under a somewhat different title, how putin became president. and i talk about the 1999 apartment bombings. those bombings created the atmosphere of mass hysteria, which made it possible to justify a second war, and it was

that war, that made it possible for putin to be elected president. the problem is there is evidence those bombings were carried out by the security receiveses themselves in order to create exactly that atmosphere which was necessary for the group that was in power. >> and that book became a best seller last year in russia, so do you think this is personal? that you angered putin and that's why they came after you? >> angered putin, or angered someone, but, yes, of course it was personal. >> what about what robert herman, the vice president for regional programs with freedom house said, he said, quote . . . do you think that barring you from the country is the gin -- beginning of an even fort to

intimidate western journalists? the >> there are very few western journalists who are doing that. most of the reporting thatment comes out of russia is fairly superficial, and the -- it is true that western journalists refer to the corruption there and they give a -- a portrait of the country that is not flattering, but that's unavoidable, given the realities of russian life. there's not very much deep thought or deep -- deep reporting from russia, and as a result, the number of people who are actually engaged in something that -- that the authorities would find threatening is relatively small. >> should the u.s. take action to push for the russians to allow your return, conceivably taking action against a russian journalist in the u.s.?

>> well, that would be one possibility. they certainly should do it. it's very important that they do it, for the simple reason that action taken against me is intended to intimidate everyone, and it will have that effect. journalists can't operate freely and pursue stories where they lead if they feel the consequences could be the destruction of their careers, and as a result, if the u.s. feels it's important to have reliable information about russia, realistic information, then it should be a relatively high priority for the u.s. to make -- to -- to take those measures that will impress on -- on the russians that the action that they took against me, for example, is unacceptable, and -- and has to be reversed. >> and i know you keep -- you plan on continuing to write

about russia. david satter best of luck and thank you for joining us tonight. >> thank you. coming up the nsa targeting hundreds of millions of text messages around the world every day, pulling in all sorts of personal details. who is in the cross hairs and why? and what would happen if terrorists targeted our gps system? brad taylor will weigh in. and hermla is back. what is trending? >> i'll tell you what is tending and what do you think? join the conversation on facebook and our twitter and google plus pages.

he's been vice president for almost a year and belongs to one

new revelations today that the national security agency collects almost 200 million text messages every day from across the globe, using them to determine everything from where

people are, to extracting their contacts, gathering even credit card and financial information. this latest news is based on leaks from edward snowden, and it comes as president obama is poised to make recommendations to curb the power of the nsa. i'm joined by the author of this new story on this text message collection by the nsa. first i want to ask you a question about timing. president obama is set to announce these recommendations on how to curb the nsa tomorrow. already critics are saying he is not going to go far enough. is a connection between the timing of this story and that. >> well, these stories are complicat complicated, and we publish them when they are ready after a long consultation of the nsa. but this serves as a reminder,

of firstly the approach to a lot of their collection. they are holding and storing billions of messages of people who mostly won't be of interest to them. >> so this is a program called dish fire that collects all of these 200 million text messages every single day, gathering all sorts of information too about the people who are texting. who are the targets and what is it being used for? >> the lining that is a bit creepy for some people is it saves untargeted collection. they collect pretty much every thing they can. so they are pulling in this tuj volume of international text messages to see the needles in the haystack and just maybe if someone turns out to be a suspect today, they could read their texts from twoer or three years ago, but they also do this

really clever automated analysis, so if you get a missed call text, it automatically pulls up the phone number from it. if someone texts like their business card, it can take all of the information from that, the name, email, and even the photo. >> your article even includes graphics that the nsa used and some presentation that they have. so you have this dish fire that collects the information, but then they have a separate program called prefer that analyzes the guts to see if there is anything they might use? the >> exactly. we have normal texts that can be read by an an cyst, but anything that comes from say your travel company to say your plane is late, they can analyze all of that information automatically, and save it in their databases. so they are use these texts to build up this huge amount of

information -- >> but it's so massive you wonder how they can manage to use it in any sort of positive way. >> i think that's one of the good questions that obama's review panel has looked at. they are collecting so much that it seems hard to be useful. and i think that's one of the questions for it. you know, if this stuff was really amazingly useful, then maybe the conversation can be a bit different. >> what does this mean for americans? how exactly does it effect people who live in the united states? >> this one actually looks as if -- dish fire, they say they try to strip out american numbers, but even the nsa spokes woman that we quoted in the story said they can't guarantee there is not u.s. information in there. but there is also an issue of america standing with its allies and friends if it's pulling in

hundreds of millions of texts from south america or europe or all of the people that have been getting upset about this stuff. >> and this is just a kind of you throw out the net and whatever comes in comes in. >> exactly that. and that's one of the main recommendations of obama's review panel that he is going to address tomorrow is saying shouldn't the nsa and the u.s. government give some attention of privacy rights of people oversees, or otherwise people might stop paying attention to the u.s. privacy rights. >> the nsa told you . . .

[ technical difficulties ] >> lots of millions of peoples in our allies countries, countries like germany and the uk and germany. so this doesn't help that. and also america has got this huge role in sort of policing the internet and policing phone networks and all of in, and if america isn't trusted to do that, someone else will take over. >> aren't you concerned now that you have been involved in this massive data dump on the usa that too much information has gone out? >> i'm not. i think everyone concerned and the guardian is one of dozens of outlets now that have reported this stuff. every time we have done it, we talk to the nsa, the uk spy

agencies, people in the white house to make sure we're not putting any specific matters, names, or agents out there. we don't report everything we see. we don't report stuff because it's interesting or funny. we report the stuff that actually raises concerns either about mass surveillance on ordinary americans, or mass surveillance on innocent people elsewhere in the world. you have really not read anything in the guardian or the "washington post" or anywhere else about here is the methods they are using i think every one so far as been doing a pretty good job with that. >> james as usual great to have you with us. >> thank you. jim farley, vice president of ford motor company has fallen into the cross hairs of senator

al franken after saying that the company uses gps to track the owners. gps has become absolutely critical to our modern society. everything from cell phones to credit cards, to airplanes in the military, they all rely on the gps data. and brad taylor shows what could happen in that important technology is compromised. brad joins us now, he is a retired lieutenant colonel who served in the military for over 20 years. great to have you back on this show. >> thank you. >> in this book you have the u.s. facing a terrorist threat that involves our gps system. how vulnerable are we? >> i was allowed on to the air force base, and that is one of

the most secure areas i have ever been in. that place is super secure, so i would say there is no way for a system to attack it. so in the book i made an character which is an independent contractor, which they have there, a computer technology, who works for wall street, doesn't like the drone strikes, and he infects the gps with a virus to screw it up, and i thought that's artistic license, there's no way that could happen, and two days after i hit the end, snowden popped on the news. >> so it is possible. now how bad would it be for us if the gps system was compromised. the system has been in place since the mid-'90s. we need it for all sorts of things. would we be able to cope without it? >> would eventually recover,

obviously, but what i found is most people look at the gps, where is the next gas station, where is my next fedex package that kind of stuff. well that works off of a timing system. because of that the timing signal has got to be super, super precise, and now anything that uses a timing system like this, uses gps, because it's a free system in space. traffic lights in new york city work off of the gps. when you run your credit card at a gas pump, the gps is controlling it. so it has really infiltrated our daily life. because you don't have to buy something. you can use it for free. and it's definitely inside our society much more than people

are aware. >> you could have airplanes that conceivably crash if something happened to gps, and drone strikes? >> oh, yeah. you have to have a pretty catastrophic fall. they have enormous backups, and the guys that run it are really professional about how they do it. so they do have backups, but they do get glitches. the next-again architecture for the airfields that we have out there, they still are supposed to be operating with the backup loranz old-fashioned system, but there are problems. >> north korea used problems against south korea, and boats were lost off of the coast.

is there a danger? >> there is, but the first threat i looked attack wally was how to effect our drones. we lost a drone in iran. in moli, al-qaeda has a threat. but you can do it localized, but it is very hard to wipe out the ability of our drones to do anything -- >> the whole system -- >> when it loses link it goes into a glide path and keeps going straight. but as soon as it busts back into a signal it picks back up to where it needs to go. >> your book focuses around a task group. we're seeing this more and more in military fiction. do these groups actually exist? are there special forces groups that exist outside of official

channels? >> no, absolutely not. >> are you sure? [ laughter ] >> well, the primary reason i made that was because i didn't want anybody to think about real groups i served in. they don't exist. there's no reason for them to exist. now having said that, i used what i knew -- there is tension between the cia and other organizations, and a lot of bureaucracy to funnel through, so that's what i built in there. >> is the role of special forces getting more important? we saw special forces going into somalia, and we saw how special forces were involved in getting osama bin laden in pakistan. are they more important than they were in the past? >> right now we have a terrorist threat, which is about a single

individual man. you are doing manhunting. in the cold war you were looking for tank battalions. now special forces are the best way to do that, train and capture the guy. >> there are reports that u.s. special forces may be deployed in over 100 countries ash the world. >> oh, yeah. >> what type of things do they engage in? and are they there continually? >> well, the umbrella of the so-coms, each have their own division. but a lot of it is not sexy. they are trying to get troops on track for their resist dance.

it's not something that makes the news because it's not very sexy and doesn't look good. but it is all over the oh road. >> brad taylor great to have you on the shown. thanks. journalist glen greenwald will discussion nsa spying right here on al jazeera america. now let's check in on what is streaming? >> new extolling and sports equipment may change the way athletes practice. they now have sensors in them that assess where your ball is hitting rack set. at the price tag of about 3 to $400, the company that makes them say it is a cheaper alternative to a private coach.

you are read more at the website, aljazeera.com. >> all right. thanks hermela. later on 12 years slave is a big oscar favorite, but it is bringing up questions about diversity.

is tourism destroying the planet or saving it? a new documentary asks that question as it follows intrepid travellers in their quest for authentic experiences. groining us is the director of the documentary. great to have you with us. possibly the most shocking example that you show is of a beach in thailand and you have the man who discovers the beach in the film. let's listen to what he has to say. >> this incredible beach unspoiled nobody knew about it. and i asked whatever you do don't tell anybody about it. ♪ >> we are here to party.

>> full-moon party. >> the beach i had been at with thousands and thousands of people. it was staggering. ♪ after three or four days you start seeing the complete lack of respect. >> you just look at those pictures, he said back when he discovered it, don't tell people, but of course it got out, and now this. what has it done to the environment? >> yeah, it's really -- what we -- we wanted to show this as a cautionary tail in the worst way that tourism can go if left on its own devices, like fire it can burn a house down, but can also be a wonderful means to keep your hands warm, and those sorts of things. but from 1979 he is now can

"national geographic," and we show his story from 1979 but we have footage from every decade now that we show the i haves wall changes over time. and we wanted to do that to show the steps in tourism. and where it might have taken a turn. the environmental impact is very clear. they have four parties a month, full moon parties, half moon, quarter moon -- and it just trashes the beach. it's like that when the tide comes in in the morning. so you have trash being put into hills and buried up in the island and other parts that have to be taken off of the island. this is more the extreme because it was new year's and 50,000 people and the full moon, but yeah -- >> this is an extreme case, but you see different levels of it throughout the world. people all over the world who

are looking for these authentic experiences and eco tourism, and a lot of it is backpackers looking for adventure. >> actually we look -- >> i guess the backpackers first are the ones who mind these places. >> yes, you have the backpacker that kind of open the door and the keys to the kingdom -- >> that's a sad way to describe it -- >> right. and many people follow the through the stories that are being told. and feature films like "the beach" that brought more people. >> right. it all starts with this man in bolivia that got lost. he had a horrible ordeal, and incredibly it brought more people to the jungle who wanted to replicate this adventure this man had. >> right. >> it's bringing people to areas that aren't used to having any

people. >> yes, we have -- one question is like why? right? why do people want to do that? and there's an israeli traveler and she says i just want a touch. i'm not sure all of these travelers really want to get to survival push come to shove. >> and one of the things is this is not just impacting the environment. it also impacts people, people who not been exposed to western or modern society in the ways that people like new york city or other places are. >> uh-huh. i think with the more extreme travelers, like the party-type travelers, but there are other places like in loas, where you might have drugs being introduced on a larger scale to

youth where maybe it wasn't part of the culture, so things like that as well. >> changing places in all sorts of different ways. >> yeah, and people have told that to us, said we're grappling with some of those issues. >> can it be managed properly? was obviously people want to see the world, and in some ways it can help economies. >> i love traveling, you love traveling. we want to know how to do it better, and maybe for communities that are lower economics -- have lower economies, maybe need outside resources if they have a vision for how they want tourism in their own community, maybe they can get everybody at the table so to speak, even governments possibly in regulating in some places. so i think it's definitely -- like one example in our film is an echo lodge

run by the community. >> all right. thank you so much. straight ahead the pizza pie is bigger than ever, but where it is growing fastest overseas?

>> al jazeera america is a

straight-forward news channel. >> its the most exciting thing to happen to american journalism in decades. >> we believe in digging deep. >> its unbiased, fact-based, in-depth journalism. >> you give them the facts, dispense with the fluff and get straight to the point. >> i'm on the ground every day finding stories that matter to you. >> in new orleans... >> seattle bureau... >> washington... >> detroit... >> chicago... >> nashville... >> los angeles... >> san francisco... >> al jazeera america, take a new look at news. today's data dive picks up a slice of the pizza business. total u.s. sales topped $37 billion for a long-year long period ending last september. and that events about a third of the sales around the world. eastern europe is the fastest growing place for pizza. but people in western europe spend more on the pies than anywhere else about $8 billion

more than the u.s. and canada together. that's according to pizza magazine, and we're not kidding there is a pizza magazine. geography plays a big price in your choice of brand in the us. you can see the dominance of pizza hut in the dark red, and domino's in dark blue, but smaller brands including papa john's in yellow, plays big in its home areas as does little caesars in orange. no wonder plenty of other companies want in. coca-cola us just signed a new multi-year deal with.com nan's, and there's an app on xbox 360 that lets you order your pie right on the game console. the chain says a third of all of its sales are done digitally.

chip -- chip olli is even getting into the game. seemingly the company must think that it's not huge jump from quesadillas to pizzas. coming up no-pra, why the oscars were not a coming out party for the queen of pop.

there's more to finical news than the ups and downs of the

hard to believe but jackass presents bad grandpa is an oscar-nominated film and lee butler's the butler isn't. the oscar nominations were surprising in a lot of ways and we'll return them down with bill wyman and bill press in los angeles host of the online movie review show, what the flick. billet's start with the biggest snubs which surprised you the most? >> question the whole premise of snubs times, because the people

that were nominated don't think they were snubbed. but i think they thought mr. banks, tom hanks would get nominated for that. and oscar loves the coen brothers, but didn't come through for them this time. >> how about you ben? >> i tend to agree with bill in the snub i think was flawed. two or three weeks ago if you looked on offshore gambling accounts to see who the favorite in best actor was, it was a two man race. so i was very surprised that robert redford didn't get a best actor nod, but it is an amazing year for actors. and oprah winfrey surprised me too. >> bill doesn't seem surprised he laughed. what about open pa? sgrfrms well, just that oprah doesn't get to win everything.

she didn't get the nobel prize this year either. [ laughter ] >> let's go toment some of the positives, bill, what nominations were you glad to see and who do you think were the favorites. >> i tend to favor gravity and 12 years as slave. but the acting in american hustle, the technical brilliance of gravity, and just the sober drama of 12 years a slave, each of them are definitely a worthy best-picture winner. >> ben how about your positives, and i hope if you were going to gambling sites you didn't put your money on red ford? >> no, but i'll be putting my money somewhere. i think edgy ford will win, and

matthew mcconaughey is another one to watch. and bruce stern is out hustling and selling his move i have, that wouldn't surprise me. i think it's within thealment of possibility. i think the biggest snub, because i think it's really worth mentioning it as the academy has expanded to ten nominations in a year that bill and i agree there were so many wonderful movies, in this given year it's crazy that they didn't get to ten. when there are eight or nine really terrific movies that i think are worthy of a nomination. in this year it should have gotten to ten. >> yeah, it's a complicated formula. who knows what is happening. there has never been a best picture oscar winner that did not have a white director. i was surprised by that. 12 years a slave has a black

director from england, steve mcqueen, that could make history. why such a bad record on diversity? >> yeah, absolutely. of course it goes to the inherent -- people call racism in management all across american life. all of that said, the academy is really evolving over the past 10 or 15 years, you have seen hanniki for adore, and one last year. there is a lot more diversity. one thing that is interesting -- and there have been a lot of black nominees in the acting categories over the last 10 or 15 years. but this year there are four major black nominees, none of them are actually african

american. so there seems to be something intrinsic in hollywood against the blacks who live here in america. >> yeah, there were a bunch of movies that had major racial issues, 12 years a slave, mandela, but the only one that was nominated for the best picture was 12 years a slave. >> everybody is leaving 42 out of that conversation, and i think that is worth mentioning. >> true. >> i think brew bail station deserves a nomination. and i think if you were going to have that list that i mentioned that you can get to 12 men -- actors who gave oscar-worthy performances i would definitely include michael b jordan and [ inaudible ] and forrest whitaker. but i liked the butler better

than mandela, but i think ultimately the academy looked at that and thought it wasn't an oscar-level movie. and i think that's a conversation worth having. >> and bill -- >> and just very quickly remember -- granted there is yet to be a movie that won best picture that didn't have a white director, ang lee has also won two best director -- >> true but his filming didn't win. bill, box office what influence does that have? in >> i think this is what they are talking about at the academy tonight. they expanded the best picture race because move i haves were getting nominated that weren't making any money. they expanded it to ten they wanted big-budget movies. the average take was very low, it was $65 million.

if gravity wasn't in if there, it would have been a lot lower than that. in the last few years we have seen the lowest grossing best picture of all times. if 12 years a slave wins, that will be another one. but i think it's more evidence that the academy is taking movies more and more seriously. in a movie like 12 years a slave, an extraordinary movie, it's odds on to win the major awards, and we're still complaining that this movie fruitville station didn't get nominated for best picture, when 12 years ago it would have been unthinkable that 12 years a slave would be up for best picture. >> thank you both for joining us. the show may be over, but the conversation continues on our website, and you can find out on

twitter and facebook. we'll see you next time. >> announcer: this is al jazeera. ♪ hello there. welcome to the news hour from our news centers from doha and london, these are our top stories. will the opposition for peace talks for syria even go to the talks? the president plans to go public with his plan of an overhaul of