to help us tackle some real issues. and arguably one of the most divisive topics being debated is or on the g.o.p. would have you believe the country is building a nuclear arsenal the facts would have you believe otherwise so are lawmakers really scared or are they using fear mongering to push partisan politics. it is thursday january nineteenth five pm in washington d.c. i'm christine you're watching r t. let's talk about the way this country fights wars certainly things have changed a bit from the places the military goes to the weapons it now uses here's a little food for thought for you ten years ago the pentagon owned about fifty predator drones today it's got about seven thousand the pentagon has also asked congress for nearly five billion dollars more for drones in two thousand and twelve

and as it turns out as we move forward those drones will not just be used to attack suspects suspected terrorists in afghanistan and pakistan will start soon being used here in the united states and as artie's marina portnoy shows us instead of invading people cities and towns they may be used to invade their privacy. they are the cornerstone of america's military arsenal dropping bombs on bosnia pakistan afghanistan libya and yemen a manned aerial vehicles known as drones have become the trademark of washington's warmish targeted assassinations and spying operations overseas but today the local police departments using unmanned spy plane said to catch suspects the remotely piloted war weapon is flying domestic u.s. local police and federal officials are increasingly using drones under the auspices of keeping citizens think fleece departments are using them in the united states or

not i think almost two hundred sixty six applications that have been approved for police departments the use of drones as aerial surveillance devices drones can be armed with a wide range of surveillance technology including high powered zoom lenses and infrared ultraviolet images but what the u.s. government flies prying eyes through the sky lawmakers have neglected to create any privacy protections for american citizens all of this is conscious intentional putting in place. controlling the popular she may be an employee. and i think they're. not just. the big federalized the agencies keep using more and more of these to justify their existence so they can say we need this to crack down on drugs we need this because

there are a lot of robberies in this neighborhood we need this the united states is not only now a military industrial complex it's a homeland security complex they've merged into one in two thousand and six aero vi. a drone manufacturer received four point seven million dollars from the u.s. defense department to develop new on manned aerial vehicles. the newest and smallest invention is hummingbird a palm sized cute looking spy plane weighing less than one pound there can be a very lucrative market in the united states for drones with police departments who are already militarized tanks just saw the two assault rifles flak jackets the modern police looked like the military and so now they're going to be using military women first lawsuit has been slapped against the u.s. department of transportation for allegedly withholding records pertaining to the

domestic use of drones currently the american public cannot find out why drones are being used or who is controlling every corner there's a closed circuit camera watching what you're telling so now we don't only have a bomb on the ground we have from this month the federal aviation administration is expected to propose new rules making it easier for law enforcement agencies to fly drones to america's democratic stuff more weapons used overseas to keep the u.s. safe now being considered a serious threat to u.s. freedom at home marina port artsy new york. well when it comes to drones the way they're used why they're used there's one man who has been talking about this since just since before just about anyone and that is radio host alex jones and also in texas right now hey there alex it's so crazy because i think about these all you

know cameras with wings on it flying in your wind bedroom window while you're sleeping but the reality is that you know as far as these new drones are concerned why should anyone care i mean hasn't the surveillance stuff already been going on for years. fourteen years ago some plainclothes marines showed up at the t.v. studio here in austin i want to meet with my. and they popped a v.h.s. tape in that was a copy of drones watching myself and my camera man at the time my hands and in northern california and central california and oakland in an urban warfare drill and they said yeah we're listeners when we were involved in all this you were being watched and tracked with drones so yes it's been going on a long time but slavery has been going on in history for a long time and it isn't you know right today what happens in africa or of it happened two thousand years ago but yes this is been happening and the military industrial complex is basically through homeland security and north com devouring

the united states the red light cameras defense contractor run the mercenary firms defense contractors training police and actually engaging said it's down to running private security all of this the data mining the surveillance the most common forms of scholarships now in the last decade. in colleges are for data mining spying on fellow citizens our economy is shifting from manufacturing and farming and textiles to a giant prison grid and the homeland itself is becoming locked down i mean they've got drones with face scanning cameras they've got weaponized drones deployed in the united states and they brag about it protesters six years ago reported in in d.c. that they've solved big what looked like fake dragon-fly and the media said oh your conspiracy theorist one year later the washington post came out and said no

homeland security was a tester with the dragon fly similar to the hummingbird that you showed so they take our tax money and then militarized the police and use the regular military against us they've got rid of posse comitatus that bars the mill. involved medically they've passed the national defense authorization act sharing that alex jones or christine anybody could just disappear black bag goes over our head and wear one more missing person on a milk carton and we're taken to some secret prison or we're just shot in the back of the head and when senators have had this brought up jim graham lieberman former senator santorum they say we will kill citizens and we're already killing citizens and they say it aggressively all right i want to there's a lot to talk about so i just want to make sure we get to all of it because there's a few different things concerning drones in the works here one of them is that next month the federal aviation administration the f.a.a.

will be proposing new rules so this isn't something that's just been going on in the past it's going to continue in the future and these new rules will make it easier for what you were talking about for law enforcement agencies to have permission to use these drones now already they've been used in area wildfires to look for hotspots they've been used to cross the border to look for drug traffickers but now it could be a whole new ball game i want to play this clip this was made just a few months ago with a little animation recreating something that actually happened in north dakota. nelson county north dakota sort of tell you all key was looking for six missing grocery bill before but three are brought her brothers chased him away dulcie called the highway patrol swat team the box was at a predator drone operated by u.s. customs and border protection the drug was used to surveil the property until they brought the brothers were observed to be it or did this well to make the arrests all right so missing cattle i mean certainly it can't be ruled out that before we know the local police departments will also use them as well for whatever they want

. sure look all the while firefighting and stuff that was just p.r. roll this out for a long time they have got infrared mounted looking through walls if somebody has got a hamster cage with a hot light you get a swat team raid that's come out in the news they're going after people growing cucumbers in their basements they're already looking through our walls police departments twenty years ago had trucks that look right through your walls homeland security announced two years ago they've got big trucks looking for people's walls it's on local news in new york and texas that they have the army out with big trucks with families driving through x. ray scanners i mean it is just crazy the military industrial complex is basically declaring war on the american people they've already done it to the rest of the world our government's been seized by the offshore six maggie banks they have hijacked america we're an occupied country they're now just moving to start

shutting down free speech and other issues and you're right there is a big acceleration of this now happening and it's extremely creepy and they just announced yesterday that in a bunch of us cities they've already put up body scanners that are on store just poles street lights that scan people as you walk down the street i mean this is beyond one thousand nine hundred eighty four and how creepy it is and none of it has to do with fighting al qaeda or something as you just showed the animation it's all about oh my gosh this domestic group you know these farmers don't want to hand their property over basically and so now we're going to have the predator drone come after him it's just so scary and it's because the economy is imploding and because our country is run by the big ponzi scheme operators who know they're criminals and don't want to go to jail they're trying to get the military lined up against us like we were the iraqi people and this isn't just as surveillance and.

you mentioned we've done a lot of talking here on r t as well about the national defense authorization act and da one just like that we haven't really touched upon included in this legislation is a plan to allow for six national test sites where drones could fly through civil air space now obviously drones are here to stay but i want to get your thoughts on this notion that they'll now be sort of testing here in u.s. air space. well again this is just testing the public this is the rollout and this is to make sure they don't have any problems for the whole program gets in trouble so they can have absolute complete militarization of the sky with ground penetrating radar and infrared they've got ground penetrating radar in small units that can fly on small aircraft now that are unmanned that see black and white images of everything you're doing ten years ago they launched high altitude blimps that have ground penetrating radar that's already looking through our houses i mean this this is beyond anything that that the old soviet union had

nazi germany communist china it is any other authoritarian system most other authoritarian systems of the past wouldn't put it on paper that they would just secretly grab citizens off the street you disappear they're doing this because they want to intimidate us and as you said they're now preparing the full rollout over these cities and it's all department of defense they have the threat fusion centers that are federalizing police they're training them to spy on neighbors it is beyond creepy what is now unfolding but the good news is the fact that this stuff is now coming says you know show out in the open a lot of people that were awake are waking up and i really appreciate your show as i watch it routinely and i know that you cover this every week right radio host alex jones in austin texas weighing in on all things drones thanks. well it's been

a busy week here in washington and even a busy day lots going on of course the stop online piracy act and protect ip act otherwise known as sopa and pipa they've been in top news this week and they've changed they've lost a bunch of supporters after blackouts yesterday on several websites so what else is going on you may be asking well it turns out the iowa primary the iowa caucuses actually weren't won by mitt romney rick santorum won them also today rick perry dropped out of the race and endorsed newt gingrich who knows what'll happen after tonight's tonight when newt gingrich is former wife is expected to admit in an interview with a.b.c. news that traditional newt traditional marriage supporter newt gingrich actually asked her for an open marriage also tonight yet another g.o.p. debate in south carolina so when it comes to the media's role in all of this i want to talk about a lot of different things so with me now live from new york is journalist and author and former c.n.n. host rex sanchez he wrote the book convention conventional idiocy why the new

america is sick of old politics. all right lots to talk about and who knows you know what tonight's debate will bring with the remaining men standing but i want to take a look really quick at the debate earlier in the week now i know that we've talked a lot about newt gingrich and his talk about president obama being a food stamp president and also his treatment of one williams let me put something else up this is mitt romney talking about the dream act and then we can talk about it. and i've indicated i would veto the dream act of provisions included in that act to say that people who are here illegally if they go to school here long enough get a degree here that they can become permanent residents i think that's a mistake i think we have to follow the law that says that those who come here illegally it's really return home. get in line with everyone else lots of applause their record i know you've got some thoughts about this. well it's very simple really christine the fact is every news station and network in the united states

has certainly been making a lot out of new gingrich's comments the food stamp comment with the intimation being that perhaps newt gingrich was inferring that blacks are lazy and that's why he ties them to food stamps which is a. it's a decent argument and i think it's one that the media probably should have focused on but in the process they didn't even begin to focus or examine the line by mitt romney there are fifteen million latinos in the united states it's not just mitt romney it's this president that as well who's expelled one point two million people from the united states that's a record separated something like forty six thousand families and yet the discussion is never new wants it always ends with illegal aliens and amnesty when in fact there is a lot of nuance here and it should affect journalists in the united states no matter what side they're on that something like this is raised by someone like newt

gingrich just basically saying a young man whose parents brought him here to the united states excels in schools never committed a crime his parents have paid their taxes his parents have been hard working they go to church you know what he wants to go to school the united states to hell with them kick them out and nobody says wait a minute that just doesn't seem like something america would stand for there's so little of that in the media this day and look i'm not sitting here because i happen to be hispanic as someone who's here to say that everybody who is a spaniard from the border should be allowed in and that we shouldn't secure the border and maybe even build a wall i'm just saying there's nuance to this argument and it's very simple if someone's been in this country for twenty thirty forty years they've worked hard they go to church they've lived the good life they've paid their taxes in fact more than their share of taxes because every time you hear somebody say they're freeloaders they're not paying taxes. that's a bold seize lie you can't live in the united states without paying taxes because you have a job you buy something you pay taxes and every time you pay your rent or your

mortgage on your home you're paying a problem i think break top of that i think you're making a good joint just a just a just a just a but just a but made up that argument is that all the time it's just go a stick and in these debates we hear people discarding the argument left and right as mr romney did and nobody in the media ever picks up on it and that's not good for america well that's exactly what i was going to fact think it is important to focus on sort of where the media is failing in terms of where it's failing in terms of its job to do a service to those watching the debate to those watching these you know campaign stops that some of these candidates are making but it is interesting and just to keep a little longer on this issue of immigration latino voters when it comes around to get support from latinos there this has been going on forever so i want to put up some old sound bites some recent ones and some not so recent and then i want to get your take on why this is going on. does de essence of mana soil and

kind of daughter. to the presidency is the loss of status of the of us he said almost commentary else cannot school who had a son to me and three look i'm one of the latina port authority d.n.a. did it make. it plausible for the way it was since in people's father for the most part in the play was to say on put the. can't eat or family go. but that dad senator john f. kennedy and he got going and he dented in god we need. all right so we've got newt gingrich announcing his candidacy apologizing for offending the community president obama or then senator obama i believe trying to get some support from puerto rico and even dates back to when president kennedy even senator kennedy was running for president so why has this always been a theme the need to not only get the latino vote but to say hey i'm just like you i

can speak spanish it's one thing to say you speak spanish and say you're just like them and it's quite another to actually act the part and the people who are chosen to be legislators or be members of the executive branch in the united states and that the laws that affect the lives of these people and too often today in the united states is anyone standing up for the rights of decent people who have come to the united states and whether they're citizens or residents deserve at least the respect to be treated fairly and not as some oklahoma representative recently said shot out of the sky with helicopters this is the kind of rhetoric that's being heard in the united states it's damaging it's not good i do give kudos to newt gingrich i had breakfast with him and interviewed him not long ago in south florida i asked him about this and he agreed with me he said it is wrong to deport or expel people from the united states who have lived here for. more than decades have essentially lived an exemplary life and he says i would change that that's the

first person i've heard say something like that even president obama really is taking a backseat to mr mr gingrich's philosophy on this all right you know you've got to give mr gingrich kudos at least there whether he'll do it or not i don't know but he was bold enough to say it that's another story entirely continuing sort of on this theme with the role of the media and you know important things that are happening i want to talk about something that happened yesterday you may have noticed if you logged on to google or wikipedia that something was different and websites used various methods including shutting down to protest against this legislation being proposed in the house and senate known as sopa and pipa. and there's some blurred lines that i just think is really important to point out so let me play this ad really quick. american ideas be showing through a thousand new products new software in movies creating millions of new jobs but

now american creativity and innovation are under attack every day foreign criminals use illegal websites to steal american products steal our ideas put americans out of work it's time for a new idea tell congress to stop piracy all right so this is an ad that was aired just a couple hours ago it was put on by creative america this is a group that describes itself as a grassroots coalition that values american creativity in reality this is a group that actually represents and we see c.b.s. fox viacom say of a news network using its platform to push for legislation it seems to me that there's something wrong with that. a lot of the use this term before when i was referring to the candidates during their debates and everybody trying to sound very stick this is a complicated issue and to suddenly turn it into american jobs or go or no way seems somewhat lewd. chris to me this is much more complicated than that yes there

is a little bit of holly were hollywood hollywood versus the silicon valley but let me tell you what i believe and what most right minded people would see in this development that's taken place over the last twenty four hours because we've seen people like senator marco rubio cave on sopa and people and i think what that shows us if we really watch it is for the first time in maybe three decades in the united states we've seen a force that is as powerful if not more powerful than the force of money in politics we know and i've documented in my reports and in my book that it's proportional how people vote too who gives the money you want me to vote a certain way you give me money boom it's almost automatic for the first time ever we've seen what i called in my book the power of us the power of us means enough of us care about the internet that we were affected yesterday whether you're on their side or not on their side when google and wikipedia and so many others chose to

make a statement that's powerful that wasn't buying out the politicians or the powerful that was affecting the masses and then having the masses effect the powerful it's a different it's a different game i think i think it's significant and i think people will look back on this many years from now and say aha finally something that may stop the sons of guns. what they've been doing in politics in the united states journalist author and former c.n.n. how is that rick sanchez always good to pick your brain a lot of it on all things chris is. all right well the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff army general martin dempsey is in israel today and no down the number one issue on the agenda will be iran and remind the strained relationship over several decades between iran and israel as well as its western allies i just look at the last few weeks first there was that mysterious assassination of a top iranian nuclear. scientists also both the u.s. and europe have sort of kicked it up

a notch in terms of sanctions against iran and then tehran has threatened to shut down the strait of hormuz the passageway for about twenty percent of the world oil trade now there are a few reports out there now that say that iran has actually abandoned any and all plans to develop new nuclear weapons but there are several other reports that suggest at least that's not the case the question here is how does the rest of the world react to what they think is going on all to help me shed some light on this i spoke earlier to policy director for just foreign policy robert naiman i asked robert a simple question is iran building a nuclear weapon or not here's what he had to say. well according to defense secretary leon panetta he iran is not now trying to develop a nuclear weapon this is what he said. face the nation that sunday are they trying to develop a nuclear weapon you know it's important for everyone to know not just that leon panetta said although is the defense secretary of state but the does is the

consensus of the sixteen intelligence agencies of the united states two thousand and seven as far as we know and in twenty eleven iran has not decided to to try to produce nuclear weapon is not iran is not now trying to get out there kind of weapons so anybody who says different as an issue with the united states and its intelligence agencies and the secretary of defense already unless you know even the israeli defense minister ehud barak says that you know a decision about an attack on iran and this is something that a lot of people talk about could be eminent. this is a long way off if it were to happen at all all of us like israel and the united states announced that they would postpone a joint military exercises in the middle east so what do you think i mean is this a sign that even in israel that worry is some siding. with a lot of stories or circulated why is that exercise was postponed the dominant story it did appear in both u.s. and this really press was that the united states canceled the exercise because they

were trying to tamp down tensions and they were concerned that in the recent context that escalated tensions it would send the wrong message and escalate tensions and some have written in order jim lobes are in a press service interpreted also as a signal to its release from the u.s. government or unhappy by the surete of this really officials are suggestions that israel would go unilaterally starting a military confrontation with iran something that the. u.s. government is strong opposed to so i think it in any event is a sign that there are forces trying to deescalate tensions in the u.s. government. doesn't mean that we shouldn't worry because there's a longer term trend towards escalation that we see with the us economic sanctions in the town the threat of some iranian officials who are in the or district of

hormuz if the u.s. would seriously try to cut off of iran's oil exports which is would be an act of war so i think over the short term we see an attempt to deescalate tensions but it's a long term there are structural problems that the united states and iran are pollution of course immoral means until there's a serious real diplomatic diplomacy between the united states and iran to resolve issues between them in particular it wants nuclear weapons all speaking about the climate they are least possible attempts at it i want to talk about this letter that may or may not have been sent by the obama administration to ayatollah khomeini in which it may have stated that closing the strait of hormuz is our quote red line that's what apparently was said in the letter and there's talk there was also a request for direct negotiations or talks with iran in a letter now obama administration officials deny you know sending a letter about iranian news reports say it wasn't fact sense and it was in fact received so let's say for the sake of argument that in fact obama did send this

letter asking for direct talks what changes anything. well it's an important thing for the united states to communicate over the knolls two are on that it's really talking everything you multilaterally unilaterally can you you know bilaterally mulcher the communicate that the u.s. is ready for real negotiations and that you know many people in iran and elsewhere think that the obama administration should have gone through the motions earlier when it said that it was interested in diplomatic resolution so if the. well the administration does want to stick to them so then they need to make it clear to the orleans that they are interested in serious diplomatic process and that means as you know some people in the united states don't want the ones at all and that was policy director for just foreign policy robert naiman and for now that's going to

do it but for more on the stories we covered go to our team dot com us a heart attack at our you tube page at youtube dot com slash r.t. america you can also follow me on twitter at christine i'll be back at seven pm.