>> coming up on "rt," on the verge of a self-inflicted economic disaster, it appears washington has decided to act. the senate has reached a deal that will reopen the government and avoid a default on u.s. debt. will the house act? updates from capitol hill ahead. inside gitmo, we will take you inside the detention facility for a look at what conditions are like there. a series of special reports begins today, here on "rt." more revelations about the growing surveillance state here in the u.s. according to nsa leaker edward snowden, the agency is

collecting and storing americans personal e-mail address books and instant messaging buddy list. more details on this later in the show. ♪ it's wednesday, october 16th. 5:00 p.m. in washington, d.c. i am same-sex. you are watching "rt." we begin on capitol hill. a deal emerged from the senate after a night of negotiations and after the credit rating agency fitch put u.s. treasury on rating watch negative. a move that usually precedes a credit downgrade. we are on capitol hill. >> it looks like the deal has finally been reached here on capitol hill. it comes after the partial government shutdown carries on into its third week. the announcement came early this afternoon. it was negotiated by senate majority leader harry reid and

senate minority leader mitch mcconnell. the deal comes just hours after the debt ceiling deadline is set to be breached. if it is breached, it could be even more catastrophic than this current government shutdown. that's because that is when the government would run out of money to pay its bills. it looks like at least for now that crisis has been averted. it's important to note that even though a deal has been reached, it's just temporary. here is what it would do. it would fund the government until january 15. it would raise the debt ceiling until february 7. it would set up long-term budget negotiations, hopefully leading to more permanent solutions, and it would mandate income verification for recipients of obamacare subsidies. as you can see, not much of a win for republicans. at the heart of this deadlock is obamacare.

president obama's signature piece of legislation. republicans have been trying to strip away at funding for this law. it doesn't look like that is going to happen at all. we have seen this bitter dispute inside of the republican party itself. with members of the tea party not giving in at all on this obamacare issue. frustrating many republicans that has been a little bit more flexible on this issue. as we have mentioned, this is just a temporary deal. it is likely we are going to see more partisan bickering in just a few months, but at least for now, furloughed government employees can look forward to getting back to work soon. i'm here at the capitol, liz wall, "rt." >> assuming everything goes according to plan in the house gets in line and passes the senate deal and the white house signs it, the government will reopen. you have to wonder, what exactly did forcing it to shut down for two weeks really accomplish?

ultimately, by voting on a relatively clean spending bill and debt limit increase, speaker boehner is doing what democrats have been asking him to do all along since before the shutdown. we could have had this deal two weeks ago, but instead, we went through furloughing hundreds of thousands of workers, denying cancer trials two second, and distribute info to run the country without proper inspections. only now after all of that are we right back to where we started. a similar deal to reopen the government and avoid a default. to people watching washington from afar, this looks absolutely insane. here's the thing. it might actually be insane. earlier, i was joined by dr. or douglas field, a neuroscientist and author of the book "the other bring." i asked him, what is the psychology behind the dysfunction on capitol hill in recent weeks? >> i think what we are seeing play out on the national stage is hurting behavior, human herding behavior, which is very important unconscious behavior

that allows us to form complex societies. i think that can provide some perspective on what is going on. >> when you say herding, that means people acting in groups and losing their own agency to make right and wrong decisions? >> exactly. a group behavior is adopting a modeling of behavior in the group that you are in. an individual will develop emotions and feelings according to the group around them. one of the important things about hurting behavior at psychologists know is that it reduces the threshold for deviant behavior, for conducting your self in ways that would be otherwise considered cruel. you would never do this as an individual. >> herding reduces the likelihood of that? >> exactly. >> in this case, it seems to be promoting that kind of behavior. you could say the actions of that have been coming out of congress over the last few weeks have been harmful to the country. >> that's correct. it reduces the threshold for

participating in those. no congressman would stand in front of another taking her sick child with cancer, stand in front of that woman and preventer from taking her child into the nih for treatment grade on an individual level, that would be cruel. no member of congress would prevent their neighbor from going to work in the morning and earning a living and contribute into society in their own way. that would also be unacceptable. many of these things that we see going on we accept only because of a psychosis of hurting behavior. >> that could explain away why republicans en masse might have gotten together to force the shutdown or to exact these demands which have led to the shutdown. how do you explain behavior of individuals leaving this herd, like senator ted cruz or members of the house? movement. they put their self on the line to do all of these things that

denied nih cancer treatment or lead to hundreds of thousands of people being furloughed. can we write their decisions off based on this mentality? >> herding describes a behavior where people adopt behaviors and attitudes and beliefs according to the individuals around them, whether you like an iphone or guchi bag. it is not a rational decision. while we have leaders and groups, they are not really dictating necessarily the behaviors and thoughts of the other members of their herd. they are participating. it is a natural process. it is essential for humans to form social structures, to coalesce around others in their groups. there are leaders, but they are not dictating. once you become part of this group, you adopt unconsciously those same beliefs and behaviors. >> is ted cruz a psychopath? >> this is not psychopathic behavior in the sense that it is

normal behavior. there would be no human society if we didn't have this propensity and circuits which are unique to humans that allow us to mimic and adopt other people's behaviors. what is, in a sense, psychotic about it is that an individual would not behave this way towards other individuals, except for the anonymity and the reduced compassion and apathy that develops in herds. we see this in mob violence. >> why is this mentality been so much more prevalent in the last two and a half years in congress than we have seen before? the debt limit had been raised. the government has shut down in the past, not for this long, and it was usually over spending issues like obamacare. we have seen this every few months, dysfunction. what do you make of this uptick? >> i've wondered about that myself. i don't have the answer to that.

i think the flipside to that is that the solution from a narrow scientific point of view is to realize that these tendencies to form herds and take actions that are really destructive and cruel are a result of this deeply ingrained behavior in human beings. the way out of this is to perceive that we are all part of a larger group. we are all the same group of americans. dividing into these factions and becoming aligned with a faction within a group leads to this kind of problem of hurting behavior. -- herding behavior. >> a lot of people are blaming the actual location washington, d.c. for creating an entity cap between the problems americans are facing day-to-day and the problems congress is focused on trade is there something in the air that inhibits our empathy receptors? >> no, it's just where this happens. this is where the groups coalesce and they have these interactions.

i think that what will happen is either members of congress will realize that we are all part of a bigger group and have to come together, or the larger group that is america, the citizens, are going to remind them through their votes that this is not an acceptable behavior to sabotage the normal operation of government. i think, by and large, people don't accept that. >> is there something naturally psychopathic about choosing to be a politician, choosing to go and appeal to people and ask for votes all the time? 1% of the population is believed to be psychopathic. something like 4% in corporate america. 18% in prisons. what you think the rate is in congress? >> i think members of congress are well-meaning, most of them quite devoted individuals. >> most of them? not all? [laughter] >> yes. >> name some names. >> it certainly requires a

unique set of skills and a lot of arrogance or fortitude that a lot of people don't have. >> dr. douglas fields, neuroscientist, thank you so much. for more on the action on capitol hill, i spoke earlier with democratic congressman rush holt of new jersey. i started by asking him about his first impressions of this deal that came out of the senate this morning. >> that it comes at the end of several wasted weeks, there are several ingredients, as i understand -- no one has seen anything in writing yet, none of the democrats have, anyway -- we think the ingredients of this agreement are that there will be an extension of the debt ceiling into february, early february, that there will be a continuing resolution to keep the government operating into january, that there is an agreement that there will be budget discussions undertaken

between now and december. all of this is to say that after shutting down the government, threatening our good record, our good financial record, neither side has gained anything here. we could have passed the debt ceiling weeks ago. we could have kept the government operating all of this time. the democrats has been saying for months that they wanted to go to conference on the budget committee, on the budget resolutions, the difference between the house and the senate. as for health care, which is essentially nowhere in this agreement -- there is a minor point evidently, they want more income verification before people get assistance from the federal government in paying their premiums -- but that is a minor point. certainly nothing worth threatening to shut down the

entire economy over. why? that's what i'm left with. why would people hold the country hostage? why would these arsonists and hostage takers carry on as they did? they have nothing to show for it. the republican caucus is going to come out of this badly damaged because they cannot hold together. the democrats have held together in this. as i said, you don't negotiate on some of these fundamental points about how the government works. >> if i could just jump in here, on something you are touching on -- clearly, it is hard to find someone who wins or loses out of this deal. as you mentioned, there were two weeks of the shutdown, national embarrassment, but at the end of the day, you have prevented republicans from using the debt

limit to exact more cuts to obamacare. democrats are going to line up in support of the spending number that is more in line with for public and demands, more in line with posterity, in this clean senate spending resolution. what should democrats make of that? >> of course, that's the number that was in play because of the sequester. if this crisis had been avoided, if we had dealt with this weeks or months ago, as we could have, we could have turned our attention to increase revenue -- increeaseased revenue. we could have dealt with that. we could have consequences fixed. now we are going to turn attention to it. i think we will fix the sequester. in other words, removes some of these deep -- remove some of

these deep cuts. i think that's going to be the result of these budget negotiations. i do think that if you talk about winning and losing, the democrats come out of this feeling unified. the democrats stuck to their principles, stuck to our principles in this and said, we will negotiate with hostage takers. the republicans come out of this fractured because they've demonstrated, as recently as today, they can't hold together. they couldn't even agree why they were holding the country hostage. was it about the affordable care act? was it about a demand for austerity? was it about something to do with social insurance and medicare? they couldn't say. >> one more question, congressman. >> they come out of it,

politically weakened -- out of it politically weakened, i think. >> is the debt limit and the idea of a shutdown of law and our government. and a lot of other countries, the same funding levels are just kept. the government doesn't shut down. should we consider making fundamental reforms to our budgeting process and debt payments to avoid this mess in the future? >> going all the way back to james madison and the framers of our constitution, they put in checks and balances and divided powers. they made it clear, however, that a self-governing country depends on the goodwill of the people and the governmental mechanism. a self-governing country works only if you believe it does. i certainly hope that there is no fundamental damage to the willingness of people to govern themselves, that there is no fundamental damage to the

american cherished belief that we can govern ourselves. there is no regulations or rules or parliamentary procedure that can guarantee it. certainly, our constitution provides some very good checks and balances against unbridled power and concentrated power. but, as the framers said, that is not an airtight guarantee. let's hope we can get back to a time of goodwill. >> the last few weeks have been trying on those institutions. congressman rush holt from new jersey, thank you so much for joining us. now onto the u.s. detention facility at guantánamo bay where "rt" sent a correspondent to cover the latest out of the prison that has now been indefinitely detaining terror suspects for over a decade. here is her first report. >> after a few months of paperwork to get cleared to

visit the base, from fort lauderdale in florida a short hour and a half light, one largely cap under wraps with no indications of it. the minute we landed, we are greeted by escort to stay with us every step of our trip, the special guantánamo joint task force mediating print one of them, sergeant rebecca wood, far from the stereotypical face you might imagine, as we soon learned, the first of many surprises. >> this is a break in my career. people i work with everyday, they share the same idea. they are all very proud to be here. >> she joined the u.s. military a decade ago with no money for college. at 28, guantanamo's first second appointment. >> you've heard about it in several movies, but you don't really -- it is just a place people forget about. they don't ever think about it.

>> getting to the main part of the base is a slow-paced trip. we have to wait for kerry to take us across the bay and are taken to visit the beach first, one of a handful of scenic locations you wouldn't really expect. >> we are going to the lodging area now. it is about a 20-minute ferry ride to several marine residences. the main part of the naval base and the detention camp are over there. that is for we are headed now. >> given its reputation, guantánamo is not quite what we anticipated. as we approached the main area, it is interesting to note that we -- that this place looks like another tropical island with an american flag. you can't really tell that this is the place housing one of the united states' most most notorious prison prince -- p risons. first impression, this cannot be the place that has been casting a long shadow on america's human rights image for over a decade.

with torture allegations, hunger strikes, and force-feeding, it has been making headlines. >> i thought i would see people in orange jumpsuits and fences everywhere, but the families all stand one side and the rest go to another. >> the other side is where a total of 700 -- 779 detainees of america's war on terror have been cap since 2002. a total of 160 for now remain at a whopping 800,000 taxpayer dollars per detainee per year, even though more than half of them have been cleared for release. >> we are in a remote location. that factors into the cost. it costs what it cost to do it right. >> what doing it right means to those running the facility and what lays beyond the butcher perfect scenery, all the realities of guantánamo and our reports to follow. >> not to talk more about her trip to gitmo, i'm joined by our correspondent from new york. welcome back. >> thank you. >> when you first arrived at

gitmo, you said it seemed indistinguishable from a vacation spot. you talked about the scenic locations that you wouldn't have expected there. yet, when we think about guantánamo, we think about this hardened prison that people are indefinitely spending time at. explain these different locations that you went in and out, who works at each one. >> i think some of the confusion in terms of what guantanamo really is stems from that people don't realize it is not just this major, notorious prison. it is actually a big military base where thousands of military personnel serve and are placed there to run the facilities. there is certainly a huge contrast on this space in this location because you have all these wonderful places for the people that live there, baseball fields, golf fields, a marina, a couple of restaurants, starbucks, mcdonald's, and then

you have this dark place that has gained just so much controversy surrounding it because of so many people having been detained there since september 11, so many of them indefinitely, many of them force-fed. mass hunger strikes. contradicting things. at first glance, you are just shocked by how normal this place really is. another place in america. >> i have a feeling he did not get any golf and while you were down there. [laughter] let's talk more about the people that worked at guantánamo. we heard from sergeant rebecca would end this guantánamo -- and this guantánamo media team. how did they regard the work they are doing their? what is their purpose there when it comes to media liaison? >> lovely, friendly, very nice people. their purpose there, from what we understand, is to make sure reporters don't go anywhere by themselves. i have to say, we really didn't spend any time left to ourselves, except for nighttime

in our hotel room. we were taken everywhere by this media group. at the end of each day, what they did was review all of the video -- this is the media team -- they reviewed every single shot that reporters had on the ground. photos, audio, if there is anything they think is questionable in terms of security, from what they tell us, those shots would be deleted. their purpose is to really make sure what ever the officials don't want to leave guantánamo doesn't leave guantánamo. >> in late september, the pentagon denied a nearly $200 million request to renovate guantanamo bay. did you see any construction? what was the upkeep of the prison? did it need renovations? >> curiously, again, the residential area, everything looks lovely. there certainly construction going on there. we were told that this is because even if and when eventually get will potentially be shut down, the detention

center, the area where people live, the military base will remain. they are working on this, but curiously, the places we were shown inside the detention camp, we were really seeing these nice, put together cells. we unfortunately did not get to see many of the real areas where the detainees were held. we were just not allowed there. >> that is the media liaison team there. this is the first report we are seeing from your trip down there. what should weexpect from future reports? >> we are going to be airing weekly stories from there. this is more of a teasing one. this is how we got there. we will be doing more in-depth stories in terms of the actual conditions in the way detainees are held, questioning officials about force-feeding, questioning them about suicides, a lot of interesting, controversial interviews we were able to bring back. also, the legal aspects, and the whole idea from the realities on the ground whether or not guantanamo is likely to eventually be shut down, and

also another fun story in terms of fun facts nobody would ever expect. hopefully, our viewers will stick around for that. >> on astacio churkin, thank you. breaking news from the national security agency. the nsa past rector general keith alexander will be departing from the surveillance organization within the next few months. reuters reports that alexander will retire by the upcoming march or april while his civilian deputy will leave by the end of the year. alexander's eight years at the nsa have recently been overshadowed by the revelations from edward snowden which showed that the organization has been collecting data and conducting wide-ranging surveillance on u.s. citizens. speaking of that, this week, we learned of another bulk data collection program being run out of the nsa. based on documents provided by edward snowden, the nsa is collecting and storing millions of personal e-mail address books and instant messaging buddy lists, including those belonging to americans.

basically, the way it works is someone logs into their yahoo! or gmail or facebook account, and the company's servers, which are often located overseas, transfer the lists to them across the internet. it is in this transit that data links housed overseas that the nsa scoops out that information. since this collection is happening overseas and since it doesn't exclusively target americans, the nsa doesn't need to legally justify this collection to anyone outside the nsa or the executive branch. as far as collection numbers go, they are enormous. in just a single day in 2012, the nsa clocked at more than 444,000 e-mail address books from yahoo! another 105,000 from hotmail. more than 82,000 from facebook. nearly 34,000 from gmail, plus more than 22,000 other address books from other providers. on a typical day, that works out to roughly 250 million address books collected every year by

the nsa. the e-mail and chat company cited in these documents deny any involvement in handing over the customer's contact lists. two senior u.s. intelligence officials told the "washington post" that address books are swept into the databases as well. perhaps even millions of them. unlike another bulk program run out of the nsa, the telephoning metadata program which scoops of data belonging to american citizens, this program that captures address books and buddy lists gives the nsa a lot more information to work with as they create social maps and look for connections to foreign targets. telephone metadata reveals only phone numbers and time and length of calls. address books usually include e- mails, addresses, business information, and other personal information. internal documents at the nsa also acknowledge the problem of over collection, noting that nsa databases have been overwhelmed by the mass collection of

contact lists loaded with spam. indefensible programs like this, the nsa chief keith alexander has said they are critical counterterrorism tools and ultimately "you need the haystack to find the needle." moving on, those snap chats -- snapchats you're sending maybe be getting viewed, just not by the person you want. snapchat allows users to -- to send photos and videos that automatically self-destruct in a matter of seconds. actually, this multimedia message sticks around a bit longer. it may be available to law enforcement. in a message posted on its website this week, snapchat admitted that it can leave -- it can access media not opened. if they receive a search warrant from law enforcement, and the contents are still on the servers, a federal law called the electronic communication

privacy act obliges us to produce snaps to the law enforcement agency. snapchat says it has received about a dozen search warrants requiring them to run on opened -- to turn over on opened -- un opened messages. onlytwo people within snapchat have access to retrieve these messages. that does it for now. for more on the stories we covered, go to youtube.com/ rtamerica. you can follow me on twitter @samsacks. we will see you back here at 8:00 p.m.

hello and welcome to nhk "newsline." it's thursday, october 17th. i'm catherine kobayashi. in tokyo. i'm ross mihara in tokyo. emergency teams are looking for dozens of missing residents on izu oshima after a powerful storm triggered flooding and landslides. typhoon wipha killed at least 18 people in eastern japan as it churned past the pacific coast. almost all of the victims lived