air. now is probably one of the last issues that you would ever think would be up for public debate some private circumcision back in one thousand nine hundred six a law came into effect that criminalize the cutting of the female genitals under the age of eighteen but now some want that law to expand to boys as well and yes talk of force again has actually divided a city but it's actually united jewish and muslims who are working to fight limits that they say would violate freedom of religion it's complicated it's personal kind of down and dirty. to san francisco to see how this issue has landed for skin in the national spotlight. it's one of the most colorful cities in america as full of flavor as it is people with homes stacked on top of one another like building blocks san francisco california has always been a place where the hills are steep and so too are the issues. this

time around the battle is over circumcisions to be or not to be forced circumcision is fundamentally a human rights violation i feel that. children whether boy or girl have fundamental rights to all the body parts that they were born with jonathan conti is part of a group that collected more than seven thousand signatures in favor of banning what they call male genital mutilation within the city limits enough to put the issue on the november ballot if passed the circumcision of anyone under eighteen would be a crime resulting in jail time and a one thousand dollars fine this outraged religious groups who see it as a direct attack on their religious rights jews like abby porth have joined forces with muslims to defend age old traditions this is a hate fueled campaign to curtail civil liberties in calif and in san francisco she and many argue it's a parent's choice. the majority of american men are circumcised and according to

the world health organization circumcised men have a lower risk of penile cancer sexually transmitted diseases and this sixty percent less chance of contracting hiv but at the center of this debate religion people want to have their kids circumcised they should i mean major religions believe in it for over two or three thousand years so i think it's a little bit of a slap to jews and muslims to just say circumcision is now illegal your freedom to practice religion and someone else's body religion is not a blank check to inflict harm upon your children and the vast majority of the world central america south america new zealand australia and most of europe the practice is virtually unheard of some have taken it a step further matthew hass the author of the bill is also the creator of the comic for skin man a superhero that saves babies from the evil doctors and parents trying to

circumcise them this comic book has some of the most disgusting vial anti-semitic images that appear to be lifted out of nazi era propaganda the idea that you know for skin man is an area and looking superhero who's going to come in save babies from the the evil jewish you know blood thirsty rabbi is disgusting the debate over circumcision has polarized this city with people taking sides on both religious and personal grounds well it will all come to a head here at san francisco's civil court where a judge will decide whether or not the issue will be left up to voters some of whom say they'll vote to leave things as they are if you make a law about it that's going to like offend a lot of people a there's a lot of history there let them make their own decisions and i trust them to make the right decision for their children too and others who say they may be children at the time of the procedure but it's a decision they have to live with when they grow up this. baby is

a life of mostly human mental life from a and it's not baby decision vote or no vote the battle lines over circumcision have now expanded far beyond the borders of san francisco becoming a national debate bringing what was once a purely private issue into the public domain reporting in san francisco christine freeze out party. it's an interesting topic and speaking of laws there is one now on the books federally that allows for widespread government spying on americans communications back in two thousand and eight congress passed it protected then president bush's warrantless surveillance program under the law when it was passed and while now it seems everyone in washington is focused on the debt ceiling wire and spencer ackerman is reporting on danger room that they might be pulling one over on us they he says a group of senators may be meeting in secret today to consider renewing that law it's called the amendments act it technically allows spy agencies to monitor

communications related to a foreign power or its agents where the person is believed to be outside of the u.s. but if the other person is inside the u.s. his or her phone and internet records are fair game but the bigger problem is this since the law does not force spy agencies to give details about who it wants watched critics say it is a pathway to blanket surveillance joining me now from our new york studio is shot head butare he's executive director of the bill of rights defense committee to tell us how scary this is how scared we should be thank you for being with us. thanks for having me yeah so i want to back up and talk just briefly about this law because there valence experts say that the public has really never gotten an explanation from congress or from the justice department about what the law off the rise is in terms of massive surveillance of americans communications but what circumstantial evidence has come out that's been the most compelling that has worried civil liberties groups the most. there are lots of reasons to be concerned

here and i look as much to patriot in the usa patriot act as i would to the foreign intelligence surveillance both of them and you'll recall of it and i took over the last ten years patriot ten years ago if i was only three years ago but in each of these cases we see the executive branch. repeatedly extend authority this sort of ram them down the throats of the legislature and at least in the patriot contacts abuse even those expanded authorities and we could look to national security letters here for perfect example of the government reaching even beyond the extraordinary powers that it secured ten years ago neither patriot nor pfizer have ever been subject to a full and transparent debate the fai's amendments act of two thousand and eight is so aggressive with respect to the bill of rights that every federal court ever to have reviewed the program on its merits has struck it down as unconstitutional those rulings however of never stood on appeal and so we're left with this act that

was essentially passed in secret to authorize secret executive. surveillance of law abiding americans enmasse and i think there's plenty of reasons to be concerned especially given the congress seems to be asleep at the switch i think at a switch and yet talking about it under the radar right now during a very highly publicized debate over the dead do you think they're doing that on purpose so that this does not get attention. i wouldn't be surprised i mean there's certainly been other instances in which congress has affirmatively ovoid publicity for its domestic national security acts that impinge on civil liberties one just happened this very week. house voted as the senate did last week to entrench the f.b.i.'s leadership for the first time since j. edgar hoover and director mueller was confirmed by the senate i believe just yesterday and this intrenchments of the bureau's abuses in the face of documented abuses we know that there have been violations of civil liberties and civil rights

we know that those abuses have expanded in recent years and yet still when confronted with an opportunity to force accountability on the executive branch in a congress throws up its hands and in this case it threw up its hands very quietly while whole you know there's this huge partisan fight on the debt ceiling it does seem it does seem to be the case. the congress can very very easily transcend partisan divisions at every opportunity to sell out the rights of the american people to the nation's intelligence services and it's a very very provocative point that you make and i want to get to that but i want to back up to something you said earlier when you said that these laws went beyond what congress intended and one of the things that is been brought to light about this amendment defies acts that some people believe which some senators have now raised a fuss about it saying that this was not that there's a secret part of it that was never intended based on what they you know voted for and julian sanchez from cato these wrote a lot wrote written a lot about this he argues that the circumstantial evidence suggests that this law

allows for location tracking of cell phones and he cited a confirmation hearing this week of an intelligence officer it may be what you're talking about where one of the senators who has raised a fuss over this repeatedly asked if the intelligence community uses call site data to track the locations of americans inside the country do you think that this is what's going on and this is what this law allows for. it very well might be the case of this is the problem with executive secrecy no one knows and even congress senator wyden whose comments you reference he has this is not the first time he has attempted to gain more information for the public about programs that are essentially secret he had a similar concern when the patriot act was being reauthorized the spring years ago even before the obama administration took office senator wyden who's been on the intelligence committee for some time in the senate said that if americans knew what was happening every day there would be widespread outrage but because so much of

this information is hidden from the public. there's insufficient outrage i think there is absolutely a coordinated attempt to hide the ball from the american public i could think of many other examples where government policy is not really insufficiently transparent and you name some of them but really quickly i want to ask is there anything yes or no that makes these spy agencies bomb. holden to be more transparent with the public or congress. yeah absolutely not and in fact it's not only the case that there's nothing forcing transparency but calling for seems affirmatively and cloying to actively result in what few opportunities it does to force transparency when there are opportunities to for instance challenge the f.b.i. leadership of the n.s.a. leadership or the d.n.i. the director of national intelligence about the way that these laws are being interpreted and used you very rarely say any critical questions come out of congress and even when you do see thoughtful questions when it comes time to vote you know there is no concerns in november and when so i want and i want to thank

you for giving us that insight maybe the law they should be debating as one to limit agencies from going to ramp up or forcing them to talk about it thanks for being on the show. thanks for having me as the to come here they often release crazy ads about being a vegetarian and that their latest p.r. move earns them to night school time in florida and then stick around for happy hour the debt ceiling debate has apparently caused washington to practice politicians comparing each other to movie characters and the white house even rick proles a twitter follower will be right back. you

want to talk. street still seek. to repeal the soviet files. all right it's time for tonight's tool time award and we are giving it to peta people for the ethical treatment of animals for an ethical campaign ad the organization has a long history of some over the top campaigns we have highlighted some of them here on this show some of the t.v. commercial that was back from the super bowl earlier this year if not here it.

uhm and the n.p.t. i didn't have to run that had all the publicity and media coverage i got was a plenty and it was free now if you search online you can find plenty of other celebrities who have stripped down for peta here's a quick sample of some of those. sexy well now the organization is taking heat yet again but this time it is not for racy ads it's bird display that some are finding quite offensive now peta has a new exhibit on the national mall here in washington the title is glass walls the name comes from the line paul mccartney once said he said if slaughterhouses had

glass walls everyone would be vegetarian ok fine mccartney also narrated a documentary about the meat industry called glass walls fair enough here's the weird part the exhibit compares the impression of animals to the oppression of human beings like oh as in slavery the exhibit also reportedly shows images of child laborers lynched black people and cambodian genocide victims to make a point about animals and slaughterhouses now peta spokes person was asked about this and was quoted in ross' story as saying what this says is let's stop thinking about whether one victim is more important than another whether one act of gratuitous violence is more they're all horrible we condemn them all ok come on are these people in la la land i mean i like animals i worry about slaughterhouses and there are plenty of normal and sane arguments to make the case to people about what is wrong with slaughterhouses but i think most rational people

would make a pretty logical distinction between killing animals that a lot of people eat for food and genocidal and racist atrocities committed against human beings. i don't know we think peta should stick to racy ads with women getting naked if this is the alternative so for their new offensive and out of touch with reality display on the national mall we are giving tonight's tool time award to peta. all right it's time for happy hour joining me tonight is our t.v. producer jenny churchill and mike regs he's associate editor a reason magazine and reason dot com thanks for being here guys. we have some good stuff today the debt debate i think it's getting a little bit. not tense on capitol hill as much as people are getting

a little loopy yesterday we told you how house g.o.p. members watched a clip from ben affleck's movie the town for inspiration but now all the holywood comparisons on the hill are continuing today senator mccain cited one of the most well known movies of all time when he was talking about the debt. then democrats would have no choice but to pass a balanced budget amendment and reform entitlements and the tea party hobbits could return to middle earth having defeated morgul or ok tea party of it and then rand paul actually responded to make cain's comments he said i rather be a hobbit then a troll and then it continued sharron angle's got involved saying the board of the tarp is sucking up for obama the lord of the rings when i think about this troll's heart i honestly don't even know what to say about this it's so bizarre and also i think that calling someone a hobbit as a dig is

a little weird you know the hobbits were kind of the heroes of the lord of the rings series and they're loyal and true you know they're really caring so i don't really understand he's obviously going off the stereotype that hobbits are an unappealing and i think it's interesting to say that people in middle america have big feet i'm just. writing i like conjuring the image of like mental midgets or something which is fascinating because he stumped for sharron angle so i don't know where he gets off complaining about her but you know the all the movie in madrid i think shows like the desperation like they're getting down to the line the caucus the republican caucus is not behaving like people like john mccain and john boehner want to be some of the resorting to the sort of movie imagery to inspire people keep their attention yeah yeah you know that is i am bored. and you know they've realized that everybody's just like oh this is all politics and ridiculous so they're like oh god we have to make people care they like you know the lord of the rings series let's do that well on that note in our offices actually sparked

a very intellectual conversation about what is the difference between a troll and a hobbit. yet every member station everybody in the newsroom was filling me in on the differences i don't know much about john mccain he's going to be really good about this he's got america thinking about the lord of the rings again success ok success speaking of being loopy speaking. getting a little crazy and bored with this debt debate i think the white house is in on it too so obama has been listening to americans opinions on the debt and. they've been tweeting about it and so the white house in response to a person who was complaining via twitter about how boring this all is they are all fun with it they tweeted back sorry to hear that fiscal policy are starting here that you know that your board fiscal policy is important but it can be dry sometimes so here's something more fun and they post a link to this video. the

white house rick rolled a twitter follower. you know you know imagine if you were the person that was like i got red colegrove by the white house i know that should be should be like recorded for posterity somewhere but i would be on g.m.a. tomorrow yeah exactly how did you. go right. i like torn between being sort of offended a and those like really important moment that they're making jokes about that's a great song and on the other hand realizing like oh my god maybe this is what we need like maybe some ice and i feel like people are like on the verge of panic i went to visit some family in indiana and like they were really concerned like what's going to happen i was like well just because i watched actually probably know less than you but i'm like it's going to be far and it's ok and the white house is rickrolling people so that's how you know everything is as it should maybe it's really good p.r. i'm with you though i think it's really offensive i think that says i think the white house is a serious organization we need dignity and authority especially in these times where they i think they need to say that i'm doing my no no no i don't not think

they should be rolling twelve ball i guess at the white house no i think that people need to be able to identify with the white house and feel like they can you know kind of relate and on would you rather have a present you can relate to or when you feel i can lead the country i don't have a president i feel like is a real person there are there are pailin is a real person to many people do you think she's qualified run. country she'd also never recall anybody but she hates that i was going in yeah there's a volunteer going over some really poor recall if you're going to recall someone is supposed to be like deceptive like why are you talking about did you miss this part of the debate ok even the white house credibility by seeming out of touch and slightly behind the trend are rickrolling all right let's move on but let's stick with politics so karl rove's organization called crossroads g.p.s. has just launched a campaign against you're probably not surprised president obama here's what some of the group's most recent ad actually look like obama's eight hundred thirty billion dollar stimulus already was not it's. already spent

fourteen million dollars america drowning in debt it's time to take away obama's blank check. ok so karl rove conservative crossroads organization his campaign ads you know i got up in a pretty unlikely place it ended up on grindr which if our audience doesn't know what that is it is an app that zine to connect gay and bisexual men by showing where the closest men are to them that are gay and bisexual on that site too so this is the campaign as it's playing under their grindr up i believe that karl rove groups the response was that you know based on your browsing history this ad could show up anywhere it's done through another network i do sort of like do that with any of them come on you know it's great to their way of thinking and those are always going up yes shows up on an app that is g.p.s. based i love that and also love the idea because the tips are told to hold this right and that's like a very insider e. paper for washington i love the idea that some conservative inside washington guy who obviously browses

a lot of concern i was younger i was you know matthew i would like you know some say i'm sorry how do you know public in going to a bathroom and i mean it's very dirty to stand along the lines of conservatives and the community there is a catholic who kind of sounds like the. michael jackson of the catholic world he likes to he's he's described as crazy as homosexuals super culture he likes attractive young men to sit on his lap and then he treats them to trips in the florida keys only problem is that he is archbishop emeritus of miami. what else can he runs oh south florida well actually he doesn't anymore i guess you know here i go here the year got last year yeah but the last year i know my guy knew you were super pumped to talk about you know what i mean the thing that illustrates so the story goes on to talk about the all the culture and the catholic church in south florida this is like permeates right and i am not against god i love gay people is a great letter mary whatever what's fascinating is that the catholic church like

this is still one of their big core things when they're telling people not to do it don't use condoms and be gay and there you have it everything where it happens in florida we're going to have to leave it at that this has now turned to let it got rid of all the gay people that's what they say that's a test that can say anything after that because that's it for tonight show thanks for tuning in make sure to come back tomorrow alex i swallowed from think progress will be joining us for happy hour and coming up next is adam versus the man. the. last time the close of team was in the cool gum region where men flock from all over the world to out a few centimeters to their self-confidence. this time are two goes to the on the region. for the gold rush still gets people hiked oak brook. for an ancient tribal fights to save its culture. where cranes are protected in the first of the only unofficial nature reserve. locals to be on the ridge of. russia close

up on r.t. . twenty years ago the largest country in the world to certain places of the. us have been trying. to teach began a journey. where did it take to. me is eve eve eve seafood. good to. see. if you're followed up on my doubt you'll get a little this. sort of

a trial back in the hard part of our law. and it goes back to a time when people would light out of their forces in the wild lands and pick up the speech and it's important to mention the sheriff for prosecution there's no money like company made all the people told me when they go out there pick up weapons. and you have to hope that nothing back. we're chasing killers and you gotta keep that in mind how does a two million dollar deal be. superhero. and i'm going to die. never go back to. india in the movie join. the. way go to

the grand imperial true and told us to push coromandel you can. see don't need to go and. read this and the colonel was hotel retreat. america's biggest creditor china lashes out at washington for putting the global economy at risk by not reaching agreement to keep its debt in check. your dream turned sour as the cost of dealing with the currency crisis undermines the promise of prosperity as an e.u. member. poland prepares to present its own perspective on what caused the plane president kaczynski to crash in western russia last year. and a russian scientist claims keeping a close eye on the sun could help predict when natural disasters are about to

strike the. this is our twenty four hour news broadcasting live from moscow welcome to the program. the country which holds more u.s. debt than any other has hit out at the failure of congress to read. to deliver its debt ceiling china says the political deadlock in washington threatens the entire global economy so far republicans and democrats have didn't they the vote happened they need to run the country as they haven't agreed on by the budgets they have until tuesday to avoid a potentially devastating default earlier in the week u.s. secretary of state hillary clinton was in beijing to reassure asian the this that america will not fall back on its debt payments but he's a shift from investment company euro pacific capital gains china could well dump

the dollar as its main reserve currency we can't afford bad relations with china see beijing holds the cards you know we're dancing to the tune that they play the real problem for china is that there's no way that america can pay back the money that the chinese are for a loan just politically it's just not going to happen is specially when interest rates rise i'm surprised they can be chinese so long to figure out that they've been throwing a lot of good money after bad i don't think we're going to default i think we're going to inflate which is just as bad but you know we're going to raise the debt ceiling the problem is the debt not the ceiling the ceiling maybe is a solution but unfortunately it's going to be raised ultimately the chinese are going to impose their own ceiling on our debt which is going to be a lending ceiling because we're telling the chinese right now that we're running a giant ponzi scheme what we're telling them is that if we can't borrow more money we're not going to pay back the money we've already borrowed which means.