just your right to make her chief. cause we were probably worried it from the constitution since not written one and states 2 minor amendments to $969.00 we exist as an absence from the constitution some would never bring cleavage and one word giant in the national anthem is not right michael when it's. a celebration of genocide on. our absence from the constitution. so these are the headlines on al-jazeera britain has completed its split from the e.u. leaving the single market and customs union at 11 pm u.k. time on new year's eve prime minister bart's johnson has welcomed a new chapter for the u.k. this is an amazing moment for this country we have our freedom in our hands and

he's up to us to make the most of it and i think it will be the overwhelming instinct of the people of this country to come together as one united kingdom england scotland wales and northern ireland working together to express our values around the world leading both the g 7 and the cop 26 climate change summit in glasgow meanwhile emergency hospitals are being prepared in the u.k. is the more infectious strain of coronavirus puts pressure on existing health facilities for now more patients in hospital than during the peak of the outbreak in april 3 quarters of england alone is in the strictest tier of lockdown 3 states in the united states have now confirmed cases of that u.k. coronavirus strain on wednesday more than 3800 people right across the united states died from cove and 19 the highest daily figure since the pandemic began.

indonesia banning international visitors for the next 2 weeks as it tries to stop the spread of the more infectious strain of corona virus this is the 2nd time indonesia has closed its borders since the pandemic began marius across brazil held a minute's silence to mark the new year stuff at the intensive care unit in sub pollo were among those paying tribute to colleagues and patients affected by covert 19. why don't the difficulties of 2020 many people have been celebrating the new year on a much smaller scale in new york's times square only a few invited guests including health care workers were allowed to gather to watch the crystal ball drop. there today with headlines on al-jazeera next year in the stream. what does somebody been doing with the money that it's borat we bring you the stories and developments that are rapidly changing the world living

large and seen as congress is debating a bill seeking to raise millions of dollars from the super rich families hate. them and counting the cost on al-jazeera. they're welcome to the stream home edition i'm josh rushing sitting in for that here replaceable to me ok and i'm coming to you from my home today in fairfax virginia and i have a question for you well 1st let's talk about you're watching us on you tube look over here see the box right there that's actually a live you tube chat and we have a stream producer there now waiting for your comments in your questions so look at them to me and i can get into the panelist during the show so i hope that you engage here and that you're actually a part of this with us and do it right there in that box ok now i have a question for you right off the top of the show who wants to live in a full on police state with with complete surveillance powers right now for those

of you who are on the fence going to show you a video on my computer here check this out let me start this at the beginning this is what a police state looks like these are scenes coming out of portland oregon recently those are a crowd of american citizens exercising their constitutional right to gather in protest you can see them being beaten with baton. charge that by police and police vehicles i mean if you're worried about attack against america or americans the calls coming from inside the house that this is what it looks like let me take you to another video real quick this one's gone viral recently and we put the van video. what are you doing here's your words what are you doing. doing wrong here in the arts. what is going on if

we don't know who are you are you thinking then she wants you out what's your name ok your final gets you out bro with her we got your friend we got you here the picture in the world the media would be called they got disappearing a citizen it's deadly serious but at the same time just watching police dressed up like their delta force of putting someone in a vehicle of choice for soccer moms makes us realize how ridiculous they are and of course all this really is about silencing protests right so surveillance is a tool used by the powerful to as one of our guests will say today immunize governments from the forces of change so don't look to those same governments to do something about it in fact here's what president trump thinks about what's going on in portland right now. more federal law enforcement that i can tell you in portland they've done a fantastic job they've been there 3 days and they really have done

a fantastic job in a very short period of time no problem they grab them lot of people in jail their leaders these are advocates these are not protesters people say protests and these people are america's these are people that hate our country and we're not going to let it go forward and i'll tell you what the governor and the mayor and the senators out there they're afraid of these people so do you want him knowing everything about you where you're going when you're going who you're talking to what you're planning on the can we do about it we're joined by in exciting panel of guests today to talk about exactly that and i'm going to ask them to introduce ourselves themselves and begin with silky in london. hi yes i'm so call i'm the director of big brother watch with a privacy and civil liberties organization. yeah i think silky i appreciate that and claire in washington d.c. hi i'm claire garvey i'm

a senior associate with the center on privacy and technology based at georgetown law we focus on the relationship between privacy and new technologies particularly has the impact historically vulnerable communities in a course in the open i focused on port link that's getting a lot of big news where i live here in the states but this is an issue all over the world from portland to d.c. to london to where my next guest is sitting in hong kong mary communities yourself sure hi everyone i mean it's very her home base a home call among course of course. most of us here since last june to clearly. what's known as the. sea and how it is that it's. summers and you are there on the front lines of what a massive protest now for what a couple couple years that can be going on that long in hong kong can you tell us what it were some of the surveillance techniques that police had been using and how people have been trying to protect themselves from the. yeah we see the

surveillance photo of the official on the fishing line so balance the high tech and learn tech kind so let's take a look at a place that they are using a lot of their cameras to their home protesters process why as a way to keep iraq what was for themselves i think also to send a very clear message people are being watched and so even if you have no entirely peaceful assembly. technically unlawful because the police have not run to or at what we should say the sense needs to on submission to process these 48 but that's the way it is comb the law or some way they were for example sat in front of where them someplace else having the same every single person about to go in there and that sends a very very clear signal that the police right charges and the next day even if the

assembly remains entirely peaceful. the police often have also over the past year cracked into thousands of digital devices found that the compensation from people protesters activists souness i. have been arrested and in many cases this is recorded. and documented as well as in question this practice in the judicial review the police have actually used very warrants to such a sensually to search their own have all says where the phones if you mean the cases and so that's one way the chance that get access to one of them and nation and then finally i think we also have a very low tech kind of surveillance right now especially in light of a national security law that was just and all that in all of this money that i think. with people is instigating this is. way but

snitching when people are reporting and calling out colleagues and so activism members and saying you know these people are suspected of violence so that's a metaphor very low to every. so many players that there are what have we seen in the u.s. with some of the massive black life matters protests that happen another in drone aircraft surveillance and you know what what are they doing here. we have heard about the use of drones there is of course the use of cameras as well. now a lot of law enforcement agencies in us have a clip most of their officers with body cameras the aspect about this that i'm particularly concerned about but we have very little information about is the use of face recognition as a tool to identify who is at these protests we know that over half of all american adults are in face recognition databases that are accessible or searched by law

enforcement and the question really becomes are law enforcement agencies using the strains that they have from videos from photographs from even protest videos and photos posted to social media to try to identify the individuals at these protests here's why it's so concerning in the u.s. there's a very strong. relationship between the right to anonymity and the 1st amendment right to speech protest assembly the supreme court said anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority while face recognition is a tool to be anonymised people participating in 1st amendment protected activity so we do not have concrete evidence there's a huge lack of transparency around the use of this tool but it is a huge concern here. we have is going is it is good or gabriel this is by tech is modern warfare against protest. basically primarily used by russian the

trumpet ministration i would argue is more broad than that it's ok why was this such a. such a threat. it's a huge threat because the mere fact of this type of surveillance is towards having a chilling effect and so you know that you're being watched and that's certainly the case if you turn up a protest with a facial recognition van we've actually had that in the u.k. the u.k. after say is one of the worst surveillance states in the democratic world and actually. rivals china for the amount of surveillance cameras that we have a person we have around 6000000 cameras in this country is about one for every 10 people who are an incredibly watch nation and then when you hire long that kind of surveillance at protests you're telling people that they're being watched and to

put this into context. we have a very authoritarian history actually of of surveillance in the u.k. of protests where we've had spotter cards being you to identify organizes a lot of infiltration we had for example place offices using the identities of dead children to create fake personas infiltrate peaceful environmental groups and race equality groups even the family of the grieving family of a murdered that boy in in the u.k. in the ninety's was in for traits by undercover police offices who acted as their friends sometimes even as romantic partners and basically collected information on them and. so we have in that context where

surveillance is used to prevent social movements from advancing and to deter people from taking part and sometimes to criminalize people. this as a clear effect on the kind of society that we live in and i would argue the extent to which we can really call us out it's a democracy. and i know you must have noticed that i stole your line in my intro from the pre-interview that. it's meant to immunize governments from the forces of change keep the roof on the. yeah i think the aim of. heavy surveillance of protests i was really thinking about this watching the intro and what trump was saying about how you know describing people is as an a case to hate their country nothing could be further from the truth especially if you look at the that lives not a movement where people are striving for equality for fairness for the principles

that the united states is built upon and we can never be complacent about values in society or about what kind of whoa whoa what kind of country wants become in a lot of social events at the moment are striving towards those goals the purpose of having this all sorts hereon oppressive surveillance is to stop that and to to tear it and to create obstacles and obstructions and and really using these surveillance instruments of of power. to preserve the status quo. it's not about security it's not so bad. with criminals it's about preserving and it's a cool power 11 thing i'd add on that is that it's interesting in u.k. of recovered in a state like many other countries of emergency powers one main power remains in the u.k. because a lot down is more or less lifted it's

a restriction on gatherings and this is the time when that close matter is growing massive names are mental movement is going message me but you can be. criminalized you can be arrested you can be prosecuted just for going on a process yet you can go to go to cinema you can go to work but we can to is exercise your right to freedom of expression freedom of assembly in the most fundamental democratic way. so i have a comment from joseph eddy in the u. 2 says that if they're tracking protesters via cell phone and e-mail communications find low tech means of communicating that can't cannot be tracked so no in hong kong they develop some some different ways to communicate and they also were going to pay mr bring in the umbrella as to the protests that's a low tech response right he talked a little bit about that and in fact what i want to do mary is while you're talking

or maybe after we can bring up these. i don't know what you would call them is like a different form of communication by using maybe you can describe my head i'm like oh my computer now we can go to make it so what we're looking at here. we're looking at a new form of code essentially this came up. earlier this month of government action and a protest that's been rallying coal the entire movement and that goes on coal revolution times and government set this is now legal slogan because it is seditious it's intense the messaging and so what we're seeing now is hong kong protests that's taking off the sense that it's in mainland china has long had to find ways to get around senses and what we see here. taxes of in chinese. and

those characters have now been replaced by the symbols but of course if you know what they're supposed to save and you know that even though the symbols are actually look like anything they ought to mean changing the very message. so that's just one creates a way. that princess as a trying to get out of something sets and as you mentioned. the umbrella as i see as good nat yes exactly the umbrellas. initially not with use to protect themselves that it's from tear gas and are projectiles it's by. beginning a mosque and increasingly use to shield 2 concepts as far as. surveillance cameras and possibly drones. he said. and often that is used for weapons us is what is meant when various overall spraying. graffiti in malls or

transporting. bricks down the road to barricades and. so here i let's go to my computer one more time to share something with you this is pretty cool it's called the atlas of surveillance it was put together by the electronic frontier foundation. encourage people just to google doesn't go look now this is about the u.s. but there are 5300 data points in here showing all the different types of surveillance around the country it's being used and you can kind of zoom in and click on on it something you know to play around in wherever you live to see what's going on with with the surveillance but clear to me what will we do about this. that's a great question i think the main thing is to pressure on our legislators to pass laws and reinforce existing laws to make sure that this type of surveillance is not happening we would like to think that the 1st amendment protects us or the 4th

amendment the right to privacy protects us against this type of surveillance and this sort of what we call perpetual lineup created by the use us face recognition for example but the reality is these technologies have largely been deployed far in advance of any sort of legislation that is a democracy it should be up to the communities that are being policed the communities on this technology is being used to decide whether or not that's appropriate and we need to get to that point i want to make one of we're going to counter yes i swear i'm going to have a cowboy go for it from this is from twitter you can respond to claire since you since you have the mike it's i'm someone who goes into the handle be humble. seba muhammad looks like his name but i don't see why one would hide their identity while involved in peaceful protests protesters are not criminal unless they turn violent but what i support about these surveillance cameras is the possibility of tracking and fishing out of been deers from amongst the peaceful protesters. that

is the point that's raised by by law enforcement i would actually point you to the case law in the united states saying that that's actually not what the 1st amendment says though there is a case that's sort of controversial because the plaintiff was the k.k.k. the k.k.k. won the right in a couple of states to wear their hoods during peaceful assembly and protest why not because the law enforcement didn't have a right to or didn't have an interest in knowing who those people were not because communities were did not feel threatened by the masked. k.k.k. members walking to their communities but that the 1st amendment right of yes even deeply unpopular deeply wrong ideals held by the k.k.k.

are protected under the right the 1st amendment and that includes their right to wear a hood so that they are not identified so let me bring in this is from someone in our community named jocelyn mcdonald approaches this guy but you're going to make up check it out this is actually pretty critical. for about a year now i think conducting workshops where teach participants how official detection and facial recognition systems work so they can alternately go and undermine the systems using make up and facial coverings that were as been greatly inspired by recent maker trends that you know seely's artists really personable open terms of artistry and culture and i thought you know what if we could use the same techniques and make a better so using to make really compelling looks to ultimately undermine the power official recognition and ability to detect a face and at least as a member station authority communities about the increasing reach of surveillance

into all of our daily lives. so let's go to our website check out my computer this is some of the stuff he's talking about you know from an artistic perspective this seems really beautiful and cool but from a practical perspective of. it i mean one just practical where wearing this out i can imagine in the heat of a just melt but to doesn't this kind of make you just stick out in a way that you were hoping to to not in the 1st place look you like is this is a practical. plainly no but i agree it's very beautiful and i love the way the. artists are engaging with counter-surveillance in 'd a way that i don't expect to now and haven't seen before i completely agree with claire we need legislative to do something i actually think we need radical popular action and the responsibility is on all of us and the

responsibility is on everyone watching this because if you're watching this you've got an interest in it and you know i think the alarm bells have been ringing on surveillance especially in the u.k. and the u.s. god knows whole goal for some time and when our very pivotal point in time where the world is changing rapidly the technological revolution is taking pace is the greatest i would suggest change the any society has probably ever been through i think this is far more drastic than the industrial revolution and we have very limited time we have this. a short window of time in which to set the norms for what the future is going to look like for us and future generations and there is a great chance that and certainly there are economic incentives to build this kind of small its surveillance grid in which we are tracked we are watched

and any operations. pursued and that's the nightmare we don't want to live in that's why we called big brother watch and i think is fundamentally hostile to democracy said this is the time to be taking action and speed resisting surveillance and taking radical action like banning facial recognition that's the way that's what we do is that actually this is not something that will feature in democracies. so the question becomes though that if we can take a legislative route that sounds fine for you can us what do you do if your new authoritarian regime where you may not have that option open to you to marry that's what you're seeing on the streets there right what are the options there be options are increasing the extent of saying. to. you chief we were looking only at why peace process that should be worried about something that's well the answer to

that. even the most he's for us even if it was just standing outside a government building holding up something as simple as. as opposed to that sense who live in it or perhaps even a black princess do that to protest against any of the slogans that nationally get you charged on the national security law so it's a joke for textually 20 years who even thinks with us china's are like that is a very worrying trend and right now our whole call. bury it less or room to push back against. our national security law has been forced by diktats by beijing. so to bring another you to comment here this is from jay to. say here in hackers were a cause of warre 1st firey spying and now it looks like governments are also stepping up for spying do we need to worry about privacy will be left after all

this will privacy be left after all this and i often think like if you want to know what's going on with technology look at what they're doing with silicon valley san francisco san francisco actually banned the use of facial recognition technology amazon has put a pause on their facial rick recognition technology until they get clear clear guidance from the government the problem is when you have tech companies looking to the u.s. government for guidance the u.s. government the least the body that makes those laws the congress is full of really very very wealthy elite wealthy mostly white old men who aren't particularly tech savvy so i don't know how you you chazan that are you how do you get over that chazal but somebody needs to realize what's happening and i think voices like all of yours today helped bring this conversation to the forefront that the people really need to consider what this means for them and their society for our guest i want to thank you all for being here today and for everyone watching i hope you

take this morning wonder what you can do about it as well the last. minute change because. of the major political mice in your home if they were in the senate it sounds nuts names are making changes something that we. should have taken this long. we have this culture. to create new young. areas we have to change this culture i am one of the fortunate ones who can leave an establishment not outside but all the people and on that majority of these legal research talk about just good

hardworking people that want to live the american dream like our ancestors these are here to refugees are terrified that they may be forced to return to myanmar. told to al-jazeera we realistically how can you do with institutionalized corruption and this country we listen if this breaks up until conflict between august on and india this has implications for the rest of the world we meet with global news makers and talk about the stories that matter. take the worst possible material you radio grinded into dust comparable to flour and make a meal out and put it into a place where people live it is a cause colossal event. as well so many people are thinking this is the silent heat that doesn't make you feel nice you feel like a murderer we have created an enormous amount of mental disaster. and investigation

south africa toxic city on al-jazeera. a new year brings a new era for the united kingdom as it formally separates from the european union. this is an amazing moment for this country we have our freedom in our hands. on come all sons of maria here in doha this is the world news from al-jazeera with corona virus infections climbing in brazil we're looking at the major divide bear over how to handle the pandemic.