workers at the eiffel tower have taken radical action to solve the problem. the tower was shut most of friday as folks were held on increasing police patrols. much more on our stories on our website. the address is aljazeera.com. aljazeera.com. debating the patriot act, the senate fights over extending or changing the law days before it exspires. hundreds of emails release from hillary clinton's time at secretary of state. what do they show about the attack on benghazi. the pentagon admits u.s. air strikes killed children instead of members of isil.

♪ this is al jazeera america. live from new york city i'm randall pinkston. the senate is down to the wire to decide what to do with the patriot act. it is a controversial law covering everything from how the nsa collects information without a warrant to the handling of terror suspects and it expires ten days from now. right now the senate is in session, and the debate begins soon. minority leader harry reid spoke about it a short time ago. >> we have one piece of legislation for one of the rare times out of the house there's bipartisan foefrts made and it worked. they passed this bill and we should do the same before we leave here. >> as libby casey reports, many

are now questioning whether the law should remain in effect. >> reporter: 14 years after the patriot act and the attacks of 9/11 lawmakers and americans are still grappling with how far the government should go. >> the debate is whether the act has immediate america safer at the almost trillion dollars it has cost to implement it. have >> reporter: this civil right's attorney argues that it has not made the country safer and he says the cost goes beyond money to civil liberties. >> reporter: when it was put together and rushed through congress a lot of people joined because they were told it's okay in five year's we'll revisit there, and we're still talking about it. >> reporter: still talking and weighing whether it should be continued. in 2010 he was awarded fore than $20,000 by the courts because he

government wiretapped his calls with clients without a war rent. >> fear and comply ansy allow liberty and privatesy to suffer. >> reporter: it's not what you say, but all of the details about who you call and when is being collected. opponents want the provision to expire. >> the disclosures by edward snowden enabled a global controversy, a cultural conversation that remains ongoing in the face of a policy conversation that quite frankly has yet to even support. >> reporter: this supporter agrees on one thing that snowden was a game changer. >> you know, edward snowden, bless his little heart, did a big favor for our enemies by portraying our collection programs as much more sinister

than they are. >> reporter: he maintains the act has made the country safer. >> it is certainly dangerous to roll back the government's abilities to conduct this type of surveillance far too restrictively. if we don't do these things we will suffer attacks. >> reporter: the civil rightest attorney says the government has a hard time proving its surveillance attacks have actually stopped attacks. >> do we have any cases that were brought by these programs that edward snowden exposed? and the conversation now is why are we spending all of this money on these programs. >> reporter: he is encouraged by efforts to curb phone data collection and have a public advocate in the foreign surveillance intelligence court. he hopes it is part of a national conversation about civil rights. >> the senate has a couple of options, renew it extend it or consider the usa freedom act

which overwhelmingly passed the house. it curtails the mass collection of phone data. >> i don't think the community would say it is entirely satisfied. and we're talking about one provision, section 215, which was the provision that was used to gather every american's telephone records. so that's the main thing that people are arguing about today. but that's only a very small piece of the intelligence community's activities and i think a lot of people are concerned, including people like senator paul and senator widen, that actually usa freedom doesn't go far enough. the fooeb has dramatically increased its use of the patriot act to collect information. an internal review says the agency has been using its authority to sweep up data on people who are not part of an

exact investigation. the expansion is due in part to more electronic information being available now. the state department says it is about to release the first batch of hillary clinton's private emails. david shuster is here now. david what have we learned so far? >> these are emails that hillary clinton turned over to the state department last fall from her private server and she said these are the ones related to government business. what has happened is some of those emails from the house have now leaked to the "new york times." here is the state department saying okay if the house is leaking them we're going to start releasing them. the first batch represents about a third of all of the emails. and what is interesting is that none of them are classified but a lot of them are stamped with sbu, which is the government identification for sensitive but unclassified, and that's because

some of these emails hillary clinton lists the location of state department staff who were in libya at the time things were starting to get rough, so again, these are things on her private server that are sensitive and that will fuel some of the criticism, because private servers don't have the same security protections. the emails paint an interesting picture of hillary clinton after the benghazi attack that killed four americans. you have clinton circulating information that contradicted the narrative that was being provided by the white house. now more emails are going to be released in the coming days and of course the house committee is going through all of these, and trying to figure out what can they do. but part of what is going on is the house committee trying to make her look bad, selectively leaking the ones that make her look bad, and not others and there's the state department

saying okay if some of these are going to be released we're going to release them as well. >> your point about hillary clinton's emails indicating information that is at odds with what was being said by the white house. and susan rice was put out to do the talking points that sunday not hilary. >> right. and susan rice and the administration said this was a spontaneous uprising that was caused because of the video of an american wanting to burn the quran, the email suggests that she knew this was not true. this was planned for weeks, and she was circulating information about that. so the house will probably bring in hillary clinton in an effort to embarrass her and perhaps the obama administration, and say wait you knew this was not spontaneous, and yet the administration was saying it was, what gives? >> thank you.

more come. a suicide bombing in saudi arabia has killed at least 20 people. the bomb exploded during friday prayers. isil says it was behind a similar attack in yemen today, but has not said anything about the saudi attack. no other group has claimed responsibility so far. the pentagon admits that a u.s.-lead air strike in syria most likely killed two children. the military for the last two months has denied that any civilians were killed in syria or iraq as part of the coalition campaign against isil. kimberley hall cut more. >> reporter: this is the first time they have acknowledged civilian deaths. this is the result of a four-month investigation, the pentagon saying that these civilian deaths of children likely occurred on november 5th and 6th, it was an effort to

target an al-qaeda cell but the numbers contrast. the numbers we get from the syrian observatory for human rights, they report 2500 people killed since the start of this campaign 131 of those civilians. now the pentagon is saying they are still looking into two other reports of civilian casualties, two deaths in iraq and one in syria. there's a lot of visiting if you will of strategies taking place in washington in recent days. the president of course defending so far the strategy acknowledging this is just a tactical setback, but the state department and the pentagon saying the u.s. will be sending additional weapons. and president obama saying there is a need to rump up support as well as equipment, but still acknowledging that this has been a major tactical setback.

coalition air strikes have not just targeted isil fighters and military equipment, they have also taken aim at isil finances. patricia sabga joining us now. how effective has these strikes been against damaging their finances? >> reporter: coalition air strikes, damaging isil oil facilities, depressed oil prices, the one-two punch that has brought the armed group's biggest money spinner to its knees. >> last summer it was making a reported 1 to $3 billion a day. and now reportedly they make 1 to 2 million a week. >> reporter: extoerding taxes, protection money, and check point tolls is the group's

steadiest source of income. and when it's territory expands as it did with we recent capture of ramadi. so does the pool of people isil can shake down. >> when it controls territory, it is able to find creative and -- and frankly very effective tools to -- to suck the money out of the economy. >> reporter: like getting around baghdad's ban on transferring cash salaries to government employees in isil-held territory. according to the financial action task force, isil waits for government workers to collect salaries elsewhere, and then taxes them up to 50% when they return to isil-held turf. sales of stolen antiques further buoy their coughers and the group is set for a bonanza with the capture of palmyra. the biggest financial strength is arguably what it doesn't rely

on such as buying loyalty through providing public services, but looting antiques has become its second largest source of income and all together it's a formula that allows isil to meet its biggest expense that's payroll estimated at anywhere between 3 and $15 million a month. >> and the weapons they get that were left behind. >> exactly. >> isil makes a lot of money from looting ak teaks. michael dante lead restoration activities and iraq in syria. >> the majority of their attacks, over 90% are directed at islamic heritage. a small percentage are directed at the pre -- preislamic period.

the material is flowing out of iraq and syria into transnational crime networks. reportedly they do have that kind of reach where they can deal fairly directly with potential buyers but most of the sources that we have talked about on this issue, have told us that isil has a number of ways of drawing revenue from illicit cultural property. they license the looting of archaeological societies, where they condone looting, then they tax that and tax the trafficking as it comes across the borders, and then they also get a cut of the initial sales of the property that includes art, antiques, and other ethnographic material. >> he says looting is just one part of a greater humanitarian crisis in the city of palmar are and throughout syria. president obama spoke a

short time ago before one of the largest jewish congregations in washington, d.c. he says anti-semitism continues to affect the modern world. >> it is and always will be a threat to broader human values to which we all must aspire and when we allow anti-semitism to take root then our souls are destroyed. >> reporter: u.s. officials across this country and europe are also visiting synagogues as part of what the white house calls an an going commitment towards combatting anti-semitism. the latest talks come to an end over restoring diplomatic relations between u.s. and cuba. and we revisit gaza. where much of the area was destroyed.

u.s. and cuban officials say they are making progress in restoring diplomatic ties. discusses have been focused on reopening embassies in washington and havana. castro's government has expressed concerns that it could cause disdance to cause trouble. negotiations has opened the door to more u.s. tourists. americans are flocking to see a country that has been officially off limits for 50 years. ♪ >> reporter: for cubans and u.s. citizens alike there is little doubt tourism would benefit from normalized relations between the two countries. heavy restrictions make it difficult for people from the states to visit the island but not impossible. >> it's fantastic. the history is absolutely

unbelievable. >> reporter: cuba has long been a destination for travelers from europe and canada and international tourism is big business here. a select few companieses are licensed to operate here. >> for us in the industry it's a phenomenal destination. it's like an answer to prayer for the -- for the -- the real traveler, the person who longs to discover places in the world that are different and unique. >> reporter: michael and his friend have been giving tours in this classic 1948 chrysler car for the last year. >> i think it's going to be good. we are only 90 miles from the united states government and we can receive very quickly a lot of tourism people here and i think it's going to be a success. >> reporter: 100,000 non-cuban americans visited the island last year.

unofficial estimates indicate a 20% increase in the first three months of this year. the challenge, say american tour operators will be cuba's ability to accommodate an influx of american tourists with its decades of decay. >> the potential is in the strat advertise sphere. but there are problems. one of the biggest problems for cuba with its existing infrastructure to cope with that kind of on slot of tourists. it can't. >> reporter: she says the airports can't handle large planes, and there's practically no internet. in the last few months air b&p has listed over a thousand properties in cuba exclusively for americans. the new owner of this home has converted it into a rental

property mostly for tourists who can access the entire place using websites like air b&b. >> what is interesting for tourists is here they get a personalized experience compared to the large chain hotels. what is more this house has a higher comfort level. >> reporter: while there is a sense of cautious optimism here even some western tourists have some reservations. >> it's just going to change unrecognizably in terms of the chain brands that will come in whether the old cars that are homing the streets will still remain, i think it will be a completely different experience in five to ten year's time. >> reporter: but with diplomatic relations still in their infancy, it could have some time. the palestinian president

says israel is preventing peace by expanding jewish settlements. he said he supports a two-state solution. at the same event the former israeli president say most israelis support that view. in gaza reconstruction after last summer's war has slowed down. and our correspondent reports that is leading many to give up hope of returning to their homes. >> reporter: for weeks mohammed has been clearing rubble from what is left of his home. it was all but destroyed during israel's 50-day bombardment last year. he and seven members of his family have been renting a small apartment in gaza city but with little work available, they can

no longer afford it. >> translator: we have lost hope. no one is helping us. see how but suffer? >> reporter: the united nations middle east envoy has warned that the people of gaza are so desperate and angry about their plight that it could lead to an implosion here and that both israeli and palestinian leaders need to do more to prevent that from happening. across gaza there are signs people have given up hope of receiving help. this heavy machinery was paid for by the residents of this bombed out neighborhood from their own pocket. but the frustration goes far beyond the lack of hope many are angry at he ongoing infighting between palestinian factions, the tightening block aid, the closure of the border crossing, and the international community's failure to deliver on -- bills of dollars.

but there is a bright spot. in all around 120 housing structures were reconstructed providing homes for around a thousand families, but all agree it is not enough. >> the longer it takes for people to get their lives together again, the more dangerous it is that their situation again will move towards -- in more negative scenario, because the people feel they have nothing to lose and people will act accordingly. >> reporter: for mohammed all he wants is a proper home for his family. something he is willing to fight for if left with little other choice. coming up on al jazeera america, art and activism. from lynching to racial profiling a collection of photos that is stirring up strong emotions. ♪

bad weather is slowing the efforts to clean the ocean and beaches near santa barbara california, where a pipeline leaked more than 100,000 gallons of oil this week. a series of provacative and

racially charged photos have gone viral. they turn the traditional victim into the aggressor. that has sparked a deep conversation about race. we spoke to this photograph. >> so this is a series called historical fiction, which is a series that takes place between 1950 and 1970. so when i was a kid, i grew up in florida, and in the south, the kkk was very prevalent. >> the klan became a name of terror to millions in the south. >> but one of the things i always noticed when you ask anyone about the kkk, the first image is a klansman hanging a backman, and i just thought it would be so interesting to see what would it be like if it was the klansman in the tree.

the response i have gotten from this photo is this is the most powerful photo i have ever seen. i have been thanked for this picture more than any other picture i have ever taken. what was interesting of the men holding down the police officer is i did that probably nine, ten months ago, so i did it before the i can't breathe and a lot of these things that have recently been happening. and as they were happening i was like oh man this photo just keeps getting more and more powerful. if someone did that to a police officer, the uproar that that would cause would be cataclysmic. the martin luther king picture is these four women in a hair salon, and as they read this story, they realize their lives are about to change and the reactions you see are so interesting, because the women

in the photograph had a real visceral experience. each one of the girls broke down individually, you know. as you grow up i mean he was dead long before any of them were born so it wasn't something that they actually had to face. people want substance, and this is the first time i have really tackled an issue like this. if any one of these photos can cause any type of change then my job is done. >> photographer tyler shields. a feast for the eyes overnight in sydney. the famous opera house was painted with lights. it is the world's largest festival of light and sound, but this year it will leave a smaller carbon footprint. the cost of light powered by renewable energy. the light show ends june 8th. thanks for joining us. i'm i'm randall pinkston. the news continue next.

and for more on these stories you can go to our website at aljazeera.com. ♪ a suicide bomber targets friday prayers at a shia mosque in saudi arabia killing around 20 people. ♪ hello there, i'm -- coming up iraq asks for more help as isil fighters move closer to baghdad. and h