tonight on r t the federal aviation administration is making it easier for public agencies to get their hands on drone technology from college campuses to local law enforcement we'll tell you where they might be and when you can expect them. and there's been a security breach one blogger took it upon himself to prove the t.s.a. mind on be up to par when it comes to protecting the flying public and he's taking his findings to capitol hill so why are we wasting so much money for so-called naked body scanners when they reveal nothing we'll explore. plus ever wonder if there's a covert propaganda in the books you read the websites you surf or the television channels you watch the two congressmen are pushing for overt u.s. propaganda with

a new amendment to the latest defense authorization bill we'll tell you why rosie the riveter might have some competition in the near future. well good evening it's tuesday may twenty second eight pm in washington d.c. i'm christine you're watching r t. well there are some changes afoot in terms of the way we live life in the united states and most likely won't be before long that you might be walking down the street or in your backyard and you look up in the sky and you'll say it's a bird it's a plane no it's a drone hard to say when and where this will start of but when we look back to where it actually started you can follow parts of the paper trail you go back to february when congress passed a bill requiring the federal aviation administration to open up national airspace to civil and commercial aircraft by twenty fifteen the bill gives funding to the

f.a.a. and assigns the f.a.a. the task of coming up with the plans to make this all happen and then just last week the f.a.a. announced a new set of rules essentially they're saying they want to make it easier and faster for these government entities to obtain a certificate of authorization for drones and i'll read you one line from the f.a.a. web site it says if the f.a.a. disapproves a c.e.o. way the agency will quickly address questions from the applicant and try to provide alternative solutions that will lead to approval so the bottom line is that drones are here to stay but what will they be used for and to what extent will privacy be taken into consideration when some of the local governments sign up for permission to use their drones jefferson morley is a staff writer for salon dot com and also the author of the book snow storm in august he joined me earlier talked about the purpose behind these government surveillance drones take a look. first of all what we're talking about what the f.a.a.

is doing is opening up the airspace to drones of all sorts and public safety agencies get first. or are going to be the first in line to get permission they can fly aircraft up to twenty five pounds. when you talk to law enforcement people what they say they plan to use this. technology for is search and rescue missions and. watching fires. searching for missing people. that kind of thing so they i've talked to a lot of police departments and they pretty much all disavow any intention to use you know use these as a surveillance drones but they certainly have that capacity and the law as it now stands is a little unclear on what the privacy grounds are so you talk about a worst case scenario some police departments have asked for. permission to have weaponized drones i think that's a bad idea and worst case scenario and they can be used for they can be used for

surveillance depending on as soon as somebody wants to do that so we need a lot more protection to be written into the wall right yeah i think a lot of it is just very vague right now and certainly there are situations in which some drones are good you know a lot of people think of drones and they think of you know the these unmanned aerial vehicles that kill people in pakistan but certainly there are some that help out in the time of fire they can detect heat they can detect you know signs of life but one of the things that is really interesting to me jefferson is some of these drones are actually you know the smaller ones at least they're less than four and a half pounds do you think people understand that that drones i mean the vast majority of the american public to think they understand that a lot of these are these drones are going to be very small the size of some birds yeah i mean i think people are beginning to weigh. to this technology and it's a it's a disruptive transformative technology like you know like

a web browser or like a g.p.s. so you know what they're going to be used for at what kind of public civil commercial applications they made him i think there might be a lot of great applications that nobody's even thought of yet so i don't discount the upside of this technology it's not all it's not all big problem but because industry is driving this thing the government is behind the laws not caught up with this that's where we have the potential problems and i should mention the electronic frontier foundation the f.-f. did some digging and found out there's a whole long list of agencies that have already been approved to use unmanned aerial vehicles now we talked about on this show a little bit about how you know a lot of colleges are adding drone technology to their curriculum but i do want to be ok i had the expectation i think the reason the universities are doing this when you ask them they say they see this as a it is

a job growth area and that they want to prepare young people for jobs that are going to be opening up in this industry so. that universities are among the early adopters here yeah and leaving according to the f.a.a. by twenty twentieth's less than ten years from now they predict as many as thirty thousand drones will be in use in the united states but i do want to quote we were talking about some of these colleges and universities i do want to put a map up showing the sites the f.a.a. acknowledges as a domestic drone authorizations the agency confirmed there are about three hundred active c.e.o. ways and that it's issued between seven hundred seven hundred fifty authorizations a few of the schools include texas a and m. the university of colorado university of connecticut and then there's also some other entities the department of energy in idaho the miami dade police department of the city of harrington kansas. so there. we just wanted to kind of you know show people this is going on all around this country but don't you think jefferson

a lot of people are going to you know sort of start to wondering when we start to wonder what's happening in their skies. yeah and they are and i think the industry needs to and government need to address this you know you mentioned some police departments there's eighteen thousand police departments in the united states only about three hundred of them have helicopters right now until a cop is a very expensive da parade so a lot of these police departments are going to be able to obtain an aerial capacity for surveillance for search and rescue at a much lower cost so i think especially in the area of public safety we're going to see you know growth and people do need assurances that that there is that there's going to be safety and and privacy are going to be taken into account it's really come it's coming very quickly and those i don't think those concerns have been adequately addressed so far well and what i'm wondering is just sort of about this rush i mean as soon as this year agencies working in the public in the government

public safety realm are going to be approved as long as they follow the rules they're going to they have to be a prevent have to be given permission at least to use some of these smaller drones the one that we that we talked about here i don't i don't i think it's appropriate that public safety agencies you know go first i think that the usefulness of drones and search and rescues is obvious in hostage situations so. law enforcement needs to i think you know obtain these and experiment with them and see that they're used responsibly that's no i don't think anybody would would we would criticize that and by the question is you know how transparent are these police agencies going to be what kind of what kind of rules will govern information collected by drones you know the united states among a lot of countries has weak relatively weak privacy laws at the national level certainly as compared. europe and that's one of the problems of the drones is we

need stronger protection of people's privacy drones and all sorts of other information and i think that some of the you know officials at a more local level or are starting to acknowledge this. i mean one situation in which you know we thought it was a jury's going to see and we saw it in seattle as well and you were talking a little bit about this you know because in some cases the you know the city council has to approve this and so they're asking questions and they're saying you know how do we ensure that this won't infringe on people's privacy and i think that's a positive step you know i think that congress may not be responsive on this issue congress didn't hold hearings on privacy you know before or safety before they before they rush there's a big rush this order to the f.a.a. so i think it's good that it seattle and other cities are taking it up and saying well you know we'll decide well controlled we don't we're not going to wait for the f.a.a. to act we're going to set up some some very clear rules at home and i think you know if that happens then i think law enforcement will have the trust of the public

and people will be less worried about the privacy things but you know law enforcement needs to win the trust of the public in order to be able to deploy this new technology yes certainly a lot of these laws are at the you know federal level made right down the street from our studios that they're just so vague and it seems like that is happening intentionally so you got to ask these questions jefferson morley staff writer for salon and author of the book snow storm in august appreciate having you on the show well there's a new study out by the department of homeland security that finds the transportation security administration is not doing such a good job at tracking or reporting its findings and even when it knows about airport security breaches it's oftentimes not fixing them a few things that happened including at least one person getting through their t.s.a. screening with a knife i also want to put up video of another incident. they bought a sewing kit from the dollar store broke out my eighth grade home ec skills and soda pocket directly on the side of a shirt then i took

a random metallic object in this case a heavy metal carrying case. that would be easy to alarm any of the old metal detectors and walk through backscatter x. ray at fort lauderdale hollywood international airport and video of course well not about to win any videography awards for my hidden camera footage you can watch as i walk through the security line with the metal object to my new side pocket my camera gets placed on the conveyor belt and goes through its own x. ray and when it comes out i'm through and the object never left my pocket and that was jonathan corbett president of for ten technologies well today jonathan presented some of his other findings on the t.s.a. to congress and join us a little earlier to talk more about what he shared with them sure so the congress today presented actually a little more detail than than we saw in that you tube video there are several exploits that myself and others have identified these body scanners and the one of the video is just a nice one because it's so easy to do it doesn't really take anything and it's effective for objects large enough to be

a firearm or or even larger than. a percent of those details to congress so that they can kind of demand some accountability from the t.s.a. and you seem to be somebody that congress wouldn't want to be associated with somebody that's sort of testing the government were you surprised when they invited you to sort of share what you had learned with em. you know. i can understand having having that kind of point of view but that congress. is a little more accountable to its constituents the congress needs to. actually make sure that what they're doing is what their constituents want is what's going to keep us safe the t.s.a. right now has very little accountability but the courts are having a hard time keeping them accountable congress is having a hard time keeping them accountable they they've been stuck in between actually several people in congress at this point in the airports so it's getting that leverage. the t.s.a.

for accountability purposes that that we're after and i'm going to use some of the words that you used you called the nude body scanner program quote nothing more than a giant fraud i know that you're also the first person to sue the t.s.a. for those body scanners talk to me a little bit about your biggest complaint. my biggest complaint there are lots of complaints i guess forefront is the privacy issue and that the government is essentially demanding a digital strip search to head to the airports nowadays but that's what it is no more no less these devices can take pretty graphic pictures of you without your clothes the same applies to the pat downs which require that done properly them to touch your genitals. this is pretty extreme. and is being directed at the general public this is not just people who have made some kind of list or have failed initial screening least these are methods now used for primary screening and

just to be clear you're obviously not arguing for no security at the airport you're kind of are are totally fine and think that those good old fashioned metal detectors do the job just fine. correct they do job better than these metal detectors don't have blind spots like bodies going as are so if you think. an imaging device is essentially a pair of eyes so if you. know from driving for example that there are blind spots that there are things that you can't see these imaging devices have the same issues standard good old fashioned magnetometers don't have those issues well let me ask you then i mean this naked body scanner program that's now in most of the major airports around this country this was extremely expensive so you know if what you say is correct if the metals hackers work just as well or better why would it be that the government would spend so much money implementing these new machines

putting in place this new technology training people for it if it doesn't actually work as well. but that's what i got to call in fraud you know where exactly the frog ladies who just did the t.s.a. know exactly how ineffective these machines were when they bought them. i'm not sure. it's been brought up is that if you follow the money it does seem to take a pretty suspicious path with this question how companies that make it to companies that make the body scanners that are that are currently be purchased by the t.s.a. one of them is associated with the former. chair person and the other is is the same parent company the pros agree about that this purity contracting in iraq so these these are these are companies that have deep ties in washington already so you're sort of suggesting that this is sort of a favors to friends in terms of i'll buy your product if it's going to you know give you money and we'll use it in our airports. it's certainly possible you know

and when you see in. a. minute or so far. you kind of look for why that happened. and that's one plausible explanation let's sort of talk a bigger picture here it's really interesting to me jonathan this is not a left issue or right issue being angry at the t.s.a. often you find just as many democrats as republicans up in arms about it certainly when congressman presidential candidate ron paul speaks about it about eliminating the t.s.a. gets a big reaction but why do you think it is that this is not you know an issue on either side that this is sort of an all encompassing issue that people have really rallied around. you know it isn't it really should be and sometimes it doesn't necessarily seem like it just because the party that's an office their party kind of are always around the middle of it. but you know this is a problem that's going through both sides of the aisle here the problem is an

affront to our civil liberties and that's that's not an issue that it's partisan no one wants to be strip searched by the government and what doesn't doesn't matter if you haven't are. any indication jonathan because this is sort of something that you're at the forefront of any indication that congress or those people in power are going to actually do something about your findings and some of the other research that's been done by the department of homeland security. on the t.s.a. or did they just sort of want to appease you and listen what you had to say and sort of send you on your way. you know it's slow but it's moving we. have a say in the if the t.s.a. protests community that it's one group at a time. it's people from people that you know assume that they're working for a safety into people that they question why they even the. just. as i mentioned earlier the fact congress in airports there was one the other day of the day that

was accused of assault before the t.s.a. first realize that you is. but that house of representatives for pushing is so one rope at a time the t.s.a. is slowing alienating the american people and that includes condors right jonathan corbett president of for ten technologies good to have you on the show. let's talk now about propaganda programmed by governments to manipulate people's thoughts and opinions right now the use of propaganda by the u.s. government is only allowed when it's used in other countries the pentagon actually spends about four billion dollars a year to sway public opinion in places like iraq and afghanistan evidence that it can be a lucrative weapon when fighting a war especially one part of that war is an information war well now the u.s. government wants to be able to use propaganda on its own people this provision is very deep within the six hundred forty two billion dollar defense bill and would give the government overarching power to push television radio print and social

media onto the u.s. public but why well i'm joined now by lucy steigerwald associate editor for reason magazine and lucy we should mention this is actually a bipartisan effort this is texas republican max thornberry washington democrat adam smith who who put this together why on earth should the government be able to use propaganda well i mean every every awful piece of legislation is invariably bipartisan disappointing because smith is the one who also helped congressman amash try to stop indefinite detainment which is also the awful part of the n.d.a. . i mean propaganda you know government is like anything else they're trying to tell us what a good job they're doing and you know it works to some extent well i mean to what extent though because if it's the pentagon and spending four billion dollars a year just on you know their propaganda effort if it hasn't you know captured the

hearts and minds of people in afghanistan because that's not what i usually hear is going on in those countries that we've invaded where is this propaganda that we spend so much money on working. that's a good question i mean abroad in places where the u.s. actually came in with an army i mean that's going to say that's going to be more compelling mere words or posters or anything like that if you see troops in your home you know that's going to be more convincing i would i mean i would think at least unless they're bringing you cookies or even cookies. you know the bill supporters say a couple of things say that this is needed for a few reasons that one of the reasons is that the material is just too good the material that's being used about it is just you know we see good not to be used here. they're also saying they're saying that new techniques are needed to help fight al qaeda which is as we all know

a borderless enemy whose own propaganda reaches americans talk a little bit about these reasons given for why this is a good thing well i mean first i don't think this is a good thing but sort of to be devil's advocate and to refer to some other opinions on this that i've read some people might say that the u.s. should get a taste of what is happening in other countries so sort of a way to bring wars home and bring home what u.s. policy is doing to other people and maybe if we saw it we might but we're just going about letting you know iraqi propaganda and here we're talking about u.s. propaganda on u.s. citizens. well why do you think it's bad i guess let's get to the bottom of it well i mean fundamentally i mean propaganda from government it's you're being sold a product that you were forced to buy already. and you know you and i are paying

for it and it doesn't matter if we object to all of it or some of it it's just it's sort of adding insult to injury and in the past it has worked i mean the u.s. we have our first amendment and all but it has a history. of of active propaganda from government and most blatantly world war one i mean they had the office of censorship it was they didn't chill anything world war two same restrictions i mean it's better now but you still have the office of drug control policy you still have you know it's there's propaganda now still and during iraq in the lead up to that there was. there was you know a much more subtle type of propaganda and you maybe it's better even to have posters that say fight the han you know just very like the kitschy propaganda then

to have you know state department people on fake social networking and some of the controversies it's been a while but with iraq and journalists selling the bush line i mean the weapons of mass destruction i guess that to an extent was propaganda because it wasn't real and it was a message that they wanted to get people on board with and it was more underhand it was it was more hard to spot than you know i mean i guess it's like the thing that people are more sophisticated now than they were when the you know the belgian babies on the band type thing but. i don't know i mean well it's tough to because we have citizens united the citizens united says that corporations have the same right to speak and spend money on the same thing that people do it's hard to say that the government shouldn't have those rights to based on the fact that that's now the law of land according to the supreme court so you know i see that argument in terms of what is law whether we like it or not but let's talk more

broadly lucy about what's in these defense authorization bill as i mean this was put in there along with you know more indefinite detention along with a prohibition of gay marriage and military installations a lot of stuff when you have a bill that this thick are lawmakers seemed to put in a lot of stuff in there. they just trying to get a pass like pull a fast one on the americans. yes i mean i have talked to people who work in offices but you know off the record type thing but this urban myth like like people aren't reading bills i mean and that at its core we believe out on the bells they don't they don't know what's i mean they don't know what's in them and there are these tiny debates like. if you heard about the trust us bill that was a recent controversy and there are you know these minor word changes and there's more with indefinite details go back to the. you know there was the question can

americans be detained or not and fundamentally like if that's a question if people who are even voting on it and deciding on it don't even know i mean that's fundamentally a problem in itself even however even if they would have read the bill it's kind of vague in the bill that's another kind of sure yeah i think that's use is using as vague language as possible. well really interesting stuff. we think it's important to bring this out here and to talk about it and make sure at least people know that this is what their tax payer dollars are going to and to be aware for the billboards and the you know facebook ads popping up they could be encouraging people to support their government very interesting list associate editor for reason magazine thanks so much you well there's a trend in this country and it's hard to say where it all started but it's getting worse and has to do with the kind of speech powerful people use to communicate their message take a look are enemies are going to be even resourceful and so are we they

never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and the people. and either do we let insight into russian actions because in the last couple of weeks just because the proximity of the state give you there are next door neighbors and you can actually see from the land it was not always a given that the united states of america would have a close relationship going to a kid's soccer game on saturday entrenched encouragement in a team of mavericks would just get the job done and we're tired of the old politics as usual. but haven't been. doing. well it turns out it's not just presidents or presidential candidates saying silly and often incorrect things members of congress are following suit working hard to sound more and more like the man or woman you want to have a beer with or run into at the piggly wiggly. and my dear friend the chairman of the democratic national committee with. god we need to

let them go to florida. on the table here's the big issue the president doesn't want to have to be confronted with priorities and spending because he has a lot of chutzpah bollock your passes that free is yours card this in people's pockets is going to be as worthless as a confederate dollar after the war between the states the great war yankee aggression. now according to a new report out by the sunlight foundation there's actually a correlation the more conservative the member of congress the lower grade level they tend to use when they speak now the study utilize the widely used flesh can test to score the speech level of lawmakers based on their congressional records and of the lowest scoring members of congress the bottom twenty were very conservative republicans we can put a list up of the top ten we have on here are senator rand paul representative sean

duffy. you know senator ron johnson and tom graves you know some of the more conservative people in congress and their speech levels in some cases of middle schoolers and i should say in some cases the same was true for lawmakers on the opposite side of the political spectrum or progressive democrats also tend to speak at a lower grade grade level and overall but the congress of today speaks today at about a ten point six grade level that's down from eleven point five in two thousand and five so what is up with this dumbing down well we are in the age of cable networks and pundits who use quick catchy phrases you may have noticed a long winded intelligent orations rarely make it onto our airwaves the shorter the sweeter the sound bite the better chance it has of being played over and over on c.n.n. but considering that the us constitution is written at a seventeen point eight grade level and the declaration of independence at a fifteen point one grade level which is not for

a moment and ask ourselves do i want to vote for a lawmaker who talks like i would or would i rather vote for somebody who is articulate well read and has a deep sense of history and judging by what we've seen so far this election year with moderate republicans being pushed off the ballot in their state or district primaries as punishment for being willing to work with democrats or the president it may not be long before the tenth grade level of speech dips down into ninth or even eighth grade if we're not careful. not going to do it for now but for more on the stories we covered go to r.t. dot com slash usa or youtube dot com last r.t. america. r t is the state run english speaking russian channel it's kind of like al-jazeera.