today on our team rolling out the red carpet for the world's geo political heavy hitters as g eight foreign ministers meet here in washington but we're not interested in their official agenda so much as what's actually being discussed behind closed doors we'll tell you what they might be deciding and how it could affect you. and what was months what was once touted as a major step toward international cooperation may soon be dead in the water literally scientists are planning on sinking the international space station bottom of the ocean so will multimission colossal collaboration go down with the station well explore. plans on internet privacy advocates may have won the battle over sopa

and people legislation but the war over cyber rights is far from over i'll tell you about the latest bills that are aimed at your computer freedoms. it is wednesday april eleventh five pm here in washington d.c. my name is christine freezone and you're watching our city. well as always it is a big day here in washington foreign ministers from each of the group of eight countries are here we get the blair house to begin setting the agenda for the actual g. eight summit that takes place on camp david a little more than a month from now g eight countries include the united states russia britain canada france germany italy and japan and they're expected to touch upon some of the world's biggest geopolitical issues from the violence in syria the economic crisis in the eurozone and some of those concerns about iran's nuclear program and north

korea's planned launch of a rocket which something some think is described as a disguised missile test now pyongyang says it's aimed at putting a satellite into orbit but all of these problems are expected to be discussed among these countries i won't likely be on the public agenda for next month's summit but with such important leaders all together in one place we want to talk today about some of those other things some of those things are a little less in the spotlight some of the potential backroom deals that could be up for discussion since politics after all the end of the day is more about money and power and everything else our g. correspondent liz wahl is live now with a breakdown of some of those lesser known but still important i don't. want to talk about this beyond the public agenda what else do you think is likely to be discussed behind closed doors well that's right kristie and i am here just blocks away from the blair house where secretary of state hillary clinton is hosting some of the world's foreign ministers from some of the world's most powerful countries

and you know it's on the public agenda syria's syria is likely to top that agenda especially in the wake of recent events where it looks like neither side is going to comply with that cease fire so yes syria undeniably a hot topic right now but it's likely that this group is going to be discussing a much more behind closed doors and really what's on everybody's mind these days of the economy. it's hard to imagine that eight of the world's most powerful leaders are going to get together and not discuss the economy i want to take a moment to talk about what the g. eight summit what this group really is so this is the g. eight so eight of the most richest most powerful countries but left out of the mix are countries like china india russia russia is part of the g eight china india and brazil and these are the emerging economies which are playing a much larger role in terms of geopolitics with their economies becoming

more and more powerful and especially in relation to the more western economies which are traditionally more powerful but you know we have a shifting world the way the rich balance of power is. yellow i mean certainly the last time these leaders met some of those protests in greece were sort of at the beginning a lot has happened since last year's g eight summit just talk a little bit about the fact that a lot of the countries that are having issues financially are not the ones sitting at the table here and that's exactly one of the policies of this group has promoted as austerity if you could remember the widespread protests that happened in greece people literally taking to the streets protesting the very policies that the country that this group has been promoting and they're saying that some of these

policies we see greece portugal spain are suffering they say the policies pushed by the g.a.o. has been contributing to rising unemployment and prolonging the recession so there's a lot of speculation and some people say that the policies that this group pushes is not necessarily in the best interests of those that are not part of this. group and some of those other policies when we think about all that is going on right now certainly. iraq war you know the u.s. is out of iraq now and i'm going to start talking about what's next in afghanistan how to keep the middle east on track with all the various tensions there talk a little bit about those sort of non agenda items that could be front and center and that's what i wanted to touch upon next christiane as a a lot of times predict an indicator of how

a group is going to act is based on their actions in the past and if you look at what this group has advocated in the past they have pushed for more funding for the wars in iraq and afghanistan and of course here we are ten years later not a clear resolution and not a clear victory trillions and trillions of dollars pumped into this war massive amounts of lives lost on both sides and here we are many wondering if intervening if it was all worth it and certainly one of the many topics that protesters come out to protest against is sort of what is decided on some of that policy regarding intervention and wars and from what i understand was i mean originally next month's summit was not supposed to be where it's going to be which is camp david that's exactly it if you remember not too long ago there was this sudden and abrupt announcement of this change of venue or this of it originally it was supposed to be

held in the city of chicago course president obama's hometown but then all of a sudden the white house announces hey it's not going to be in chicago it's going to be a camp david maryland not too far away from here but this is a site that is kind of tucked away in the woods more secretive more secluded where you know the normal everyday person protesters won't have access to these leaders so there's a lot of speculation as to the reasoning behind this change of venue. a lot of people think it's to avoid these protests there were massive protests planned because you know occupiers wanted to take their messages to this to the doorstep of the g eight which could prove to be quite an embarrassment for president obama to have these protests taking place outside of this especially. you know as campaign season clearly is underway but as we know those protests will undoubtedly happen just won't be quite as close to where the sun is taking place argy correspondent

liz wahl we do appreciate it thank you well there's been an unmistakable shift in the landscape when it comes to the privacy you have when you use the internet there was a time it was becoming more and more difficult to remember where if you look something for something online whether the price of a hotel a new pair of shoes that's where it ended now things are a little different now you'll be barraged with ads for that hotel and many others as for those shoes and others on sale now the internet gods know your interests what you listen to what you download what you post on line is now also no longer for your eyes only but where does it end and how do people feel about not only online marketers but the government watching your every move more harshness with resident dot net posed that question just several people she spoke to in times square new york city.

in the name of national security governments around the globe are trying to pass legislation that allows them to monitor censor and just rapped people online are you ok with that this week let's talk about that for national security reasons i wouldn't object to that bazza but cicada isn't it yeah it should be illegal so you trust them to use that power wisely. i have a think about it i think so yes comparable and you know that does make a difference. maybe if you're in the us or some other place in my field different yeah exactly security reasons privacy also counts so for me it's. accepted we're going to find out regardless anyway so. look at it so you're mine i'm looking through your e-mail i'm not going to find it important so my e-mail but it's your e-mail and it's your life and they don't have any way to look through i agree with you on that. but. it's hard to explain

i guess you know it's just the nature of the world and you have to best have some type of power you know what i mean. we just have to try to elect the right person before you get the chance that's why you have a ballot you know that's where you go out and you vote and vote for somebody who you think you can trust part of it i couldn't stand why they're doing it but i also don't want them to get too much into you know our personal business and yet it's a tough current call it is do you think that's just the way it's going and you know as a society as we move more on line it inevitably on line is going to be not so free yes i do believe that video you think about that when you go online that someone might be watching all the time but more and more hackers and stuff like that so that was my biggest concern not the government. whether or not. if you think it's ok for a government to monitor its citizens the bottom line is before you post anything on line you might want to consider who could be listening.

and of course there's plenty of legislation out there making it more and more difficult to use the internet freely and certainly privately on an international scale there is act out the anti counterfeiting trade agreement that was signed by twenty two out of twenty seven you member states but now they're starting to be some pushback from the european parliament with a whole lot of people having a change of heart of are actually ratifying that we also saw how the online blackouts helped to kill sopa the stop online piracy act and people protect ip act but there's plenty more out there that poses a threat to online privacy and a free internet i want to bring in one hand to internationalize director of the electronic frontier foundation. let's start with with actor and what's going on there do you think first of all this is going to be ratified. that is the key question that is on everyone's mind. it's

a very timely question christine because as you may know the european parliament committee held a important stakeholder orange today to get views of for a variety of stake holders european pallant is going to be asked to ratify the. trade agreement as early as june of the house who pets july and so it's an important time for a variety of stakeholders to get their views and concerns on the record of the package act it would have an citizens' freedom of expression and privacy but twenty two out of twenty seven member states i mean that's a pretty good majority as far as those who signed it the first time around what are some of the concerns that some of these people are now starting to have about actor . so that's a very interesting question three for actively because e.u. law both the individual member states and also the european parliament have to

ratify act or and so the european parliament is going through a process at the moment of getting opinions from its various matriculating and then it will have a plain every vote as early as june and has the latest july on whether to approve or reject the agreement in its entirety and five member states have decided at the moment to put it polls on whether they will sign and ratify actor because of concerns expressed about the ability of act to interfere and impede citizens' fundamental rights of freedom of expression and privacy so there's a number of concerns that we as an organisation in effect have and there were reflected in a number of the comments be heard today from stakeholders such as article nineteen and international act it includes a number of provisions that. they give online service providers really strong incentives to do various actions that can interfere with citizens' rights

there are brought in japan power as an actor and a requirement that that be cooperative measures of. cooperation between high service providers and rights holders and there are provisions in actor for criminal sanctions for aiding and abetting intellectual property infringement all of these things together put internet intermediaries into a position where they're being asked to monitor what their users are doing and potentially the framework better said that. create opens the door for his children unseen such as internet this election of the user to adopt policies from monitoring filtering and blocking of content to let me stop you right there really quick when i use that internet just selection of users so i mean essentially what it seems that you're saying here is first of all part of our seeks to in some ways join with

the government that they have to. you know be available and ready to give information if the government says there is a concern and also to. some other steps the this would take in terms of users if they are suspected of doing some of this activity that was suspect. so well acted does endorsers a framework for pride it has in course meant an intellectual property rights so it's directed specifically at intellectual property investment and it's take it ties in internet service providers to make decisions that we would normally give to a court of law or citizens that with a particular country it is lawful for instance a usually something that we would ask a judge to make after a careful process of review instead what actor does is could steadily ation onto internet intermediaries to make those types of decisions it creates strong incentives start internet service providers to remove content that is controversial

but maybe unlawful to disconnect they use an allegation of copyright infringement from our rights holder and choose filter or monitor their network for potentially cut you're a infringing material in order for the iraqis to avoid liability but all of those things of course have really adverse impacts on citizens ability to engage in freedom of expression on line and their rights of privacy in to process seems to a lot of the language. as well as several other girls that we've seen is sort of written loosely on purpose i would imagine the lines are glory in terms of what they can do so so if there isn't anything specific going in there telling them they can do something that they're going to take advantage of that i want to turn to sopa and pipa these are our words that we haven't heard too recently because they were basically dead on arrival once the general public started realizing what they were going to do there were these online blackouts that really sent the chill that

people spy and once they found out how some of the lawmakers wanted to change the way the internet is used but there are other bills out there talk a little bit i mean do you expect that we will see sort of a soap or two point zero. i think you're right to say that it has been a sea change and just a change of policy makers now know that it isn't going to to accept a backroom deal that regulates the internet whether so print paper a day well that's an interesting question last week there. were quite a comments from. and from the motion picture stay there were negotiations and and discussions. that are underway. in

our. being facilities find compromise and eyes legislation. had intended to bring into play so i would say it's not over yet and internet users should remain vigilant to make sure that the internet is a global resource that we can all use and that any that policymakers propose for hope you're right you. are respectful and make rights of citizens all right certainly it is interesting so so often these things happen in the name of cyber security i would you call it eyes for those problems with one's audiogram him international ip director of the electronic frontier foundation. also ahead on r.t. the international space station could soon join the titanic rotting away on the ocean floor while multinational nation cooperation go down with that story next.

week. but in the alone i still feel that the real headline with none of them are the problem with the mainstream media today is that they're completely disconnected from the viewers and for what actually matters to those viewers and so that's why young people just don't watch t.v. anymore if they want news they go online and read it but we're trying to take those stories that people actually care about and transfer them back to t.v. . what drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to break through get through to be made who can you trust no one. is your view to be able to see where are we heading state controlled capitalism in school. when nobody dares to ask we do our t. question more. r t is the state run english speaking

russian channel it's kind of like. russia today has an extremely confrontational stance when it comes to u.s. . efforts for injure eyes right right i mean it's like i'm to reveal about. it's a food product essentially. it's much stronger than anything you buy a lot of. thousands of times stronger than any one of the four you ever put.

put a picture of the need for those like nine years old she told the truth. i mean to get a sense that i was driving. yesterday . i'm very proud of the role that it's played. all right so there have been some new developments happening on the international space station i've actually got video from just a few weeks ago of the automated transfer vehicle and unmanned cargo spacecraft cargo spacecraft docking to the space station type of. normal stuff three meters.

the a.t.v. three delivered water oxygen food and clothing to the crew and i'm talking about a few souvenirs two hundred twenty pounds of oxygen six hundred twenty eight pounds of water pretty incredible stuff here but alas all good things must come to an end and there are reports out that funding for the international space station will be cut as soon as four years from now and to talk about some of these changing tides in space we were joined earlier by space entrepreneur jeff manber here's his take. we have this belief in america as soon as you build something you should toss it away but i don't really think anyone serious ones that are us this permanent home and space into the ocean it's just too much of a as you say a wonderful example of cooperation be with just starting to use it you talked about opening the doors to commercial mail companies i have a company of

a lot of people in their companies that are doing things on the station so we're just beginning to get the utilization out of the station and there's no finer example of russian american working together than this station and for those reasons alone you just don't toss it away. you know a lot of people say you know this is an embodiment of the achievements of humanity and i want to put a couple pictures up there is a very recent picture of a nighttime photo taken from the i assess of moscow here that is pretty cool picture i think and then we do have another photo of the a.t.v. darkening. just lots of really really interesting stuff but i do want you to talk about the commercial aspect of this from what i understand as i mentioned twenty sixteen the date when commercial contracts for space x. and orbital sciences are scheduled to take over the resupplying of the international space is great the sound it's not so it's all good news ok nasa has determined that in low earth orbit with the space station is we should be more

commercial we don't need the government to design things the developed things and so nasa is a customer and nasa has turned to space x. and orbital sciences and said you know what build your own rockets we won't resign them we'll be a customer and you send cargo and we're hoping that space x. is launching in a few weeks by twenty sixteen they may be launching crew space x. but. space x. is going to start in a few weeks launching cargo and it's a whole new era. that point nasa as a customer and as a customer for stuff that i'm doing on the station with utilization and. research and it's not designing it's not competing against the private sector so this is really a wonderful time so we see it starting immediately and i don't think anyone believes the station is going to come down by two thousand and sixteen i think it's up there for decades and decades because it really is an incredible feat of engineering what about commercial flights for people i mean we've been hearing about this for quite

some time now when does this get off the ground when internet let me check you right we're waiting on virgin galactic so richard branson and keep saying it's coming soon and coming soon and that's a sub orbital but it does here too the space and and waiting and space x. wants the passengers to space and right now the monopoly remains with the russians and so use and just don't know when it's going to happen it's going to it takes a long time only three nations have sent humans to space and their companies are trying to do it and that's a big difference so we have to be patient and we were you know we were talking about this a little bit of yourself what would be an incentive for a company to go to space to set up camp a business where you say your company is that if you can see a return on your investment if you have governments acting as customers companies will go to space in the past the government would design develop operate the way we do anything so we want to go to the moon not only to do something wonderful course

dare i say you can make money if nasa is willing to say it will pay you to put four people or four hundred people in the moon for six months you have companies going so we just have to get into that mindset that you could have capitalism not just in low earth orbit why what kind of companies i mean would you foresee it would bring their business. ok pharmaceutical research growing different process season materials in the we do scrabbling on the moon maybe you set something up on the far side that really can look what scientists i'm sure you can get sciences that are an antibiotic. it's a day to jump on a rocket ship and spend you know five years on the far side of the moon so it's about doing it because it's feels right that's what we do so you're not talking about. going to the moon. if we send all the walmart's to space. i think you are. right i think i do want to play a little game of compare and contrast because i mean you're very optimistic you

don't see the space station ending any time soon but the funding for it and i have seen several tear jerking stories for example about the end of the shuttle program how empty and desolate kennedy space center is these days there is a shift in opinion about the need to shift resources to earth as opposed to sort of the you know back during the space race things have changed so what we're going to say ok so i just wanted to compare and contrast when we talk about what is deemed important in a society today we see a whole lot of money for example i'll say at the pentagon has put almost a trillion dollars towards the f. thirty five the joint. the joint strike fighter that's expected to cost a trillion dollars much more than they anticipated but. why that and not more resources devoted to the not just because. i believe more resources believe nasa has a high enough budget i think eighteen nineteen eighteen billion dollars is enough

and how they spend that money is a different story we've got to get smarter we've got to stop of course overruns if your program is not working right you've got to you've got to have the political will to say you know or maybe this women are ready to do this right now so it's not so much we're not spending enough money on civilian space which is going to get smarter more commercial is what i humbly believe we've got to be more clever and frugal in how we spend that money and if it's not right doesn't work cut it more international cooperation is important you look at working with the russians and. station and how much time and effort and funding that save those so really it's not comparing how much we're spending here in here or can't do that i can only say that nasa is beginning to spend its money more wisely and we've got to get smarter kind of like with every program in this country right now it would work better and benefit more people if the money was spent more wisely put very interesting space

entrepreneur jeffrey manber thank you for being here on the show. and that's going to do it for the news for this hour but be sure to stick around the alone a show is coming up at the top of the hour good news you can't be prosecuted for violating your employer's peer reviewed scholar see that is if you live in the western states covered by the ninth circuit court of appeals so check out all the porn and why all the solitaries you want because the judge says you can't be prosecuted for but your side will cyber rights are secure for now your job might not be totally secure with all that computer freedom i'm not saying you won't be fired for this ruling go all the way to the supreme court tonight alone or tell you all about the government's latest overreach and how it applies to the case against bradley manning that's all new coming up the half hour and for us here on the news side that's going to do it but for more on the stories we covered go to youtube dot com slash r.t. america you can also check out our web site r t dot com slash usa.