>> good evening everyone, welcome to al jazeera america. i'm john siegenthaler in new york. >> the challenge is getting the details right and that is not simple. >> nsa spy reforms, the president says he wants to make changes in the way the government spice. for civil libber tairns libertat enough. >> customer data what the thieves ever doing with your information. >> going bankrupt, the company blamed for the toxic spill in west virginia in financial trouble, what it means for hundreds of thousands with contaminated drinking water. drought emergency, as fires burn near lang.

california governor says the state could be facing the worst drought on record. we begin tonight with questions of spying, prying, and privacy. there were several new important with developments today. we will get to all of them. we're looking at just who has your data and what they're doing with it. in a major speech the president defines how the national security agency collects information. mike viqueria joins us with more. mike. >> reporter: john, good evening. now comes the hard part. after much controversy and much deliberation, congress will have to help him out with much of what he wants to do. how the government handles telephone conversations, the most controversial aspect of all

of this the president has proposed solutions that even he doubts can work. while admitting legitimate concerns about potential abuse president obama aggressively defended nsa programs calling them important tools that have prevented multiple attacks. >> we can't u unilaterally disam our intelligence agencies. >> fewer and fewer technical constraints on what we can do. that places a special obligation on us to ask tough questions about what we should do. >> addressing the most controversial program, the president said he wants to end government collection and storage of americans' telephone records. suggesting a third party outside government retain it. or have the phone companies hold it themselves. but even mr. obama sees potential challenges to both approaches and both would take time to get off the ground.

in the meantime, the president said he will take immediate steps. starting now, each request for data must undergo review by the secret fis foreign intelligence surveillance court. request for information from private exeants companies with o review. advocate for the public's right to prieives on the secret fisa court. the president said he would put an end to the court unless there is a compelling national purpose. >> our friends and allies deserve to know if i want to know something about an issue i'll pick up the phone and call them rather than turning to

surveillance. >> president obama again co contemed edward snowden, ultimate reply led to today's proposed. >> if any individual who objects to government policy can take it into their own hands to publicly disclose classified information, then we will not be able to keep our people safe or conduct foreign policy. >> and john, congress is going to weigh in on a lot of this, they are going to have to approve much of what the president proposed today. reaction is certainly mixed as natural allies on the left while many of them are disappointed they don't think these steps go far enough they are calling this a good first step. meanwhile the libertarian wing of the republican party say these proposals fall far short of the mark. john. >> mike viqueria, thank you mike. the david shuft has the story. >> he is one of the most famous government whistle blowers in

decades. glen greenwald reported in the guardian that the national security agency had been collecting the are details of verizon's customers. nine companies including google, facebook and apple had been giving the nsa direct access to all user data. president obama said the math was simple. >> you can't have 100% security, and also, then, have 100% privacy, and zero ininconvenience. >> a few days later, snowden took to the air waves and identified himself as the nsa contractor. >> even if you are not doing

anything wrong you're being watched and recorded. >> he added that nearly everything can be held indefinitely. >> the storage capability of these systems increases every year. >> the revelations from snowden kept coming. in late june the guardian reported the gchq had intercepted communications of world leaders at a summit meeting in 2009. another guardian record it tracking data around the globe and the nsa was secretly helping to pay for it. in august the washington post reported that an internal audit had showed that the agency had broken its own privacy regulations more than 2700 times. president obama announced a new review of nsa but insisted mr. snowden was no patriot. >> mr. snowden has been charged with three felonies. he can come here appear before

the worth with a lawyer and make his case. >> the embarrassments for the obama administration continue. snowden documents appeared to indicate that u.s. intelligence agencies had been listening to cell phone calls of german chancellor angela merkel. then the washington post reported that the nsa had tapped into servers covering yahoo and google. at the end of the year snowden told the washington post he had already won. because as many leaks had fueled a vigorous and high profile public depate. david shuster, al jazeera. >> this afternoon my colleague tony harris spoke with glen greenwald. he said there was no need for government to indiscriminately collect huge amounts of information. >> the real question i think not enough people are asking is why should the u.s. government be

keeping everybody's metadata? why does the records of everyone we l talk to and who we speak to and why we e-mail, why does that need to be preserved if we have done nothing wrong? there is no legitimate reason for it to be kept. people who have done something wrong should be monitored for surveillance in a health and well moderated system. >> underscore that nsa surveillance is a serious issue. joining us is joseph l hall, chief of a watchdog group in washington, d.c. joveest, welcome. what stood out to you in the president's speech today? >> most of the proposals were mod eggs if not less than modest reforms. some of the better things were in the secret court that makes decisions about surveillance,

having a voice for the public, having a panel of public advocates that they could call on to help the court think through particularly tough issues. and the other particularly, i think, good part of what he was saying has to do with you know protections for foreign persons in terms of you know, the way it has been for a long time, is we foreign people and their data have no rights with respect to u.s. surveillance and now there will be some minimization of that, basically not keeping as much of that stuff and not sharing as much. >> many people concerned about the collection of metadata. well you tell me how concerning that is? >> certainly. the president tends to say we're not listening to the content of your phone calls, we're looking at lists of who you call and that shouldn't concern you as much. however, metadata can often be

even more revealing than content itself. a professor from university of pennsylvania, matt blaze, calls the telephone metadata database the national relationship database, that means you may not be concerned at one given time you called somebody but the history of your phone calls mietd might show that you called your boyfriend and meld called an r abortion cling. the u.s. government has that in spades. >> based on what you heard are those recommendations enough? >> i think it's not a bad step. the way we talk about it is, it's essentially the modest first step in what should be a longer conversation. but certainly, it's very frar from what -- far from what his own review group recommended.

they recommended 46 things some of which he was completely silent on today. >> last that review group done a good job in your opinion? >> in general the review group did a very good job. they were a little weak on protections for foreign persons. the internet is a global phenomenon and you can't sort of use national borders to say oh we can do anything we want with people's data if they are not within these boundaries but the review group was very strong with a number of things and if the president had been more in line with that, you would hear a lot of us not being as disappointed as we are. >> the president has made the case over time that this is really a balance of privacy and potential terrorist attack on the united states. do you think he's made that case? >> no, i don't. i think the evidence of this massive amount of evidence, the evidence for keeping those in the state that they are.

is extremely thin and to be fair, it's certainly the case that they can't disclose a lot of what they do, if it's going to tip off bad guys, for -- in terms of how we learn things about what they do. but certainly, the case is really weak, you know, they seem to be sort of trunk on big data, drunk on collecting as many signals as they can get their hands on to try and stop the next thing when, in fact, there's long standing constitutional principles that your communications shouldn't be subject to surveillance and you shouldn't have to think about what database something may end up in if you tweet or send a text message or even talk quietly in a restaurant when your phone may be eavesdropping on you. >> joseph loren dis lorenzo hal. thank you sir. phil itner has a part of the

story. >> reaction in europe to president obama's nsa speech range from cautious to moderate approval the outride skepticism. the comments were overwhelmingly negative, few believe any real change will come and even if it does it will not apply to europeans, just americans. all along that has been a major issue on this side of the atlantic, that mass surveillance of u.s. citizens even close allies shows a double standards, and the more stringent purch laws in strassburg, france. jim keller runs says nonamericans are furious about the nsa's perceived bias against them. >> nonamericans of course they have a right to privacy, they don't believe that's true for people outside the u.s. at all. of course that is going to cause

immense concern for people here in europe.. >> reporter: but despite the leaks first being published, critics are mild. that's because the british version of the nsa works in conjunction with washington, sharing the very same data that is mind b -- mined by america. where today's speech may find greater attention is in germany where the tapping of angela anga merkel's phone infuriated the residents. despite president obama's attempt in this speech to calm fears and eliminate anger the damage the nsa spying story caused is great. it will take significant action to restore the faith of many europeans who, now, question america's friendship. phil itner, al jazeera, london. >> as the president said in his

speech, it's not just the government online, companies do it too. the laws governing those businesses have not yet caught up with technology. science and technology editor reports. >> in the business of devising exactly what a surveillance program would want. they seek to track everything about you, your movements, your connections with other people, your behavior in every room of the house. edward snowden's leaks continue to reveal the scope of the surveillance state. but what's truly enormous is the open market for data. and it's data that users give up every day by checking in on foursquare and posting tweets with our phones. google just bought a company that makes an internet connected device which can tell when you are home. the nest are them stat uses the data to turn the heat on and off and the company says it will

only use the information to improve its efficiency. but you would probably drown it in the bathtub. the laws about what the government can collect from those companies are hopelessly loose and outdated. >> most of our privacy protections haven't been updated since the mid 1980s. companies have been able to collect as much information as they want and the government is now able to reach into this treasuretrophy of data with very little oversight. >> the biggest tech companies make their living by collecting this data, each new product can pose a risk to their relationship with their customers. >> theyfully understand that they have a -- they fully understand that they essentially have a covenant with their customers. a relationship based on trust and if they exploit that trust

in the ways that make the employees uncomfortable, the employees are going to leave. >> sought to defend their reputations via closed door meeting whe with the white hous. they have steadfastl steadfastld the -- the california right to know act based on european union laws that require companies like google to reveal to customers exactly what data companies collect and how they are used. the law died from the very tech companies that objected so strenuously to the nsa's behavior. >> they see themselves being able to navigate between their business model and their need to maintain their customers trust without any rules from the government. >> it was nearly a century after the telephone was invented that

the law caught up with the privacy threats of that technology. it took an act of congress to bar phone calls without a warrant. and now the law is again years behind the technology and the companies that track us wherever we go, whatever we do. jacob ward, al jazeera san francisco. >> and more coming up. thieves are after your data as well. a new report says a list of retailers that hack beyond target and ne neiman mash marcu.

consider this. the news of the day plus so much more. answers to the questions no one else will ask. >> it seems like they can't agree to anything in washington no matter what.

>> we put all of our global resources behind every story. >> it is a scene of utter devastation. >> and follow it no matter where it leads - all the way to you. al jazeera america, take a new look at news. >> our coverage of spying, prying and privacy continues now with a focus on a growing security risk to everyone. hackers are carrying out cyberattacks every day. stores and their customers are at risk. the hacking of target customer data made headlines and other

retailers are hit and now we are learning that the threat is much bigger. mark schneider reports. >> it is looking more like target and neiman's aren't the only retailers hackers are going after. at least single broaches at u.s. merchants that have not been named. the firm says it's the same type of software that was used to steal millions of customers information from target. >> atm cash, that's it i can't do it no other way. >> you have a debit card but -- >> i don't trust it. people can walk by a can scanner and get your information. i don't do that anymore. >> i-sight partners said it started seeing malicious code, sends out stolen information and

then deletes the files. but the firm won't say if that malicious software specifically affected target, neiman's or other retailers. working with the cybersecurity firms say they are looking to, quote, characterize data breach information. they put out a report to retailers on how to better defend themselves. meanwhile, he expects more attacks to be launched on retailers. similar and easy to use software to use on consumers. >> the federal reserve's internal website was hacked affecting 4,000 banking executives. cyberthieves got hold of 160 million social security numbers,

a million users were compriseat the content management platform, but 50 million users broached at the note-taking website, evernook. 50 million user at the popular website, living social. online security expert from macafee. good evening. >> good evening. the fact that many of these retailers have known about a potential exploit and essentially didn't or were unable to detect it on their networks, is concerning. more than likely, from the reports that are coming out right now, this mallwear has been around for some time and live on these networks and their security scanning was unable to see it. >> so they didn't want to spend the money?

>> well i don't know if it was they didn't want to spend the money osh the technology of the -- or the technology of the bad guy may be better than the technology of the good guy which mean we as a consumer as the businesses themselves are at a disadvantage when the bad guy has the upper hand. >> for customers like me, macafee has been a product that i've used over the years to protect myself. what sort of technology exists out there for these retailers, these businesses to protect themselves? >> so the stuff they have in place is a big deal. meaning you know, it frankly goes over the head of most consumers, you know it's -- there's encryption, there's all kind of fire walls, i mean, it's -- essentially target really had their ducks in order. they had like bullet proof security. >> let me stop you there for two seconds. because i've heard the exact opposite from other experts. can you tell me, can you get a

little detailed about why they had their ducks in order and it was bullet-proof? >> everything i had had heard, they weren't fooling around. they had really good security in place from what i have seen and what the details that have been fed to me. it wasn't like they left a wireless connection to the internet open and didn't update their antivirus. they had systems in place that go far beyond what any medium or small business had in place. they made a concerted effort to protect that information. but the bad guys still made it in. that said the level of sophistication of the bad guys technology in some cases supersedes what's available to the good guy which is again concerning. >> the idea that companies like macafee and other security companies have to anticipate what's coming down the path before they deal with it. >> that's whole point of the

security process to predict and prevent to have multiple layers of security in place so when the bad guy gets through one layer he doesn't get through the ore layer. in this case because of the newness of this threat one that really hasn't been seen before in the wild so to speak is what made it possible. >> quick advice for consumers who have had their information compromised. >> real simple. as a consumer you should be paying close attention to your statement. most people nine out of ten don't pay attention to their statements at all, meaning monthly when you get that paper statement you are not looking at it. but you should and you need to. you definitely should be checking your statements online weekly and all of your banks and credit card companies they provide you a mobile application for your iphone for your android so you can look at your purchases every day, transaction and withdrawal from your mobile. if you are checking your facebook page why not take one

time -- >> sounds like a full time operation robert i'm saying. >> it really isn't. checking a status or an e-mail you should check an account or an application. >> thank you robert. numerous lawsuits, why residents in the area may not see a penny of compensation. and crews working to contain a wildfire burning outside l.a.

>> welcome back to al jazeera america. i'm john siegenthaler and here are tonight's top stories. nsa spy reforms. >> we won't reform programs and procedures in place to provide greater transparency through our surveillance activities and fortify the safeguards to u.s. persons.

>> president obama proposes changing the government's surveillance program. he's limiting spying on world leaders and wants to change the saving of phone data. foreigners were among the victims including u.n. staff members. going bankrupt, the company proclaimed for a toxic chemical spill, freedom industries is already facing two dozen lawsuits, several government investigations, last week the spill tainted the water supply for hundreds of thousands of residents, robert ray is coughing this story from charleston west virginia. robert what are you hearing about freedom industries and their decision? >> good evening, jong. indeed a meeting was held later today and freedom industries has filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy. according to the filing papers here is what we know.

their assets and liabilities between $1 million and $ten million. they owe 2.4 million to the irs. they owe 3.6 million to creditors and according to papers, there are about 100 of them, they owe property taxes to the county here and there are over 2 dozen class action lawsuits that will be filed because of the spill that willen be halted, bankruptcy halts the litigation freezing the lawsuit. if we thought this was a surprise move, a lot of people caught off guard by the bankruptcy filing, from a business standpoint it makes sense for them. from the papers today we found out freedom is seeking permission to borrow $5 million to continue operations during the bankruptcy proceedings. on december 31st of 2013 a company called chem stream holdings took over freedom, they

now own 100% of the company freedom industries. that may complicate the situation a little bit. we reached out to a spokesperson for freedom, she decided she didn't want to give us any comment on the bankruptcy proceeding today but she did tell us they are working hard to remedy, quote unquote, the situation here in west virginia john. >> this is not surprising we do feel there are lingering concerns about whether the water is safe to drink right? >> absolutely. we talked to several doctors, one of them in the hospital behind me, she doesn't think the water in the elk river ask safe at all. they said at the centers for disease control, women who are pregnant should not be drinking in the water or bathings in the water. also been talking to the cdc he thinks that the level of warning

should be increased to children under the age of 5 because as he said you know there's not really a whole lot of data or scientific evidence or testing that's been done. in fact some of the only testing that's been done on the chemical that went down the elk river was on animals. so there's not really a whole lot that they know about how this may affect people in the future. >> all right, robert ray reporting robert thanks very much. now to california where there's been little or no rain for months. today california governor jerry brown declared a drought emergency. some of the state's reservoirs are at their lowest rates in years and agriculture is starting to suffer. >> hopefully it will rain eventually but in the meantime we have to do our part, making it easier to transfer water from one part of the state to another, so that farmers particular those with friendly crops can keep them alive. >> brown is urging people the cut down their water use by at

least 20%. the drought is making it more difficult for firefighters near los angeles, we turn to jennifer london who is in irvingdale, california. jennifer what was the situation for the people who were forced from their homes? >> the mandatory are evacuation order has been lifted, the san gabriel mountains, applying to around some 300 residents we're told. there was a press conference just a few moments ago and they say the fire has burned just over 1800 acres, which is not a significant jump from the 1700 acres that were reported earlier and that is really thanks to the quick work of some 1100 firefighters, nine water dropping helicopters and four fixed wing aircraft that has been working since this fire broke out early yesterday

morning. crews worked today on some of those hot spots and they have stopped the forward movement of the fire. and even though the temperatures were in the mid to high 80s today the wind really cooperated and that allowed the firefighters to strengthen their containment line. five homes were destroyed, including the historic singer mansion. we went up there to assess the damage and we saw a couple of crews working to put out some of the smoldering hot spots. this fire was started accidentally but by an illegal camp fire, three men are in custody and charged with starting the fire. >> what does this mean for the people of california? >> well, john we first reported on al jazeera america about the impending drought declaration and today governor brown made it

official. the state's dryest year on record, 2013, governor brown saying the situation in california is unprecedented, called it serious and in declaring this emergency drought proclamation it does a couple of things in addition to freeing up some federal funds. it allows the state to initiate water transfers from one part of the state to another part of the state to try and ease some of the water shortages. it also allows the state to hire additional seasonal firefighters. if we are going osee a rare winter fire season. the governor says most importantly what this proclamation does is it raises public awareness not just for people in the state of california but nationally, so people understands how truly severe the drought situation is in california. >> jennifer, thank you. another school shooting this time in north philadelphia, a boy and girl were shot both in the arm.

it happened in their high school got 'im in the afternoon. three boys may be involved, two are in custody the other on the loose. this is the second school shooting in the united states this week. on tuesday a seventh grader opened fire in a new mexico middle school wounded two students. one of the key players in the george washington bridge lane closure scandal is willing to talk but only if he is granted immunity. david wildstein says he will share information if he receives immunity from prosecution. wildsteen appeared before a state panel last week. handed over the information. 17 people three government agencies have been subpoenaed. well, anticipation is building for sunday's nfc championship game. john henry smith is here with more on that. >> i'll start this segment by posting a question to america.

do you consider yourself old school or new school? the nfc matchup between tom brady's patriots and peyton manning's broncos is for you. two bright young stars under center, jessica taff has more. >> he has that special ability that the great ones have to elevate their game in those situations. poise, situations never seem to bother him and his leadership ability, players love him, coaches love him. work ethic, off the charts. a plus plus. >> san francisco head coach jim harbaugh could be talking about his own quarterback, colin

kaepernick or russell wilson. boat of them represent the new school of mobile young quarterbacks. they are changing the leagues with their legs and their quick minds as well as their strong arms. >> colin kaepernick went in the second round, russell wilson wept in the third. they had to compete for that job, coached by strong coaches and in that reed offense. they could create with their legs not just with their arms. >> in his second year in the national football league the 25-year-old wilson finds himself in the playoffs yet again. in a divisional rounds against the new orleans saints last week, the young quarterback is taking an approach to his game. >> i think i need to get better. my confidence never wavers.

that's never going to change for me. >> as far as the 26-year-old kaepernick, he is building on an outstanding resume. he and the 49ers fell just short losing the big game by just three points. this year they are riding an eight game winning streak, they head to seattle with the hopes of getting the top seed. one thing is for sure: a young mobile quarterback will be representing the nfc in this year's super bowl. jessica taff, al jazeera. >> thank you, jessica. championship game sunday starts at 3:00 p.m, eastern time. with the broncos hosting the patriots. that game is followed by the seahawks-49ers. john who you got? >> i'm going ogo for seattle and

probably the pats. >> i take the broncos and seattle, see who's right. >> just a short time we've got the super bowl coming in the area in the new york city area. a deadly blast rocks kabul. we'll bring you the latest from afghanistan. russian president vladimir putin about gays. >> and the moon is making a big come back. >> will they make it in america? >> i have a chance... >> i learn america

>> record warmth in california today, we've had severe fire danger because of no humidity or rain there. fresno tide a record that was set 105 years ago in 1909. it's remarkably warm this last week, remarkably dry, no storms moving into california or even the pacific northwest, for that matter. the storm surge ask trying them up into canada. as we move into the week ahead. as we look at sacramento, 44 days, that is the longest stretch that we've had no rain during the rainy season and here we are at number 40 in that stretch. we very well may see days count down, and make this the all time dryest. again we're expecting storm

systems to move right on up into canada but the warm weather staying to the west. it is cold weather in the northern plains and in the mid atlantic. this is where snow moving in with strong gusty winds is going to bring some very difficult travel conditions throughout minnesota, eventually that snow will be moving into the northeast. >> i'm phil torres, coming up this week on techknow... >> a mystery, deep in the heart of the rain forrest >> we haven't seen something actually build them... >> it's been really frustrating

>> it's a spidery clue that has our team of scientests stumped... join our journey to peru... then, it looks like chicken, tastes like chicken, >> that's good.... >> but it's not... the foamy inovation that's making hardcore meat eaters happy. >> techknow on al jazeera america real reporting that brings you the world. giving you a real global perspective like no other can. real reporting from around the world. this is what we do. al jazeera america. >> our top story today, president obama calling for major changes to the national security agency's electronic surveillance program. the mass collection of phone records of millions of americans will not end. still to be determined is who will hold onto those records. president also told the agency to stop spying on friendly foreign leaders. my colleague tony harris spoke

with glen greenwald. >> i think it's designed to stifle real debate by pretending that the government has wrote in and president obama has solved the problem, he has balanced both sides, come to the reasonable middle ground and now the crisis is over. i don't think it's going to work, the revelations are so shocking that they want more than just pretty words from president obama, from whom they've heard many pretty words over the years. but underscore the problem is even more serious than people really think and these kind of symbolic gestures aren't going to work this time. >> greenwald said the collection of metadata can be extremely invasive to ordinary americans. the family of the are inmate in ohio whose execution took a long time, dennis mcguire was put to death for the raping and stabbing death of a pregnant

woman, his execution was done by an untried collection of drugs. he struggled to growth, made choking sounds for 15 minutes before he was declared dead. his family called his execution cruel and unusual. a bombing in afghanistan in a restaurant in kabul, a home that to are embassies and consulates. at least a dozen others also died. jane ferguson has that story. >> reporter: three attackers targeted the restaurant at close to 7:30 on a friday night when it was likely to be at its busiest. the first was wearing a suicide vest, which he detonated at the door of the restaurant, blowing it off, allowing the other two to open fire on diners. al jazeera has obtained footage shot very soon after the security officials arrived and

entered the restaurant. it's unclear if many of the diners even managed to escape. we just returned from the area where they were still taking bodies away. now this restaurant was extremely popular with diplomats, u.n. staff and high ranking officials. because it was considered to be one of the few safe restaurants in the city it had reinforced steel doors a lot of security there and it is also in the diplomat area in the heart of the city, very close to the western embassies, it was considered safe as well as the area that it was in. clearly not safe enough. >> shane ferguson reporting. syria's main political opposition is debating a vote of whether to meet face to face with the assad government next week. pushing the sides to take part in the so-called geneva two meeting. the national security administration says it's still

deciding, willing to exchange prisoners but will not step aside. >> i think they can bluster they can protest they can put out distortions, the bottom line is we are going to geneva to implement geneva 1 and if assad doesn't do that he will invite greater response in various ways from various people over a period of time. >> the next round of talks in switzerland scheduled to begin next wednesday. russia's president vladimir putin is speaking out. he says it's okay to be gay just don't tell the children. >> translator: if you think that i created this uniform you are strongly misguided. we aren't banning anything. we are not rounding up anyone. we have no criminal restrictions. but please leave the children in peace. >> last year, russia prohibited

nonsexual practices among miles an hour and in uganda, the president has refused to sign an 18th gay bill that calls for life in prison for homosexuals. he suggested that base needed rescuing. the bill would have punished gays who have sex. uganda's president said he would support a revised version of that bill. since then dozens of people have been arrested. coming up an art world mystery, these three paintings have a secret owner and a murky past. why broos barbara bush doest want her son jeb to run for president.

millions who need assistance now. we appreciate you spending time with us tonight. up next is the golden age of hollywood going golden but elsewhere. why l.a.'s mayor has declared a state of emergency for the entertainment industry there. next. this is the 900 page document we

>> president obama signed the $1.1 trillion federal spending bill today. the measure pays for the government through the end of september. and funds nearly every agency from airports to war cost. the next fiscal challenge facing lawmakers would likely be whether to raise the federal

debt ceiling. jeb bush has been mentioned as a presidential contender. his mother barbara bush did not hold back. she says she hopes he won't run. her son jeb is the best candidate but there are others out there. this isn't the first time she has rejected the idea of a third bush in the white house. and the third son was quick to respond to his mom. in a tweet he asked, what date is mothers day this year? asking for a friend. moon shining is alive and well in the new york city borough of brooklyn. >> it's been the subject of poetry and prohibition, whiskey. spl snoatsd selling whiskey is the greatest sin ♪

>> the 18th amendment made whiskey and all other alcohol illegal but moon shiners and bootleggers thrived. >> we advocate the repeal of the 18th amendment. bringing a piece of that history back to brooklyn. >> up to this point in history people have this escort of long history of moon shining it actually hpped happed a lot in urban area. >> whiskey right here, he's also written a book teaching people how to make the stuff at home. >> certainly whiskey history is american history, going all the way back to the first still that was ever in the united states. it was actually in new york city all the way through british colonial area to prohibition to the craft movement which is happening in almost all 50 states. >> a craft movement that's taking off with more than 400 small distilleries opened over

the next decade. prohibition ended more than 80 years ago but whiskey distilling didn't come back until 2010, mom and pop distilleries like this one had the industry boom. ferra and her husband run the distillery in brook lib. >> after the fermentation we pump it into the still, this is where the magic happens and this is coming out as spirit, our malt whiskey. >> they are more than 11 distilleries that have popped up over the next seven years. >> it is actually just us, my husband makes it, i sell it, small batch, we distill everything ourselves, people are aware of it and seeking us out. >> it is the same local and organic food movement that have

attracted people back to distilled spirits. >> the relationship that distillers have with agriculture it was a way for farmers to convert their crop into something they could sell much more easily and that's why whiskey really up until sort of the 1900s was the primary american drink. >> and american drink that's making a big come back one batch at a time. kaylin ford, al jazeera, new york. >> one piece of art $142 million, fetched the highest ever. three piece painting, allen shawf leschauffler on the millir mystery. >> friend and painter lucian freud is a triptych, designed to

be viewed as one. >> a set of bastle baffles,. >> they argue about art they gamble together they club they commiserate about their failed love lives and yet they come back to this essential connection which is in the paintings. >> a simple backdrop a geometric cage, a shattered shifting freud. he hopes they will see their own relationships and loved ones in their work. this is a rare opportunity, since bacon painted it in 1969, has had few public shows. >> it had been drifted and been out of view, single panels shown but not the whole thing until 1999 and then it disappeared again until it appeared at auction. >> a month later it was here at the portland art museum abruptly

on display as part of a master work series. landed the triptych. >> i put out a couple of feelers and then i got a phone call and the phone call was oblique, we hear you want to discuss something with us. >> it's created quite a buzz in the art world. >> do you have any idea who it can is? >> no clue. >> it could be somebody in the middle east. >> i heard somebody in california. >> and now the mystery may be solved, widespread published reports name elaine nguyen as the owner of the paintings. nguyen isn't talking. >> $142 million plus. who knows? >> apparently, no one but the

curator. >> who owns it? an interesting question. >> allen schauffler, al jazeera, portland, oregon. >> and tonight's photo finish, a unique sight in a view in munich, germany. a polar bear gave birth to not one but two cubs, here they are. they are three weeks old in this picture. jiovanna is said to be a great first time mom add seven years old. coming up tonight at 11:00 eastern. the second moss costly disaster in u.s. history, what we have learned since then. plus the sundance film festival hits the big three-0.

we'll talk about that. welcome to al jazeera america i'm john siegenthaler here are tonight's top stories. new spying orders from the president in a major speech president obama redefined how the national security agency collects information. the change has come after a barrage of crit sixg following months of crit sixg about nsa surveillance programs. >> it was clear to me, that changes in our technological capabilities were raising new questions about the privacy safeguards currently in place. >> president obama signed off on the $1.1 trillion federal bill today, it funds many of the parts of government from the cost of war to airports. keeps the government financed through september 30th. the next hurdle for lawmakers is raising