once again flared up. these are the images and seeing from the streets of canada. operations are today. cameras a good point of view is that in particular where you know women or to you know engage in some other sort of intrusive activity americans have run but they cannot hide at least not from big brother will take you to vivos watch city in the united states. and it's not just individual cities big brother keefe it's eye on the obama administration continues to pull for the patriot act where then just freedom ends and government again. and two different cities two different airlines one big problem muslim leaders for

a bit in to fly so should more people be outraged over this and byron play. meaning it's wednesday may eleventh eight pm here in washington d.c. i'm lauren lyster and you're watching r.t. now in our top story tonight is the u.s. channeling one thousand nine hundred four was in the literal year but as in george orwell's just hoping envision a society in that novel where people were constantly being watched by big brother first let's head to chicago it's a city many americans associate with barack obama's hometown and of course those tears a victory three years ago but these days the city is also becoming known as the absolute record holder of surveillance cameras in the united states artie's anastasio travels under the lens to discover what this watch means for the future of privacy in america. welcome to chicago the most watched city in the u.s.

for. cameras to cameras would speed up your technical capabilities watchful lenses to the streets in what has been dubbed operation virtual shield thousands of public and privately on. security cameras have been put in place and linked together creating a capsule of surveillance over the entire city more extensive than anywhere else in the united states the number is estimated at up to ten thousand the networks cost around sixty million dollars officials say it's worth the price of privacy concerns are at a peak for twelve hundred security cameras located throughout the city are said to be powerful enough to be able to zoom in to a text or even a text message this is the year of age a thirty seven page report from a renowned civil rights group the a.c.l.u. calls the network for research and unregulated things like cameras have shown up on the internet you know the cameras have been pointed and used in

a particular way you know to women or to you know engage in some other sort of intrusive activity ok to many today's watch over chicago is reminiscent of a very dark chapter in its history and the red squad special police units spied on citizens and rescue. hundreds of thousands are going to rituals and kinds of exemptions directly with the first amendment to the united states constitution from the one nine hundred twenty s. to the one nine hundred seventy s. communists civil rights groups anti-war movements and many more are tracked g. schaffner socialist well victims of the units back in the sixty's. not much has changed says j. just the chicken excused are different in the one nine hundred sixty. undercover f.b.i. agents red square. agent provocateurs who are. just

spying participants. political movements. use of technology you can. do the same thing with our direct. undercover police i believe the whole framework is wrong to journalists like he'll the concept of privacy in the us is long gone you become inured to this sort of surveillance added to the bad law enforcement has taken so means that chicago increasingly resembles the chilling and tell you to be i described in george orwell's legendary novel one nine hundred eighty four. where every word action and even thought was monetary might be rather it's. the only thing that's missing. while the stretch of surveillance grows so did a few years ago mary if. they don't like it when you fully appreciate the scale of

what is being put in place in chicago and then imagine a. more repressive city government and more oppressive regime it could be incredibly interesting. christian was an artist arrested for selling one dollar prince on the streets he filmed his arrest and as a result class won for only one step parole attempted murder and their fifteen years that's up to fifteen years in the state prison this is totally crazy as officials power to report people's movements expands the power of the people to do the same is being squashed when they least things up and are able to follow people all around the city and at the same calendar calling us that we can even gather the information we need to go to court well that represents a thorough and complete police state another worry it's how brutal and questioning surveillance methods post nine eleven. orientation.

and a terrorist concerns trump any other value so there's not even a discussion leaving many wondering if the means designed to fight external terrorists could end up terror. people are home but the notion that you are comprised city by police presence is flawed is that is globally with the military present not the problem and it doesn't address the problem as me can stay for caught in the camera's eye americans are beginning to question its real focus and wonder how shutter their privacy is as you turn on our teacher carter illinois. now it's not just cameras the provisions of the patriot act for a year old this month the patriot act provisions allow for roving wiretaps and the ability to monitor suspects even if they're not associated with any recognized terrorist group now that is not to mention department of justice reporting that the

patriot act had been it used by the f.b.i. routinely to request information on people without following any legal orders at all earlier i asked john glitter he's a researcher for antiwar dot com and a writer at the american conservative how would all of these issues the patriot act has continued to be renewed pretty much without making a blip on the radar in the past here's what he had to say once the government grabs a new power they are very good at holding on to it now. justice department rational investigations have shown that provisions of the patriot act have allowed literally thousands of abuses and missteps and inappropriate spying on innocent americans and this is consistent throughout history back in two thousand and five actually. it was shown that m.s.l. rules which are national security letters basically administrative subpoenas. were

used to obtain one over one million personal documents of people or from medical histories to you know cell phone records and the like. and the justice department found that the investigation. those things weren't even to do with terrorism most of the time so you know it's unclear what benefit this the these provisions even have all that all that's clear is that they make americans less free and give more power to the government why do you think president obama when he was senator obama spoke out against the patriot act said that it needed to be ended but that now we see the obama administration officials continuing to say that expanding these provisions are vital to national security wouldn't that possibly make the case to play devil's advocate that obama god office in real life that this has been instrumental in the war on terror i mean it's possible but it's more likely that you know he's a smart guy and he played politics in order to get elected there are many ways to

reduce the threat of terror right if we want to reduce the threat of terror and that's where you start is to stop participating in it so stop funding rebels without the ties of libya for example stop bombing weddings and funeral in northwest pakistan with drone attacks stop propping up military dictatorships across the middle east who carry out all kinds of state terror on their own population i believe that i would work well. i mean just look at what terrorists say right what are they upset about they're upset about three primary things one the u.s. support of apostate governments in the middle east to the military presence in their lands and three support of israel over the palestinians who was their primary concerns and they always have been since before two thousand and one september eleventh so look these are first steps they're all viable and they happen to be all constitutional and like the patriot act you don't have to make americans less free

to make them more safe do you think that possibly this is an easier topic for the administration to go after than some of those much larger foreign policy issues that you just mentioned yeah certainly if they had sort of. the gall to actually do something sensible and try to protect americans i fear do that but in order to you know make all those policy changes in terms of foreign policy they have to significantly reduce their power to control their influence and government simply aren't known for doing that i was young laser researcher for antiwar dot com and a writer for the american conservative now from surveillance cameras on every street corner and the patriot act provisions both of which we've talked about two other issues the department of justice for instance calling for laws requiring mobile phone providers to collect and store information about their customers as just one other example a possibility that privacy is going out the window in the united states or maybe

it's already gone is the country moving toward more towards a permanent police state these are some of the questions earlier i discussed with jason burma's a documentary filmmaker and seen motley president of less government we debated the issues take a look at how that went for that show you know it's one of those things where you can't prove a negative you know i'm not for. un to include with re re upping of the patriot act i'm certainly for looking at it i certainly want to exclusive you apply to terrorists and all this stuff about domestic surveillance and all that is highly ridiculous and i highly dubious unless and course the domestic surveillance is tied into somebody's overseas or someone who the f.b.i. does say have gone and said hey we need to solve this person again within the parameters of the patriot act if you don't got a legitimate reason via consistent information going to vote for bob going from a foreign perform person who's not a citizen to someone who's internal who is a citizen and who is a terror suspect again perhaps somewhat less on again for tinkering with it for

adjusting it but what if there's if it's if it's a non-citizen a non-citizen that you don't need a warrant because it's not unconstitutional because of a lot of non-citizens that it's really been showing up and a patriot act has gone far beyond it parameters and beneath you and what do you do about that was there the first thing you do is punish the people who've gone beyond those parameters i mean there's all kinds of laws which are broken the question is what do you do you know gratian laws are in seriously violated we don't enforce the law or the laws are broken the enforcement of the laws is broken likewise again with the patriot act if you're but if you're brits are breaking the law you have to deal with those people as law breakers but let's let's bring dayton into this i think we may have engaged and i have you yes oh great ok so do you agree with which is the problem not the patriot act the problem is just tinkering with it so that it's not meant. absolutely not a large force in the constitution and bill of rights were completely of this aerated out in the open with the patriot act section eight zero two says that we

can charge with pre-crime in preterit without defining it in any way shape or form it's broadly defined and with the apparatus of homeland security coming out after nine eleven with our cell phone tracking tracing and database seeing each one of us whether it's an i phone and android or a microsoft or. civil liberties have gone by the wayside in this country and we need to take them back and prosecute large corporations that abuse their power let's have the generations a little bit days and i want to know you know we thought microsoft by skype for eight point five billion dollars something that some are skeptical as to the valuation of skype and why microsoft would want to pay so much money for it when there really isn't a clear way that that can be monetized to that extent do you find any think that this is and that's why it's. still a large extent especially with the launch of their connector earlier this year putting a spy device in everybody's phone that is literally hooked up to the internet twenty four seven three sixty five in less you pull out the ether in

a cable or unplug it and if you read the article at m s n b c connect controls the future a game controller and everything the makers of it brag that they get daily phone calls from large corporation and members in the military industrial complex both the military and the government and how they can use this information and they want to basically bring this into a holiday experience and it's the first video game system to give person to person video conferencing and the quality we're now seeing over broadband so it makes sense for them to via skype because they have a built in audience they won't have a problem on it but you think that there's something this is suspicious about it but this essentially i mean you're accusing microsoft of buying or do you think with extend that are openly buying they openly say that they want to be able to read somebody's future and if they're a giants fan then advertised them through their x. box live giants year this is beyond just categorizing people as terrorists they want to know how to make

a buck off you as well so this again is the track trees that the system where they're trying to predetermine your activities your life so you can be a better consumer and a better slate in this police state on for all of consort with corporations giving me what i want the advertising and i and the government getting what they want from the telecom. occasion companies the constitution is written to protect us from the government not from microsoft and not from a.t.m. to but here's what i don't get that line of been so blurred read the document where the government has been able to get this information without really wanting it brought obama's entire online campaign in two thousand and eight was google with the facebook case or so there's those crony capitalism in this administration to be sure and that's highly problematic what we need is to is the government not being so big that it holds so much sway over the private sector that none of this would have this problem not exist way that the government would so much savor the private sector but it goes the other way who do you think is at the tail wag the dog or you

know who's wagging the dog here the government of the of the day they don't like to go corporations doing they're going to slam with regulations barack obama has done it again and again and again when you just really quickly i want to ask you guys and just real quick we see china the united states wants to break down and invest millions in breaking down the internet either walls why does the united states feel that not only it can possibly. civil liberties in the united states and even break the laws of other countries this is a problem i think you'd basically what they're trying to do is regulate speech on the internet what you can and can't see in that something is unpopular and it may harm their personnel in a they're going to pull it off we've seen other large nations do this they have the kill switch they've run drills in previous months of trying to kill the internet within their military system and i do think this is the problem we have to have an open and free internet and we have to protect the speech that is most unpopular i've said some pretty unpopular things out there that have turned out to be true i may not agree with what this man is saying but i defend his right to say it and if

the government has their way they're going to get to decide who gets to say we're going to come so you're against gun control the well i'm against internet too and i'm against the government being able to have a kill switch on the internet absolutely i'm against them trying to regulate what google sir. which is coma trying to jam information wars we're trying to get the info out for the people that it doesn't matter if it's iraq obama's administration or george bush's administration or the next administration they are run by the corporatists by the local assizes elitist look at baseball who just infused hundreds of millions of dollars into them well it's pretty simple it was goldman sachs look who's on the obama administration people like geitner and bernanke you who they work for goldman sachs these are the true power brokers of this world and enough of the don't ask you want to win a situation the chinese he's kind of think i'm completely different this is not about the united states wanting to to kind of infringe on china's laws to allow

freedom of it's about the united states getting to have control over the internet that do you agree with that i would that's why i'm totally against it and trial it when the f.c.c. under in december power grab the internet without authority from congress three unregulated and elected bureaucrats democrats elected themselves internet overlords i'm totally against that i'm totally against the kill switches he is the i don't want the government all the internet has become a free speech free market than are doing america precisely because there has been zero government involvement none so when the f.c.c. comes along and says we're going to just cause me to try to we don't have authority from congress the chairman the f.c.c. julius genachowski admits i don't have authority to let the washington post but he does it anyway they've already been thrown out in court once they're going to try to do it they've done it again are going to get sued again the kill switch is a terrible idea i don't want the government involved as you point out egypt saudi arabia china iran government time after time it's not corporations that are

preventing people from speaking it's governments that are keeping people from speaking why does the united states feel like it can go into china though and that's actually break chinese law and create technologies that would directly contradict those companies or do in china sovereignty i would i would certainly if those companies are doing that i would certainly. punish them in the way that we should punish the united government investing millions of dollars in this technology this is the broccoli bomb administration please for the life for the life of me don't ask me to defend what brought obama's administration defending the patriot act you put in for that while he's he's partially right on even a broken clock is right twice a day right well today but i'm going to give you the final word what do you think the united states needs to do as far as getting us under control to raise to take another look at the liberties and all of the laws we're breaking of other countries . we need to get rid of the patriot act in full take away or been home land security we need to slee revamp our intelligence apparatus to actually work for the

people and not just declare national security whenever they do something unpopular that is jason from a documentary filmmaker and molly president of less government and the discussion now there were two separate flights from two different cities on two different airlines but removed were two separate sets of two muslim religious leaders each headed to a conference on of all things islamophobia so is this grouping evidence of its prevalence in america here to tell us about the experience as a mom all amenability a brooklyn mom who was not allowed on as american airlines flight to charlotte president of the islamic leadership council of new york along with his attorney is leave it be so sorry about that tough to get that right gentlemen thank you so much for joining me ok so two separate instances you were involved in one of the you were not allowed on your flight despite going through t.s.a.

security despite going through all of these measures the airline kind of has this your reaction about security that that was the issue what do you think this is really about. i think it's more a game profiling. muslims and and discrimination that's what it's about the way we dressed muslim that was obvious and the targeting of my son and typically myself because you know my dress was obvious and so to me is the that's connected with the overall growing climate you know and the country. of the anti muslim to and. sentiments seem to be growing and especially you know after the. killing of bin laden recently in the government spoke about the heightening of the security and so here we are going to conference or discuss the. profiling

a muslim the islam a phobia and discrimination you know and then we become the victims of what we're going to discuss it was a horrible situation really it was devastating it was humiliating and it was just it's unthinkable that one would go to this in america you know. and so that's what we felt and experienced it was just again with this horrible really and why do you think there's been a bigger deal maybe that's why hasn't this been all over the mainstream media all day i mean these were two separate instances it wasn't just a one off thing i mean what i want to know what your lawyer thinks and why because you're representing both cases why hasn't there been more attention paid to this you think. that's correct lauren lauren you know before i answer that this is a civil rights discrimination issue. plain and simple and both american airlines and atlantic southeast airlines until this day have now offered any explanation as to why the new moms were removed from the flight they were just kicked off based on

their appearance that all of that were left with in fact when the pilots were pressed for a reason they offered none. and so under federal law lauren it's an order to clarify something the pilots have a lot of discretion authority but that's regarding safety and security issues and critics might argue and say that just because you pass their t.s.a. and you're cleared that does not usurp the authority of the pilot well to that we say yes but the pilots have to base it all on based on security and safety and we've got to clear cases of that just from this week as well we had a plane that was going to st louis and there was going to unruly passenger who went to open the door of the plane you bet you we want the pilot to reroute the plane and to exercise that discretion and remove a kick off that passenger from the flight and then similarly with the other flight that was going to stand the pilot rightly read out of the plane because there was

a note with the word bomb written now and now we've got to distinguish it here in this case it was absolutely no reason to take off the emotions from the flight in both cases none of the passengers expressed any concern on the flight attendants it was an arbitrary just decision based upon their appearance it's discrimination based upon race religion ethnicity all i want to know if you feel like you know you mentioned osama bin ladin got you mentioned that you feel that islamophobia is growing i want to know do you think that this is a fine you know the nation being at war with islam you know the u.s. president says it's not but our american speaking people definitely and if if deep seated. this is the sea and it's growing and we have to stand up against it and. people in positions of authority you know a political issue religious official you know did not do enough to speak out

against it in fact many of them are jumping on the bandwagon of this hate the against islam and muslims and if an inflamed with this bigotry and hatred and again we have to stand up against this this is not a right this is america you know freedom of religion you know and so again it's one of those it's just a time we're living in it is the time that we're living and i hear you on that however i want to know a lot of those things are the issues that americans hold dear as far as civil liberties and that sort of thing so you know i'm curious in light of that you know what do you think this is really you know where is this heading because those are things that people value but at the same time this is going on and it's not just you know people what the mainstream media may portray you know people in tennessee that want to pass an anti sharia law it's it's pilots in new york on american airlines. absolutely you know a lot of this is done by. most of american people or balanced dog decent people but

again you have a few hate mongers who who can can can rouse it you know evoke emotions you know not what people do they play on people's emotions they play on people's ignorance about islam and muslims you see and also this was created a climate of fear you see and what you know people who feel the muslim bill you know we're peaceful people you know we're citizens and we contribute to every facet of life in this country and the world for that matter from business or law enforcement to the political arena you know we're there we're part of the landscape of america and so while you're discriminating against me we are we making our contribution and you know we are laws law abiding citizen who was discrimination why are we being singled out and treated you know like we have no worth and value while we have to excel for this oppression and this merely ation you know after going to the airports even you know and going through security and getting a pass and the the until you clear you know several times and then also you get on your way to get on a plane and you can get on or you're on

a plane and you take in bulk of the plane you know. there's something wrong with that there is something wrong with i wonder why you think that is you know it does seem like it's a rational fear despite the security checks despite all of that this is still occurring race ethnic ethnic religious bigotry against islam and muslims that's how we read it and if it isn't that widespread i mean you're saying these are one off cases but these are several cases in different cities of airline pilots with really no apparent reason airlines have no reason so would you say that it's more widespread reaching very far across the country. again this is just you know and this crop of muslim that's connected to the idea of again you know going to religious bigotry against islam and muslim that's how we see it i want to hear it's about this is a clear a civil rights issue this is. a racial issue ethnic and religious issue and it has to stop i want to ask your attorney i have you guys been asked to

do good morning america the today show make the rounds on all the mainstream media channels. we have be contacted by several of them we are working out some of those details we we've been on c.n.n. a few times you know it we also want to know some of the update bill and i wanted to feel like people have really paid attention to the deep issues that are raised here are they just give it a superficial glance you know lauren. there's always an opportunity for more and we're going to continue to press more coverage and the airlines are going to notice that the pilots are going to notice that they're going to understand that they don't have absolute authority and discretion there's always limits on that they can abuse it we also want to know that. she would be moms that went back and then we're actually greeted by several kylix on the way back and told we apologize on behalf of the country and we wish we were the ones who were flying you could you

would have been welcome and also with the mom i would mean son he was greeted by several the passengers who were also detained that night because the flight was ultimately canceled and they were told and this is un-american and it should have happened really quickly i want to ask you you know take the moms were removed from a u.s. airways flight i was back and u.s. airways settled for that and undisclosed the amount i thought was but their lines had to pay are these airlines they're going to have to pay i have to call for that's right. absolutely unquestionably lawyer and they are going to have to pay and that's the only way that people learn on fortunately and these airlines are going to be no different we're certainly going to be seeking compensation disciplinary action and proper training about authority and proper training about this diversity in islam i well i want to thank both of you gentlemen so much for coming and sharing your story and also mom and all of the legal aspects of that in this case it seems to be think up.