tonight on r t with all the acronyms coming out of congress these days from so. many vince's. freedom seems to be exchanging one blow after another but fear not one man has a plan to protect your online privacy and it may be a lot easier than you think. the current administration wants to keep those options but you don't want to leave. your torture because it was in producing. and in the past americans have rigorously hunted down and punish people who use torture so now that the shoe is on the other foot it seems the justice department is willing to let a few of those cases fall through the cracks like all but two so what's with the

double standards the explore. the occupy wall street movement is splitting along ideological lines on one side the so-called diehard occupiers the other people who believe the left is trying to co-opt the protests so is there a battle for the soul of the occupy movement. if it's tuesday april seventeenth seven pm in washington d.c. i'm liz wall and you're watching r t. well an internet provider that puts your privacy purse fell like a dream will sell on lots to make it a reality his name is nicholas merrill and he's aiming to build a telecommunications company that shield customers from surveillance and he even wants to take it a step further and challenge the government if they ask prayer and permission he

ran a new york based internet provider and everything that went down behind the scenes so he is well aware of how easily your personal information is out for grabs and he joins us now to tell us more about this like also tell us a little bit more about your idea. the essence of the idea is i'm trying to redesign the till he reaches industry works and what i want to do is change that basic paradigm and one where it's completely transparent to one where it's more. by using a technique called encryption to basically scramble the user's data and essentially return the ownership of the data to the individual so that the telecommunications provider doesn't have constituted visibility into what people are doing on the internet and what people are saying on the telephone and what inspired you to come up with this idea. well basically. i got the inspiration from

an experience that i had when i ran an internet provider in new york city. and what happened was i was approached by the authorities and. they tried to force me to preside at a lot of data about one of the customers of my company. instead of the usual. way that's done which is by going through the court system and they used a technique from the usa patriot act. and it's known as a national security letter. and basically what that means is in a way if there were these now and since two thousand and one sort of most part have the ability to sort of write their own warrants without showing probable cause and therefore now you have ran a telecommunications company and so you know exactly what happens behind the scenes

how widespread of a problem is that that people's information is given out. and you know if you look at the if you sort of take a step back and look at the greater picture it's there's there's problems with governments which is kind of ballooned in the post nine eleven era and there are also other issues with telecommunications providers and online service providers data mining the activities of people online and there is basically a huge market for the data which is compiles on the activities of people online so . there's something about it is that it's mostly invisible to the user you don't you don't really notice it happening but it's actually an incredibly widespread practice and some people think that it's really out of control. and i would say

that me that was going to my next question based on your experience and seeing how just how much information is requests that. has gotten out of hand. i mean obviously that's a matter of opinion. in my opinion it has. you know and things are worse in some countries and better in some other countries if you look at countries like china where they have these so-called great firewall and everything that's done is watched at all times you know it's sort of like the extreme what we've got in america right now is something you know much less creative. but at the same time it's still upset when you realize a lot of this surveillance is in violation of the constitution in there and you know people that i know sometimes have their feeling this type of.

consistent violation of the principles upon which the country was founded can tend to sort of rot the underpinnings of the rule of law from the inside out and that you know itself is a very exciting prospect. now you have this vision of creating a telecommunications company and which because the rest are it's all kind of a back happy guy so. it's it's been incredible there's been a huge surge of activity on social media particularly on twitter. and on some other sites such as freddie. there are literally been you know thousands and thousands of people writing me e-mails and donating money through a. just fund raising website on which i've started a campaign. basically within

a day i raised nearly fifty thousand dollars was practically overnight much of it in very small donations like in the five to ten dollars range. but what's so exciting about it to me is that it demonstrates in a very concrete and. calculable way that there is a market for privacy services a very strong market that i think is being driven by the knowledge of the deterioration of our of our privacy in this modern world where it's largely surveillance awhile and it certainly seems like there are a lot of interests and that's like us how close are you to starting this this this project but the biggest missing hurdle at this point is simply a matter of funding and it's things continue with my summer is in progress the way

it's been going. and you know things are looking very well i could just use more support. you know and it's not even so much a matter of the number of dollars of people here but it's a matter demonstrating that there is a market for privacy there that i'm really excited about so i mean in theory if i could get enough money if someone gave me all the money that i need which would be you know a couple of million dollars. i could have it up and running i think this year ok so let's say you get about a year able to launch this company and put your customers privacy first i just want to ask you how realistic it's a great idea about how realistic is that i mean especially let's say the f.b.i. or the government demands that information that. have to fight back and not disclose this information if it's demand that. i think it's perfectly realistic i mean number one i thought back before. you can get information when the

request was in. compliance with the markup so that i'm not i'm not worried that doubts whether that's possible or not that i've got experience with. and whether or not it's able it's possible to build a service that works the way that i'm talking about i think is absolutely within the realm of possibility and start basically all the tools but you need to perform this type of encryption exist and now it's simply a matter of redesigning the way the telecommunications system works to use you know encryption technology and security technology to the maximum amount possible so really all i need a facility is all the servers and machines and i need some money for stuff. and then really on the road that's all the chips i clearly

a lot of interest on that and people are probably watching saying that i want to have this as my internet provider is that something that you could do affordable radio thing. absolutely. you know part of the reason why i want to do this as a nonprofit organization is because i'm not really looking to get rich with this. and looking to change the way communication system works and i'm looking to try to transform the children indications industry and pull it in a positive direction by showing by demonstrating things in a concrete way that there is a market demand for more privacy. great idea and wants to put your privacy apart that was nicholas merrill executive director of the talents and can't thank you. but we turn now to the issue of using torture on terror suspects waterboarding and

stress positions just two techniques used by the u.s. against those accused of having ties to terrorism now a secret memo has been leaked which brands them war crimes and the bush administration has warned against their use it also sheds light on the birth of the bush administration's torture policy and as our team marina pore and i reports many feel president obama isn't doing enough to make up for america's past mistakes. america's so-called war on terror produced images and accounts that ignited a world of questions about torture and the u.s. treatment of suspects american people need to know or using techniques within the law. two years after george w. bush left the white house let's talk about waterboarding the former commander in chief admitted his stamp of approval for the use of interrogation techniques like waterboarding humane and illegal under u.s. law and the geneva conventions well as waterboarding legal in your opinion this is

a lawyer said it was legal so they saw within the. courtroom. and let you go first it says that the theater where you had the bush administration also chose to disregard the judgment of a top adviser who warned that the cia's interrogation of terror suspects people needed to felony war crimes according to a secret memo obtained by wired magazine in two thousand and six state department councilor philip zelikow warned the white house that controversial interrogation techniques such as waterboarding stress positions and cramped confinement are prohibited under u.s. law and under american law there is no precedent for excusing treatment that is intrinsically cruel even if the state asserts compelling need to use it i think there needs to be an accounting in the united states of what was going on over the last eight years and name of america there is a crest of the second world. united states actually executed japanese soldiers who

had. used torture. against american prisons they took action against the japanese when the u.s. has been on record as opposing. other countries so there is a clear legal case to say that you know action must be taken we're still evaluating two weeks before taking office u.s. president barack obama steered clear of side. america's historic commitments to international justice obviously we're only looking at past practices. and i don't believe that anybody has put the law on the other hand i also have a belief that we need to work for as long as possible or looking backwards last june obama's u.s. justice department dropped ninety nine out of one hundred one cases against cia interrogators over the use of torture i'm afraid the current ministration wants to keep those options open they don't want to label these techniques just as crying

pure torture because that would prohibit them from using them why we. shouldn't however slightly grade a lead and so be optional applied nice techniques once again that is what is threatening your scholars attorneys and human rights experts around the world have called for the prosecution of senior bush administration officials who designed in order torture tactics however critics say the unspoken agreement within countries proclaiming to pioneer democracy is to never turn on europe because. the west we you know we make great claim about our great and what christian is but there is a kind of stitch up between the elite hockey that they will not press charges and they will not take legal action against crimes of previous administrations through the use of torture rendition and secret prisons america's moral position around the world has on doubted these shifted and all the us will likely continue barking the

beacons of freedom and democracy critics say the more important question to ask is who is even listening anymore. artsy new york. and i really are spoke to david swanson campaigner for its action about the case of john kerry who is a former cia official accused of leaking classified information to the media and i ask a vet if he thought the case was about politics or justice. certainly the former is the one being charged the person being charged under the obama administration under the espionage act but he's not even accused of having so i am sure the nation having such a tiny so-called enemy is being accused of blowing the whistle on the crime of torture and so he is being prosecuted for something which you don't resemble the original purpose of the espionage act seventeen which was to prosecute any one of those in a war or discouraging recruitment anytime you kill the truth about u.s.

foreign policy borders urging recruits from the u.s. military but that's not how they talk about it they talk about it as if he has endangered national security and yet this is someone who's gone in words since these events for a senate foreign relations committee and there's no suggestion that there's been any bain's or there that he's a traitor to the nation it's all about finding a technicality on which to prosecute someone who has spoken out against a crime that they are but i want to play a part of an interview that he did with journalist david leopold of truth out here he is talking about the case of a detainee by the name of abu zubaida and what he discovered cia officials did it to this suspect this is what they say they needed to do to extract what they call it actionable intelligence take a look my view now is that we know it was eighty three times if you have to

waterboard somebody eighty three times to collect the information even if the information is correct and so actionable it was the wrong thing to do. so this man he was water boarded as we just saw eighty three times that we would have learned about this had it not been for whistleblowers leg john kerry acos out and this case does the end justify the means. well of course not we're talking about torture and the new york times called it a self but station that excuses that waterboarding is torture the united states has prosecuted this semester and at the end of past wars and this is something that we were first told about by mr heriot and then we later learned he learned early documents that it was a read on but there is no evidence that any useful information was gained from torturing data who still remains a lot in a new u.s.

prison with no rights there is no evidence that there's a tradeoff here that the torture means that the information that gained without it torture and so we have to make the calculation you know if this is all negative it was the united states outside of the rule of law lawyers are reports of your reputation around the world and it encourages water by other countries which are following the us examples one enormously. now others david would say that when you work for the n.s.a. or you work for the cia you're dealing with a very classified information and with that when you become when you become employed by these agencies you've taken an oath not to disclose government secrets and the just apartment says that he broke its promise what do you say to that. r.c. there's a higher oath to uphold the constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic there is an obligation to report on crimes when you are aware of bellamy's you are

legally required to make that information goes there is an understanding in military law that you must use illegal orders and they are not going after people who leak information in a manner they are going to blow the whistle on crimes number six then there is a resemblance here manning or resemblance it's almost three they are blowing through whistleblowers which is exactly what ended they are obama promised not to do now the man that blew the whistle and also or he is the man that exposing the torture and practices that happen under being bush administration these practices he calls them illegal a man by the name of philip zelikow of the save department made bizarre made this argument and i want to pull the quote from wired magazine that was published and the story says that alex how argued that made today the convention applied to al

qaeda position either the justice justice department nor the white house shared at the time and so this is kind of something that is central to this whole argument is there a distinction between treatment of prisoners and terrorist suspects. well there shouldn't be. down here at the university of virginia and i feel a little bit better out here since this memo has come out a little bit least without the me the whistleblower at least the right thing internally if that's something but this was a maneuver by the bush administration there was an attempt to get outside of us wrong and to get outside of the laws of war and is was that law why there was no middle ground there was no category of people locked up. outside of the geneva conventions or for your friends that you. went

so far as to go back to the constitution and say that the eighth amendment an unusual punishment was essential here it needed to be a fraud that is very much to his credit you are going one step further like mr theriot and blowing the whistle. and they've added there is still a lot of americans that support the use of torture here is a sound bite from dick cheney on this very subject take a lesson. in your view we should still be using enhanced interrogation session should we still be broader boarding terror suspects i would strongly support using it again if circumstances arose for we had a high value detainee why was getting the people call it torture using contrib still be a tool to. get past the question that he would ask and

a lot of people like minded people would ask if torturing a prisoner could prevent the next nine eleven would you be in support of that it would lead to and permission that could prevent something like that from happening would you that before it. rate but it's a bizarre question because there is no scenario where there is possible there's no instance where you can reasonably predict that there is any chance that torture will prevent such a thing there is no way of knowing that someone will give you accurate information under torture and dick cheney is not a news analyst here cheney is one of the top torturers to ask you know rate is that you think rape should be legal or not did cheney and the rest of which top sorcerers are not being processed anywhere on what forms that upon trial and to ask them what they will bring the matter is is the journalism profession.

to take seriously their intention that there is this whole scenario in which torture is going to save us after these years and years of evidence that they are cherry is outrageous that they have a pleasure to have you on the show as a way of that with they have it's once and campaigner for every faction. well as the weather warms up occupiers are aiming to revive the movement but there are signs that a civil war is growing with any occupy wall street movement with our innovations like move on or jumping on in some say the establishment leftist trying to co-opt the movement to get president obama reelected to talk more about the future of the movement i was here and i guess i greca and activists and writer and coasts i first asked them about the concerns over a possible establishment left takeover of occupy here says harris take. you know it really doesn't bother me that much because the way i look at it is if

we're going to set their core selves the ninety nine percent it kind of doesn't make sense to exclude about sixty million obama voters and really look at it from this perspective to me activism is like a tackling dummy you know one guy hits one side the other guy hits the other and you push forward together so some people are more focused on electoral activism by all means go ahead and do so exactly i mean wouldn't that be a lot that mark people are coming onboard and supporting a movement oh absolutely in order to grow movement that really speaks for the concerns of working class people we should be inviting everybody in to me the opposite seems like just absurdity to say like oh no if you were in a real you know version logical you're not part of the team this is for everybody we should open our arms to anybody who shares the same ideas we do can you do that and it did there are thousands skeptics i guess about this party people that are now jumping on board can you define what would characterize that and what would characterize the true occupiers. well i think people may be grabbed on to

certain language because it became popular became pretty obvious we are the ninety nine percent versus an oligarchic one percent that you know basically avoids reality but at the same time to me it speaks of the popular vote there was any religious leaders were going to news asians like move on dot org are using our language that means we're winning that's good is so you know it doesn't really concern me that much about splitting up who gets the credit for coming up with what terms or what organization it won't do i don't see david koch and rupert murdoch fighting about who's co-opting who's side of the movement i don't think we should do the same speaking for public and some compare that to the republican establishment than a fitting and taking over that tea party what do you make of that comparison. well when people talk about philosophy they're not totally out of reality there is a great potential to take a message that's beneficial and numb it down to something that's corporate friendly but the difference was that the tea party was demanding that the republican party

be more extreme the more beholden to corporate world whereas on my wall street organizations on the left are doing something that the democratic party kind of doesn't want to do they don't want to stand up for reasonable tax rates on the rich they don't want to slow down the corporate consumption of basically over civil rights so if anything were coming out of the other way i don't think it makes sense to compare the two because we're demanding that obama do more to protect working class people where's the tea parties demanding that we you know fight back against the game osome educating women who are demanding you know we should have to fight in america or whatever they're worried about already just begin to switch gears a little that i know there is some controversy now over occupiers sleeping on sidewalks that they were kicked out of that kind of heart but now police want to evict them from sidewalks but you know about that. i actually have a bunch of friends who have been staying down town later in night and basically here's how we're actually looking at it and well sorry to interrupt you there of this happening. we have a little saying with an occupy wall street which is that it gets confusing when the

law changes every day we were initially informed that we were within our rights to sleep on the streets as long as we didn't block traffic then the police decided to act a lot different way we currently have norman siegel a noted civil rights attorney who's looking into our rights and to be honest i look at the freedom assembly as a definite i shouldn't have to ask where it applies i keep a constitution my pocket because that is my permit and if anything i was trying to strikingly absurd that would all the problems in new york city mayor bloomberg lead the n.y.p.d. to focus on this a triviality among many other larger issues look like occupiers are going to try to fight back where they can the death and now that you are one of many that are hoping to revive this movement spring and what do you hope to accomplish that spread that wasn't accomplished already. well there's so much work to do i mean the bankers have gone back into their systematic exploitation of everybody they refused

to lend they've got tons of money spent on little campaigns but they can't be bothered to pay any higher taxes at all to me the entire purpose is to push the conversation forward to demand a change of laws to benefit people whether it's bringing backlist eagle overturning citizens united this is where the electoral side comes in because we can march all we want to at some point we will like peace and we're going to change the laws in a way that benefits people and i think there's a world of work to do and i'm glad to be started back again does the thank you very much for coming on the show that was just a leg wrecker and activist and writer at the daily kos well nasa shuttle they've have officially ended the discovery shuttle made its final flight today on the back of a modify seven forty seven jet traveling to its new home at the air and space museum in washington d.c. here you can see the shuttle flying over the nation's capital spectators gathered in florida virginia maryland and right here in d.c. all in the hopes of catching a glimpse of this historic event and they were not left disappointed when i made

a few passes by the national mall before landing in gentilly virginia this veteran space shuttle was built in one nine hundred eighty four and is the program's oldest orbiter traveled to the outer reaches of space a total of thirty nine times slower tiring from the fleet now for many this was a bittersweet moment a reminder of the excitement associated with america's space program. and while the fate of the shuttle is uncertain the future of nasa is still very much uncertain in recent years both the political will and federal funding for america's state program have ling and and now for the first time ever china has launched more rocket orbit and the u.s. in two thousand love in two thousand and eleven sending nineteen rockets into space the u.s. sent just eighteen and russia launched over thirty one rockets and now private companies are taking over the air space space.