the man behind one of the largest leaks of u.s. army data is set to go on trial but critics of the process say it's just a ploy to cover up government crime. election fever grips russia ahead of the presidential poll as mass rallies engulfed the capital the largest demonstration saying an estimated one hundred thousand supporting the current prime minister vladimir putin. but israel dismisses global concerns over a potential military escalation in the run with the run saying it alone will decide whether to launch a strike on the islamic republic. i'm kevin owen here in moscow thanks a big with this tonight next our regular thursday night date with washington and the alone a show. i can with a lot of show we'll get the real headlines with none of the mercy or come alive in

washington d.c. now tonight we're going to take a look at more details emerging from the a.p.'s investigation in the n.y.p.d. not only were they spying on muslim students but communities outside of new york as well so does this mean that their jurisdiction to spy on innocent people has no boundaries and the n.s.a. is claiming that anonymous might be a threat to power grids in the future but this is just more hype to make them sound dangerous and its reliance on drone use increases we have to think about where technology and robots will take us next what legal ethical social questions arise as we move into the future we're going to all that morphy tonight putting it this happy hour but first take a look at the mainstream media has decided to me. today protests continue in afghanistan over the burning of korans at the u.s. run prison and considering that the u.s. embassy has been closed off because of it the mainstream media is actually paying the story some attention. see in kabul afghanistan on lockdown right now afghans

are protesting qur'an burnings outside the bob bob graham military base as you can hear there lots of shots fired cars buildings torched at least five protesters have died the soldiers at baghran air base were throwing out. materials from the library the detention facility material that they felt was being used by the insurgency that they did not realize it was religious material and now president karzai putting out a statement that he's wanted an investigation into what happened to him in a field and he's the appointed a committee of sunni clerics to look at it under islamic law and writing inside the koran is forbidden and burning them is an exception for means of disposal and they want the afghan government the international community everyone to know how angry they are unfortunately what this means is protest protests that lead to violence. now what happened here according to the official reports is the afghan laborers at

bagram airfield bought a bag containing copies of the koran amongst all the trash that was on its way the installations a gigantic incinerator so they managed to prevent some of the copies from being burned but then found the scorched evidence of others so after they were shown to people living near the base that's an outrage began and as you should have generally john allen who's currently our top commander in afghanistan apologized profusely his next move was to order immediate training for all western troops on the proper handling of religious materials and so this is where we all have to realize that there's a serious problem this is where the mainstream media while reporting on the issue needs to start asking some serious questions we've been fighting a war in afghanistan for ten years and we need new training on how to handle religious materials not to mention this is the first time that something like this has happened we saw just last year when pastor terry jones finally decided to go ahead with his idiotic plan to burn the koran afterwards we saw massive protests in afghanistan we saw ten u.n.

workers killed. that doesn't mean the violence arrives are justified it just means that we should know better by now how this going to be perceived and what the possible reactions might be in a muslim country in which you've got a huge military presence for the last ten years and you wonder why winning hearts and minds hasn't exactly been working out but anyway i'm not here to visit the numerous conversations we've had on this show about counterinsurgencies failings about the failings of this entire war effort because we do that all the time because we care the mainstream media on the other hand that they make it seem like they could care less and so while reporting on the story today they treat it as just another piece of news those riot prone afghans just getting pissed off again but if they at least have the decency to try and play catch up to admit that they've been doing a really shoddy job shirking their responsibilities of informing the american public about our longest war if they were questioning our military officials and politicians about the way that it's being carried out in the reason behind it well this would be the first like time to start asking why after ten years we still have

mistakes made on this level but i guess i must be crazy right this is after all the mainstream media that we're talking about and as usual they're continuing on with their policy of choosing to make. well a.p. has continued releasing portions of its investigation this week of the n.y.p.d. surveillance of muslims post nine eleven over the weekend they detailed how the n.y.p.d. had spied on muslim students and over a dozen schools throughout the northeast is included sending overcover officer on a white water rafting trip in two thousand and eight yesterday they released more bombshell details on how the n.y.p.d. expanded its surveillance to long island and to newark new jersey where plainclothes officers fanned out across the city taking pictures eavesdropping on conversations inside of businesses owned or if we can to by muslims they also photographed a map of mosques now the results of this program led to

a sixty page report that cited no evidence of terrorism or criminal behavior and as the associated press put it it was a guide to new york's muslims to newark's mayor says that he was kept entirely in the dark about this operation and he even launched an investigation so it was all of this just more evidence that civil liberties have completely blown out the window for the muslim population in america joining me from our studio in new york is ryan devereaux a reporter at the guardian ryan thanks so much for joining us tonight and you know the a.p. has actually been releasing been doing this investigation releasing stories on it since last year but do you think that as they put more information out there as the story is very is it becoming worse is it more damning. well it's hard to say if it's worse or or more damning but it's certainly tally in the lengths that the department has gone to sort of monitor the muslim community in new york city and around the area and it's been interesting to see the way that these reports

published by the a.p. have received an increasing amount of traction you know in the last couple months people are i believe starting to pay attention we're seeing more and more rallies protests and that sort of thing here in new york city so it's growing the attention on this issue is growing that being said it's not the kind of thing that you're going to see you know your standard television program you know in the evening news . why is that right i mean i think that this is pretty outrageous what they're actually putting out there what they're exposing and you mentioned that maybe locally you're finally seeing a little bit more attention being drawn to it a few more rallies but you know if this were to happen to any other group and american society do you think that people would be so quick to let it slide wouldn't there be a lot more rage out there. well it's you're right about a lot of things there in that this is a really complex issue we've got to put it into the proper historical context new

york city in two thousand and one following the attacks was it was devastated it was a it was a collectively an incredibly traumatic experience and here in the city a lot of these programs have pretty serious support among new yorkers which is which many people would find shocking because of the length as i mentioned before that the department is going to monitor civilians who aren't accused of any wrongdoing but a lot of people here feel like that this is a sort of necessary evil that the department has to do whatever it takes to keep the city safe and you know. as to why mainstream the networks and that sort of thing don't pick up on issues like this i think it's because civil liberties cases issues of civil liberties are complex and you have to actually look at all the different variables at play here and there are a lot in this case i think that there are. plenty of people in the n.y.p.d. who are doing the best that they can to keep this city safe and there are plenty

who criticize what the department has done you know in its efforts to do that that being said i think a lot of voices in new york city voices in the muslim community are being are being drowned out by those who say that we have to do whatever we can to keep this city safe and i think that those voices that are being drowned out should be heard well you know you actually spoke to one of the students that just recently found out that when he was on this whitewater rafting trip there was an undercover police officer there he is just one of many students i don't know how many thousands that were being monitored by the n.y.p.d. you know in universities all across the northeast but what did he tell you about how he felt about this. well he said when he when he first heard he first he first heard last week that he was shocked he was stunned that you know you know he's here he told me that you always hear about the n.y.p.d. monitoring this group or that group but when it happens to you it hits really close to home. he told me a very interesting story he's twenty four years old he was born in pakistan when he

was trying to immigrate into the united states when he was trying to. get his. answer. he was having that the hardest time going through and someone suggested to him well you know why don't you write your write your congressman write who will write to who will will be a congressman and that's what he did and you know a month later he got his. he got his citizenship and that to him was an experience of you know american democracy at its finest and he believes that if the n.y.p.d. would make a greater effort to sort of highlight those sorts of experiences as ways that the public can engage with the political system in a nonviolent fashion that those in the muslim community who might be on the fringe would realize that there are paths that they can take you know to change the way things are that don't lead to violence he believes that you know he would like to help out the department in its efforts to you know squash homegrown threats but he

thinks the way that their partner is going about it right now is all wrong that it's alienating young men particularly young muslim men who could be you know who they could reach out to. well let's break down you know some of what we learned to just from these two specific investigations released this week you know in the case of monitoring students we've seen something that we have seen before where was the informant or whether where was the undercover officer you know where we actually saw somebody call from rutgers university worried that there might be somebody in a terrorist cell and it turns out it was just these undercover officers that were sparking concern for them so i mean what do you call that you know is it is it irony is it a proof that these tactics aren't working the way that they're supposed to do well i don't know if it's a proof i don't know if it's solid proof that they aren't working i think you could maybe point to other examples that might suggest that there are flaws in the program in the n.y.p.d. as program but it does show that the department is working outside of new york city

to gather intelligence and what we learned today was that newark mayor cory booker and governor chris christie of new jersey governor chris christie neither of these guys had any idea what the department was doing in in new jersey what the new york city police department was doing in new jersey it's pretty breathtaking the new york city police department is going into these other communities and conducting surveillance work without it seems you know telling local politicians in the people who are supposed to be in charge of those those communities what they're doing well that is breathtaking i'd say that you know it's basically illegal we found out that you had then why petey working with the cia helping out you know helping to set up some of these domestic programs for monitoring u.s. citizens or just the muslim community here in the u.s. you know and now you have them extending their jurisdiction to god knows where but

i mean do you think that we would ever see any legal representation is there of them get into any trouble how do you deal with a situation like this. well there are different groups in new york city are looking at different options in terms of how to hold the police department accountable yesterday the new york times policed an article talking about how there's this coalition of about two dozen activist groups and legal groups who are going to be focusing on the two thousand and thirteen mayoral campaign and you know sort of going out and making sure the public knows where candidates stand on issues such as stop and frisk which like the monitoring of muslim communities involves complaints that the department is engaging in widespread racial profiling there's a sense in new york city that there isn't really a accountability structure and oversight structure of for the police department that it's effective the department is often criticized of lacking in any transparency or accountability so you know it remains to be seen what what the

public will will do or can do about the department whether we'll see a lead legal action i don't know well let me just ask you real quick to what you think of mayor bloomberg the response last year he was saying that in no way is religion taken into account when and why p.t. does these programs now that more information is coming out thanks to gauge and he's actually defending that. i believe the mayor bloomberg also said that he wasn't aware of the rafting trip situation which to me suggests that he didn't maybe didn't read the latest a.p. report and while he was asked if he thought it went too far and he said no he said it you got to do what you got to do to keep people safe. he also says that follows leads which is the same line that the n.y.p.d. uses to justify its monitoring program and i think the public has yet to be convinced to those substantiated especially when they're casting such a wide net in terms of their intelligence gathering practices. thank you so much

for joining us tonight and. that's a good work coming out from the a.p. there but as you said i guess public opinion is actually mixed on this situation you know it's pretty damaging for civil liberties that's for sure thanks. hi it's time for a quick break when we come back u.s. contractors are finding another way cash in on violence and this time it's not in the u.s. in many war zones but and mexico's drug war past the border and n.s.a. is warning that anonymous could take down power grids in the u.s. in the future and about a real possibility of more fear mongering the wrestling industry agency and asked that.

it's all designed to keep you close in your own world as a prison. you know you leave somebody in there for a couple hours like in a stress position. you have this fear of the unknown and this stress sort of building and. i've seen interrogations go on ten twelve hours they chose as i remember from marilyn manson and metallica slayer the two songs would be angel of death and raining blood to kill the enemy going through war coming up here into iraq to remove the baghdad. johnny pool of the bodies to the floor which is the rock n roll band it was fitting for the job we were doing.

when i say the word bodyguard what comes to mind is those men the protect the president or the trench coats the sunglasses the ear buds talk to their watches or perhaps your mind floats the late great whitney houston. we're. going. to look at the body very. well business is good for bodyguards right now and guess where it's booming along the mexico border mexico's and mired in violence for over a decade and it's only getting worse with the drug cartels fighting the military as well as each other and terrorizing the local populations anyone that's traveling or

conducting business in this country especially americans know that they'll need protection so they called body guards in the u.s. to provide that service for them in mexico but not like the ones we just told you about even more of a mix between defense contractors and secret service without the fancy get up and these people work for private firms who specialize in executive protection for their clients so these firms not only hire to protect their clients but they're also supposed to prevent abductions and even help negotiate kidnapping cases should any right now anyone who's asking how foreign nationals get away with carrying weapons in another country they should take note to how these executive protection firms operate typically they'll designate to an armed detail leaders will be americans from these firms and the leaders are having a group of about four armed mexican gart typically police officers trying to make some extra money on the side so while the armed guards do all the dirty work the leaders are in charge of the brains of the operation whether it be picking travel routes prescreening guards or even determining safe locations for conferences or

meetings now when it comes to executive protection we're not just talking about americans going down to mexico we're also talking about mexicans wind across the border into the u.s. protection is needed both ways wired's danger was highlighted a few firms that specialize in what they're calling executive protection clayton international blackstone and klein investigations they say that there's been a one hundred twenty percent increase in business over the past two years partially . because of the tuck up tick in violence but also because it's used as a status symbol for those that are seeking the protection but it goes to show you those firms glorified private defense contractors if you will have found a new revenue stream and like i said before in mexico business is booming right now . now just last week we spoke about a cyber war as the new yellowcake conflating various cyber threats into one all out apocalyptic scenario the demands aggressive action and countering so with

yellowcake to help build up for the iraq war what could be in the cyber round looks like u.s. intelligence officials are setting up a narrative that anonymous could be as dangerous as russian or chinese or ronnie in a north korean hackers and they might even work with al qaeda in the future such as the tone of wall street journal article quoting anonymous government officials who say that the director of the n.s.a. general keith alexander has warned in white house meetings that anonymous could have the ability within the next year or two to bring about limited power outages through cyber attack now the anonymous affiliated twitter account at your non news responded calling this ridiculous fear mongering from the n.s.a. and u.s. government and asked why would a non shut off the power grid there are people on life support other vital services the rely on it try again and it's a hash tag fear mongering so what do we think of the n.s.a. guided hype over anonymous joining me to discuss this from our studio in new york is adam clark as this from the atlantic wire and dan kaplan executive editor of s c magazine gentlemen i thank you both for joining me tonight and i guess you know i

don't want to start with you what do you think on a technical level about these threats that we're hearing reportedly from anonymous officials as to what the n.s.a. is saying that in one or two years anonymous might be able to have this technology and what is it exactly that need to change in one or two years i think that christopher's to go and have a good point today when he said you know the grid is either secure or it's in secure. i think it's a great point and something that i've covered a lot of the atlantic wire is the fact that the united states government isn't really up to speed when it comes to cyber security we learned late last year that there were a number of attacks that probably came from china that the government didn't even know about the attacks happened over the course of the past five ten years and we didn't even know we were being hacked into when it comes to anonymous i think that it's worth pointing out that everything is connected to the internet now and the hackers that are not of us seem to know more about how the internet works than the u.s. government if we learned anything from the soap about oh it's that these legislators

don't understand how the internet works and so from a technical level it's entirely possible but. then again i sort of feel the fear mongering point is well i dan what do you think air right i mean i guess our lawmakers i think we learned from the south of battle good point adam aren't exactly up to speed with the details when it comes to how the internet should be or should not be regulated at all but i mean these are the intelligence agencies we're talking about so do they have a motive behind what these warnings are you think. you know i mean i can only gauge just by past performance and as i was saying when the tools are available there is vulnerable these certainly in these power systems to get in but looking at what anonymous has chosen as their targets of the last couple of years you know it seems to be organizations that government agencies with with whom they don't agree with and they've been pretty clear about their targets and it would be kind of hypocritical of the group that goes themselves as you know a fighter for human rights internet freedom to want to go after power grid in just

raw power for people you know that they're conceivably fighting for yeah i guess you could argue that perhaps they're more of some of their battle thinking rather populist battles you know in that sense but i also i'm curious what you guys think of the way of the wall street journal is reporting this i mean do you think of the media also has to carry some of the blame that maybe they aren't being critical enough you know as to fanning the flames. well i mean i would just say that i sorry guys sorry guys out of go ahead and indirectly while they're. all just say two sentences if i can channel my editor a bit any story that sort of that is based on a promise of something might happen can eat could be told the same way as as that thing might not happen and i think that the wall street journal is a great newspaper however that's not a story that i would have written exactly like that. yeah i

mean the wall street journal are you know they had an article two years ago written by the same writer saying that quoting a government official saying that cyber spies from russia and china are already in the power grid so you know to have a story say that you know this is a couple of years out possibility it strikes me as as a little bogus i would say though that the government has you know good reason obviously there's they're making arrests but they're anonymous is continuing to you know hit their targets with utter abandon and the government probably wants to win back the p.r. war a little bit on anonymous and get the public kind of on their side and you know it's not the first time they've tried it either because dan you and i spoke i believe it was last year when the d.h.s.s. basically making the exact same you know warnings about where they think that anonymous really might be headed but what about the language that they're using now and i don't know if we attribute this only to the wall street journal in the way they reported it or maybe this is what they're getting from some of these sources

and that they're trying to call anonymous a stateless organization you know some people have decided the that almost sounds like you're trying to make it you know connect them to terrorism in some way you know what do you think damn. you know i mean the word terrorists isn't really have meaning to me at least certainly when you throw around that word terrorist you know it certainly gets people pretty frantic and pretty worried so i think you know if if the government is trying to get people to be quite worried about anonymous i think throwing around the word terrorist would be a good way to do that. but. yeah i guess though they haven't used terrorists yet but they're saying stateless organization and yet at the same time they're saying that maybe some other country might want to contract an attack out to anonymous or maybe even an organization like al qaeda might want to do that i mean do you really see that as a possibility out of i don't know from covering anonymous for

a couple of years now i think that if i've gleaned anything from their sort of montreaux or their philosophy it's that they do kind of want the world to be a better place and you know one of the. biggest actions that didn't get covered is the extent to which they supported the freedom fighters in the arab spring and you know helping the revolutionaries win the democracy of their country is one thing that that feels like something anonymous is interested in and we have no proof that they did help out and that. killing the power grid and potentially killing human beings just doesn't feel like something that they would be interested in that again anonymous is. a lot of us and so we don't really know who is involved or what they're doing what they could do so where this is the best we could hope for i just think that. kind of drumming up fear over it is not this is really the best way to better understand the movement well what do you think adam too about you know this

global internet blackout blackout that supposedly they've been floating around to have on march thirty first. that's another thing that's been denied by a number of different. anonymous affiliates and different factions within anonymous it's just kind of like last year anonymous said that on guy fawkes day they were going to bring down facebook and we all know that that didn't happen it's all it takes to produce an anonymous threat is someone with some basic video editing software and internet connection and youtube account upload it and suddenly we have an anonymous threat. the more that we see anonymous work the war that we realize that it does take. a lot more than a simple you tube video to equal a real threat otherwise it's just that lowercase a anonymous threat i mean i guess you could say the for the most part to you know what they've done is they've hacked into certain e-mails they've launched last attack the none of it has been that damning and so dan you know would you compare

this last week on the show we had a conversation about whether cyber war is the new yellowcake the way it was to the build up to war in iraq you know i mean the side where i mean that i don't know if we've even really seen a cyber war yet so. but you know when you're when you're talking about anonymous i you know i want to make a point that you know when they're when they're going after the power grid you know and things like that you know you're what the government is doing is essentially they're you know promoting fear and and i think it and i think what they're doing is potentially wanting to get cyber security legislation passed i mean we haven't spoken about that with the government as you know there's been efforts to get cybersecurity legislation passed through the house and senate without much progress at all so i think if you drum up you sort of fears you know like anonymous stateless organization then that might help them advance some of that all right dan thanks so much for joining us tonight. thank you thank you. all right time for

a break and when we return we'll have tonight's edition if you started i read it and then a robots there use them in a war but they're coming home whether we like it or not so as our world becomes more automated what are the legal and ethical questions that we'll. find out after the break. the headlines from all to you at ten thirty pm local time tightening the noose around.