at n r t your best friend might know all of your dirty secrets but certainly aren't the only ones the d.o.j. also has access to all of them from e-mails to phone records and social media will tell you how an old fashioned law is a threat to your privacy and the david digital age. it's being called a modern day civil war labor unions taking on their tough talking governor dean minus two hours until the polls in wisconsin close for a historical recall election and we find out of scott walker gets to keep his job so what's a a dispute in the dairyland saying about polarization year in the u.s. . and while wisconsin residents head to the polls many in florida are afraid they

won't be able to vote in november that's because governor rick scott and his republican administration is trying to purge the vote affectively knocking american citizens off the less we'll tell you all about what's being called voter suppression. it's tuesday june fifth seven pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wahl and you're watching our team. well how do you feel about the government being able to get ahold of mass amounts of information about you in complete secrecy while it happens and a law from decades ago when abel's us to go further than you can imagine a recent study from the federal judicial center reveals a federal docket they handles tens of thousands of cases each year and what you may find troubling about these cases is that it allows for electronic surveillance

we're talking cell phones e-mail and any other information stored on your computer or what you do online this is all regulated by the electronic communications privacy act of nineteen eighty six and privacy groups are saying this law is a way outdated especially since the way we communicate has evolved drastically over the decades many privacy groups are now pushing for this law to be updated to discuss the privacy act and more cade crockford privacy rights corner coordinator for the american civil liberties union joined us earlier today well i'm really glad that you mentioned that the law was passed in one thousand nine hundred eighty six i was three years old in one thousand nine hundred six i'm sure many of you remember that you were you know my age at the time so clinton really this if you will didn't have cell phones they were about this big you know they would like bricks. people didn't use email in the way that we do now didn't exist storing

our information in the digital cloud was completely unheard of these are things that we are now every day we move most of our lives in the digital realm our banking information is all online increasingly our health records are on line and we communicate very very private important information via e-mail direct message on services like twitter via web chat skype. congress needs to update ekta i was three years old when echoes past it is now twenty twelve the world is a totally different place and this magistrate judges report is incredibly important because it really illustrates an aspect of what's problematic with ekta that we hadn't been aware of previously. judges are issuing these orders he said

absent thirty thousand a year many of these orders are secret forever because if the government asked a magistrate judge for an order to read your email under act and they never charge you with a climb you might actually never find out the government agents were reading your email so we had the a.c.l.u. are part of a very large coalitions it's called the digital due process coalition and it's not just civil liberties groups that are invested in changing and reforming act but it's also companies like microsoft and a.o.l. and apple because these companies want people to trust the digital cloud they want people to trust that when they put their information online when they store it with third party content holders like them that it's going to be safe from from government interference you know if it's about the improper so you know it's not just there's a huge range of corporations and government advocacy groups that are calling on

congress to reform act but in this report is just a very timely reminder and shock congress into action to do that as the legislation stands now can the government obtain this information without a warrant. so a part of the electronic communications privacy act is called the storage communications act and under the stored communications act those are a piece of that called subsection of section twenty seven zero three which basically allows the government to submit what's called section d. orders so it's actually it's somewhere in between a warrant and a subpoena subpoena as many of you probably know is simply a form that a prosecutor fills out and submit to you know the holder of some content but it wants information from the judge overseas that order a warrant is a much stricter standard there are probable cause requirements for warrants that the stored communications act do you order sit somewhere in the middle it's not

exactly a warrant it's not a subpoena but what what this judge magistrate's report shows is that the rules that. are put in place twenty thousand over twenty five years ago. are woefully inadequate primarily because they don't allow even congress let alone the general public to know how many of these orders are being issued because there are gag sealed and blindfold provisions which prevent people from even knowing how many of these orders are out there so what can be done now and then what parts of this law need to be updated in order to reflect you know the times and the way that we communicate today. sure so the judge magistrate stephen smith who issued this really important report i encourage people to read it you can go to my web site privacy s.o.s. or the latest blog entry links to the report and i talk about it he basically is

asking that congress reform act to mandate judges and judge magistrates to provide some kind of notice alternately to to the people who are targets of these of these orders because a key piece of what we need to realize here is that you know it. my e-mail the e-mails that i've been to my friends you know my lover my coworkers whatever i don't actually possess them you know if i google urge e-mail to send e-mail it's it's google or g. mail that possesses my e-mail so the government doesn't have to go to me it can completely ignore me if they want information about what i'm talking about or who i'm talking to and go to google instead so there are number of issues one is transparency we need to know how many of these orders are being issued another is accountability so that. if if if if a magistrate agrees with the prosecutor and issues an order for my communications

information you know i can be notified at some point so that i can challenge that order under the under the under act as it stands according to his reports people do not have the ability to challenge these orders so you know we're this is this is a very troubling situation in which hungry people are potentially being watched by the government without our knowledge ever people might never find out so many to be transparency they need to be counted realty and we need to update the law to reflect the fact that many of us use third party tonton providers. to spread our information around to communicate online ok and to kind of wrap it up there as you mentioned kind of at the heart of this is transparency the lack of transparency how does this pose a danger to us that offends people like you and i sure i mean you know. it's perfectly clear to us at the a.c.l.u. and frankly to many americans that over the past ten years since nine eleven there

have been a series of laws including the patriot act which which actually reformed a key part of the sort of communications act for the worst for the worst that sort of a. a more complicated subject but many of these laws have essentially put us in a situation where the government of the united states of america knows far too much about us and we know very little about what the government is doing so that relationship need to be flipped we actually as citizens of this country and of residents of this country should be able to know what the government is doing why the government should be held to account for its surveillance practices you know there are sometimes the government needs needs to surveil people if you will break the law there are there are dangerous people law enforcement needs to be able to do its job but it's absolutely unacceptable for this kind of pervasive long term secrecy to prevail in a country of law. kate thank you very much a very interesting especially and this day an age that was catered. craig craig

crawford excuse me a privacy rights corner for the american civil liberties union. that's a good old midwest showdown on one side governor scott walker armed with enormous financial support on the other milwaukee mayor tom barrett with his band of political power players and union brands. of who will win wisconsin's recall election a live update straight ahead. a client of american power continues. things that are. might actually be time for revolution. and it turns out that a killer drink of starbucks has a surprising. and

what drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to break through it's already been made who can you trust no one who is you know with the global machinery see where we had a state controlled capitalism it's called session when nobody dares to ask we do our tea question more. argy is the state run english speaking russian channel it's kind of like. russia today has an extremely confrontational stance when it comes to us.

right let's just bring this right right i mean it's like a derivative of actual pepper it's a food product essentially. much stronger than anything you could buy absolutely the hours of times were stronger than any kind of double you ever put you know. we turned out to be historic recall election happening today and wisconsin tension running high in the state as the fate of governor scott walker's job is decided the rare recall election has polarized the state with some healing walker as a hero and others demonizing him as a villain behind walker is enormous sums of cash from his wealthy republican supporters his opponent milwaukee mayor tom barrett pales in comparison when it comes to funds but he has political leaders and unions behind him at stake in the

state as workers' rights and what happens today can have huge implications for the rest of the country and set the tone for the upcoming presidential election or as a correspondent christine for south reports. you know my god for many wisconsin residents today's election is personal my son here at walker wins the election he won't have health insurance anymore. but for the rest of the country the outcome has a broader meaning union busting is you know an old fashioned thing that we thought we had gotten rid of in the early part of the twentieth century and now it is extremely active national way now bottom line is nobody likes their money taken out of the pocket as expected turnout was high thanks for running on line with very few to go. in the undecided category they may also look wisconsin is in many ways a microcosm of today's america even some of the longest serving lawmakers say they

have never served in a more divided congress and the same thing is happening in districts across this country here in wisconsin you need to look no further than some of the residential neighborhoods house i'm standing in front of now they support tom barrett but walk in just a few doors down and the neighbors have a sign on display saying that they stand with scott walker the governor start of the civil war where he picks a neighbor against neighbor worker against worker relatives don't you want to talk about politics because it becomes too divisive it's not only about affirming why rules that govern it's about firming the rule every local and state official in wisconsin that if you do the right thing if you make the tough decisions voters will ultimately stand with you also standing with walker tens of millions of dollars in outside donations making the badger state a dumping ground for cash and mixed messages if money can buy an election then you know the fascists have won a heated contest about politics policy and the future of the way this country does

business in wisconsin christine freezone. for more on what's at stake in wisconsin arctic correspondent christine was on the ground there and joins us now live hi christi and so we are just there hours away now into. well the polls close describe what the mood is like over there well that's where i live the polls are still open for another hour and forty minutes and yet over the last few minutes not even quite hour we started to see quite a few people start to gather here at the state capitol there's singing and there's dancing a lot of people are ready this is after all where it all started hundreds if not thousands are expected to return to this place where they first occupied this capitol building sixteen months ago sort of getting the ball rolling for what is taking place right now from the anger from the frustrated into the action in terms of gathering signatures to make this election happen now as you know we have been prosperous crisscrossing the state really talking to

a lot of people focus on the governor we've spoken to mayor barrett and we've spoken to quite a few voters about tonight one woman i just spoke to recently said you know i don't know what i'm going to do after today because i've been so busy canvassing and making calls and volunteering for my candidate i'm not really sure what i'm going to do with myself but really this is where it all happened quite a few of them saying. i think we lost her try to get her back shortly if we can that was our correspondent reporting live out of wisconsin but it does look like we have her back so we're going to keep on going hi there christine nice to see you again a lot. of us. were so wanted to ask you next as you mentioned in your story of there tom barrett walker's opponent has said a civil war is brewing and wisconsin is all you're seeing over there well

absolutely it's really really interesting when you drive through some of the neighborhoods outside of the big city just in and some of the smaller communities and you really do see what i showed in my report which is that neighbors are loud and proud in terms of who they're supporting and a lot of people i spoke to said they can't speak to their neighbors about this business owner say they can't speak about it for fear of losing business because it's such a heated issue such a polarizing issue so it is really interesting a lot of people taking this very personal life back. here they seem to be the most outspoken about what's at stake in this election and christine can you elaborate on that what exactly is at stake there in terms of workers' rights which seems to be at the heart of the controversy well i think you're going to nail him it is what determine the future of workers' rights if governor walker does get to remain in office a lot of people are expecting that you know what they say what they call an assault on unions rights will take place more governors in other states will take on unions

will take on collective bargaining a lot of the people that i spoke to say you know this is absolutely union busting on the other hand if walker loses i think a lot of people are going to think twice about trying to take on the unions number unions have been very powerful they dumped a lot of cash in this election as well and previous elections they tend to support democrats and so it will be really really interesting to see. for wisconsin residents so this is about their lives. you know this is about their jobs this is about policies that will affect them directly but again you know live national spotlight here on the badger state in terms of what happens going ahead you know making policy both on the local the state and the national level absolutely this is a huge story the whole country keeping a close eye on wisconsin crissy how can this election and have national implications particularly with the presidential election coming up. it's hard to say if there will be any sort of

a you know if if governor walker wins wisconsin i don't think that that will necessarily mean that mitt romney will win with on that or win the presidential election i think really what will happen here is the message will shift spending on the outcome of today's election message will shift in terms of you know when we talk about jobs when we talk about workers' rights when we see the power of super pacs so i really think those are going to be something that i think when we talk about the presidential election you know just drop obama did not come to campaign for. romney and paint for governor walker however both candidates that have big names on the right. you know quite a few prominent governors nikki haley the head of the republican party you know on the left. you know several people coming out to throw their support obama tweeted about it today so i really think it's hard to say exactly how this will have a direct impact on november but certainly it has taken the message in

a different direction and speaking you just mentioned super bax super pacs there chrissake and as you as you mention your story there walker has a lot of money behind him much more than his opponent and if walker doesn't pull it off with all this money behind what message does that send out. is that a whole center of the people that i've spoken to that are you know gathering here they say they hope that means that rock groups you know local politics the people that that's really what. we have seen so much money down into this state to vote from both sides you know to try to control the message and so if that kind of money i think it's seven and a half to one out there you know if even those kind of dollars not victory. you know that's going to be really really interesting to see what we see in the months ahead leading into november kristie thank you very much for staying

on top of this very important story that was our correspondent christine. that well florida insists on purging votes this despite the justice department ordering the state not to because it's illegal under federal law as florida has until wednesday to stop the purging but word has it that the state has no intention of doing so the state claims that the votes that they are getting rid of are those that are not possibly are not those of american citizens the majority of those votes also happen to be democrats to discuss the implications of all this dr wilmer leon he is a professor at howard university and he joins us now live welcome thank welcome liane so the department of justice is calling this voter purge illegal but florida says they're going to go ahead and do it anyway why well because by the time they get done with the legal wrangling the damage will already have been done the voters

will have been purged from the rolls not able to participate in the election and then hopefully in the minds of the republicans that are behind this they will then have to stand a better chance for for mitt romney to have to be elected and why do you think florida is so dead set on going forward going forward with this well this is not the first time the florida has done this in. it is in two thousand with choice point and as as the company purging rolls under jeb bush as governor so florida has demonstrated a history in doing this and one of the things that's important to recognize is that even though the campaign for president is a national election the national election is made up of fifty individual state elections plus the district of columbia and us protectorates so the individual states become very very important and this really comes down to florida ohio virginia and probably pennsylvania so if they can with the with the turnout being

lower anticipated in two thousand and twelve anyway the more voters they can purge from the rolls the better chances the republicans stand stand to win and wisconsin is a perfect example of what we're seeing right now in wisconsin because they've had an increase with voters being able to register at the polls we're now seeing record turnout in off issue election that shows you specifically why florida is trying to depress the turnout as opposed to increase the turnout so it sounds like you clearly think that this is politically motivated at all there. what's important for your viewers to understand if they take away nothing else this is not in issue voter fraud in the united states is not in issue that is why in all of the reports that you've read all the information that you've seen they haven't given you any data that shows you the percentage of attempted or actual

fraudulent votes that have been cast in the last twenty years this is not a problem it is a created solution to a fictional problem in order to depress the democratic turnout in the election that's all this is now florida is saying that many of these voters may not be american citizens you don't buy that argument well in the operative term. and there is may not be if they had the data they would tell you fifteen percent of the voters that turned up in this precinct or eight percent of the voters that turned up in this precinct were found to be either illegal aliens or convicted felons or whatever criteria that they want to use for determining fraudulent voters they can't make those statements because they don't have the data and they don't have the data because the data does not exist fraudulent think about this if you're an illegal immigrant. you are primarily trying to do one thing gainful gainful

employment the one thing you don't want to do is call attention to yourself show up on the radar by turning up to vote as a non registered voter in and have people asking questions why are you here this is not in issue it does not exist fraudulent voting in the united states now people do make mistakes there are people who move out of a particular precinct and don't realize that they're in the wrong precinct and they'll turn up to vote those kinds of things do happen but in terms of people actually trying to control an election by fraudulent voting that just isn't real and i do want to take a moment out to take a look at some of the numbers behind us floridians the number of floridians flagged on this voter registry one thousand six hundred thirty eight people in the miami dade county were flagged as non-citizens now three hundred fifty nine of them

provided proof of status and chat twenty six were identified as u.s. citizens by the country but twelve hundred have simply not yet responded to the latter so what do you make of those numbers why wouldn't those people respond well because there are practices such as caging where the report where the they are they'll get a list of people and in many instances they know for example if the individual is in active duty and may not be in in country they may be in iraq they may be in iran they may be somewhere else so the letter has come to their home they're not home to receive it they put do not forward return to sender so the letter comes back to the post office and that individual is then considered to be non either nonexistent or no longer in the state and the the letter is put in a cage and that individual then is stricken from the role so there are a lot of reasons why. a particular individual may not respond to the letter that

has absolutely nothing to do with citizenship has absolutely nothing to do with their being a registered voter and has everything to do with reasonable legal reasons that are then being misinterpreted and used to strike that individual from the road maybe on vacation they may be on a cruise for six macarthur an air who knows where they are now this has a certain a lot of controversy some people are even saying that this is a civil rights share do you think that plays into that so it definitely is a civil rights issue because the one nine hundred sixty five voting rights act did two things primarily one is it made it illegal for states particularly in south to engage in these types of practices and the other thing that it did was it required when the states want to change their voting practices or processes they first have

to get it pre-cleared by the justice department and the state of florida has not done this this is call roll at his best and their logic is we're going to go ahead move forward do what we want to do wreak the havoc caused the damage and we'll fight about it later because after the election and if by chance mitt romney were to win and then florida is disciplined by the justice department that's not going to bring about a recall in the election they will have accomplished what they set out to accomplish. in the in the in the in the penalties that they paid in their minds would just be considered collateral damage and lastly to kind of boil it down but impact do you think if laura goes through with this this voter suppression what impact could it have on the election but we could have tremendous impact again because in two thousand and twelve we are not going to have the same degree of turnout that we had in two thousand and eight and so everyone is going to count on

both the democratic side and the republican side because mitt romney isn't really still. hasn't really warmed up to a lot of the social conservatives so he's got to get all of his people to turn out as do the democrats for president obama and so every vote matters and if this works in florida it will then be replicated in virginia in south carolina in north carolina all throughout the south we are going to see problems like do you think it could set a dangerous precedent across the koehler no question absolutely right dr welner we are out of time thank you so much for coming on the show that was not there well nearly on he is a professor at howard university. that's going to do it for now but for more on the stories we covered you can check out our you tube channel it's youtube dot com slash r t america you can also check out our web site that is our teeth dot com slash usa a lot of stories on there that we didn't have time to get to on the air.