mostly volunteers live video for your media project free media r t v dot com. today on our team keeping tabs on you and your report looks at the growing trend of u.s. police departments tracking you through your cell phone so what are police looking for and who are they targeting. but. taking it to the streets protesters come out in full force in mexico claiming fraud in last week's presidential election well their voices be heard are two questions more and drink up and place your bets as kastrup states and cities deal with budget woes many are turning to gambling and booze for the economic boost is this a fair way to balance the budget or a recipe for disaster. it's

monday july ninth pm in washington d.c. i'm abbie martin and you're watching. for the first time data has been collected on a national level that reveals the extent of cell phone wiretapping in the u.s. the level of surveillance has exploded in the last five years increasing about fifteen percent annually since two thousand and seven in two thousand and eleven cell carriers reported that they've had one point three million demands from law enforcement agencies requesting text messages color locations and other information yet as cell surveillance increased warrants for wiretapping has declined fourteen percent last year to only two thousand seven hundred thirty two so how is this happening and will this disturbing trend of exponential growth of the surveillance state continue for breakdown or what is happening i was joined by kate crockford

privacy rights corner for the american civil liberties union take a look. sure it's really interesting actually that there are fewer wiretap requests now than there are for what we call his business transactional records now those transactional records that's the one point three million number which is actually substantially higher for a number of reasons that we get into later that information contains such things as your location information who you call when you call them again things like text messages could possibly be contained in that transactional data so there's a lot of information maybe even you know if your mission about the apps that you use on your phone and how you use them there's a lot of information that isn't strictly content that's to say the words that you're speaking on the phone to someone that can reveal a tremendous amount about your life about you know where you go for example if you go into a meeting or are you know if you're if you travel out of state frequently you know

i could tell the police for example if you're currently at work because they can get this information off and in real time so you know it's very revealing and points to a major problem which is that as technology has changed our law has not kept up so we're in a situation where you know the police are hardly ever asking for wiretaps partially because in order to get a wiretap they have to go to a judge that show the judge and evidence they have to go through a longer process that you know maybe they don't have the evidence for or maybe they simply don't want to bother with but in either case we you know people in this country end up losing and you know the one point three million number is actually substantially smaller likely than the number of people who are actually targeted by this kind of surveillance and i want to i want to get into that in a second but but kate i want to talk about what you just said as

a you know the substantially lower number of actual. warrants issued but the increasing number of these actual data retrievals but also only a third of them are based on those emergency data retrieval that they're asking the kind of circumvent the legal aspect here were the other ones coming from i mean how can they how are they retrieving the rest of it so there are a number of ways in which they can do that. the one that i want to focus on that i think is the most important for people to understand is simply a subpoena is it is never seen by any kind of judge you know the last time i was on this program i talked briefly about expo orders these are orders that are issued in ex parte judicial proceedings which basically just means that the government shows evidence to a judge that you're involved in criminal activity but you never get to see the

evidence you never get tested so that's what's called a twenty seven a three day order so a number of these are probably actual orders but a number of them frank said five hundred thousand last year are simply subpoenaed and subpoenas are never seen by any judge the pinas are basically you know a prosecutor in his or her office filling out a piece of paper and sending it to eighteen and getting information back so there's no process around it and you know some of these subpoenas on the federal level are authorized under the patriot act they're called national security letters these are particularly pernicious because many of them you know the government can force third party content providers like the like horizon like comcast they can these companies the gag so that the those companies could even tell you about the existence of the order for your information if they want to do so a lot of a lot of legal loopholes that same is the kind of retrieve the data and you

mentioned earlier the one point three million. is definitely a low number and a labrat on that and also talk about kind of the the data dumps where they can make one request with sometimes it'll be hundreds or thousands of people's data included in the sure so you know first i just want to say that paradoxically this is actually a great day for privacy in this country you know in order for us to have decent privacy law we actually need to know about what the government is doing with the statutes that it has on the books and frankly you know in the space in between what those statutes explicitly say what the constitution says and then the new technologies that we have you know some of which are not addressed by these laws at all so you know just to put that in to sort of surround this conversely i just want to say that i'm actually pretty pleased and i thank ed markey for doing this work because had we not known the extent to which this surveillance is so pervasive you

know things like the g.p.s. act which is the bill that's in congress right now sitting in committee might never going to where this provides you know ample encouragement i think for a lot for our legislators to take action on it yes i as your question about about why there are so many people so many more people affected than the one point three million and actually really easy to address and the reason for that is for example say the police wanted this admitted an administrative subpoena for information about myself to my you know it's eighteen right so eighty and eighty you would give them not only my records but also potentially the records of everyone that i had communicated with over a given period of time so already that you know quadrupling you know maybe multiplying times thirty forty fifty the number of people who are affected by that one order and then to address the point about dan downs this is extremely troubling you know law enforcement can submit one request to account to

a telecommunications company and in return can get literally thousands of. people's private information because law enforcement asked the telephone company for all of the information that was trying in or out of one cell phone tower you know they sometimes call this an electric fence you know they want to find out who is in a given area during a murder or a kidnapping or rape and so they they asked this company to basically send back records of every single person who was in that jurisdiction or you know around that south tower during that given time so you know in a city like new york or chicago or l.a. that's potentially literally tens of thousands and right now it definitely thank you so much for breaking that down a really important aspect i think people need to understand and to wrap it up really quickly kate i wanted to talk about how basically we're funding our own surveillance i mean in two thousand and eleven eighteen team made eight point three million dollars up substantial now from two thousand and seven should people care

the world ultimately footing the bill here to surveil ourselves from this telecom absolutely absolutely you know look we have these you know you are busy is very clear one first needs to get a warrant if it wants to track your physical location the supreme court essentially said that much in the jones case it's not a controversial position it's something that republicans and democrats agree on in congress many of them the g.p.s. that needs to be it needs to be moved it needs to cast and needs to be signed by the president it's a good bill that would require that want to get a warrant before they check their communications and yes i totally agree i mean you know some people are suggesting that maybe the reason that there is such an uptick in the in the amount that this is costing companies is not simply because there are more orders but also because more people use cell phones will find it is that it is very important and you think it would be kind of commonplace to be like out we should require a warrant to do this also encourage people to check out the a.c.l.u. app about recording police just check that out today thanks so much for coming on

kate unfortunately we're out of time that was cade crockford privacy rights corner for the american civil liberties union. syrian leader bashar al assad is accusing the u.s. of hindering peace by aiding the rebel forces within the country opposition leaders are asking the west for intervention against his regime but some of the country fear for their lives in the hands of the rebels r t correspondent a riff and osha reports from syria and i should warn you some of the following images are graphic. since the uprising in syria escalated the west has been consistently calling on assad and his government to step down in an effective link i want to go to the demands of the armed opposition but it seems too far from its nuclear understanding of exactly they are. these fighters of the syrian opposition they're brave determined full of pride they took the fate in their hands. but for some taken control of their destiny

meant taken up arms in this amateur video posted on you tube which cannot be independently verified gunmen calling themselves members of the opposition militia from it live explain why this man was hanged and what really helped the syrian regime and what's killing the rebels they say can i mean. on behalf of all france let me express my admiration by their bravery over the norm but this kind of justice only adds more anger to what has already been called a civil war. the terrorists really those murderers and i believe that is necessary for any citizen to leave. we cannot ask the opposition to unilaterally give up their struggle for justice dignity and self-determination in other media whose origin is hard to establish these men say

they captured the syrian air force officer then they dispense even more rough justice. the united states will continue providing non-lethal assistance to help those inside syria who are carrying the fight to organize and better communicate. marched in this video just behind the camera says the fight must go on it warns this will happen to anyone who cooperates with the assad government. there are top criminals these people are top of criminality how do they have the right feel sad when you find your country destroyed our country we've been building our lives. the whole world wants to see a political transition from this illegitimate regime you seem to actually see one that can take care of its people many here however fear that should such people

force assad to leave seems like these could become a familiar occurrence and have little faith in a western force democracy. where they're talking about democracy in the gulf or in other countries we are syrian people we should decide at these things ourselves. this mantra that the syrian people alone should determine their country's future has been repeated by many nations and has finally been recognized by major world powers but why some states still continuing to call on assad to leave and support in his opponents fears mounting syria that this is the people that will pay the ultimate price. my flush out sea from damascus in syria. still ahead here on our team protesters take to the streets in mexico claiming fraud in last week's presidential election well the votes be heard in the topic in just a few minutes. later.

look into the alona so we'll get to the real headlines 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. . pepper spray let's just bring gerard is right right i mean it's like a derivative of actual pepper it's a food product essentially. the somewhat stronger than anything you buy a lot. of times we're stronger than any kind of. put you know.

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 who view you with a global missionary see where we had a state controlled capitalism is called sasha's when nobody dares to ask we do our t. question more. kind of election results be trusted in a country and tories for election fraud thousands of people in mexico are saying no and took to the streets over the weekend to protest the results of last week's election for the reigning prepared candidate being in yet though won thirty eight point two percent of the vote left us presidential candidate that is and whether was voted daughter got thirty one point five percent of the vote now the protesters are alleging that the pre-partition won by buying many of the votes nobody daughter

is planning on formally challenging the outcome so is there any evidence of voter fraud and what will another term of pre mean for mexico to explore those questions and more i was joined by john ackerman professor at the national autonomous university of mexico take a listen. both credible bars there are over one hundred thousand mostly. students cleaning the streets of downtown mexico city plus tens of thousands of other youth for oh a country different capitals mexico the forty two states or about a dozen capitals that were also. marches on the interesting thing about these marches is that they were not organized by locals were ordered by the second place finisher and their lessons nor were they strictly organized by this emerging student movement the u.s. so he said complaint there was one very simple but which has arisen over the last few months it started to have become a public presence this was really spontaneous student and youth movement people

protesting against banning it though that was clear the idea here is that thinking of go instead of actually winning the popular favor in elections basically purchased his way into the presidency although he's not president yet the electoral tribunal still leaves to decide on whether this election was actually free and fair and democratic so we might be. beginning of. a more widespread use movement that you know similar to what happened in their countries or spain or even i think to the occupy movement last year it was interesting this was already brewing but the fact that after the election this is continued on makes one think about what might happen if you're in the future so join you said that you know your. stand up and they think they know it's a movement it was very organic on this march and they didn't really take

responsibility for organizing the margins kind of just happened very spontaneously a lot of grassroots actions going on there you also mention about the election fraud a library more on what's what's going on there i mean is there any really any proof that that he did buy some of the votes there. well yes there has been lots of reports about. first of all a gross violation of spending limits ok so mexico actually has a very controlled electoral system you can only spend up to three hundred thirty six million pesos that's about thirty million dollars a most of this money is public funding you are very strictly limited amount of money you can get from the private sector or the vigils and so the broad broad widespread suspicion is that this is a spending that has been gone over you know four five six perhaps ten times by big

don't even finding you know the special debit cards which had parallel accounts which were supposedly used to fund operators they've also found thousands and thousands of. award cards for supermarkets sort of a strange way of doing it but apparently these these cards had. about you know i've been here between ten and a hundred dollars of them which were handed out to voters you know the day the elections or the days beforehand so. whether this actually influenced the vote is a big question but actually mexico law is very explicit about the fact that even offering money in exchange for vote even if the voter doesn't take into this offer is a crime. so do you think that there is really a chance for a full recount i know that you said he isn't they still need to determine and sign out kind of on election results but i mean in a country that has just pretty much in a tory is for election fraud and we've seen this time and time again what are the

chances here of really getting to the bottom of this john. well there it was already taken place the recount was last week they opened about half of the but out of boxes apparently that's not where the problem is the problem is more in terms of his vote buying and it also a lot of people talking about the polls over the coals were about ten percentage points off most of the polls this is based on here's a menu of pollsters either were receiving kickbacks or otherwise had a little practice is where you wanted to they were trying to create a sensation that the great candidate was never to win and you know the bandwagon effect lots of people probably follow that effect they're going for pretty good don't because the pollsters were showing you know he was eighty percent ahead of the polls in the end the event was only six percent much closer to a bunch of than expected and so if it's proven that money came in illegally for mexico is a very difficult choice and sort of marco's and illegal economy it's money

came in through illegally and that money was used to purchase votes or otherwise ok this would be serious i would hasten their act the tribunal would have to seriously consider. it interesting that you mention polls actually influencing the vote is a very interesting point how it can influence perception and maybe cause more people to vote for opinion yet though i wanted to talk to you though and just get your opinion on what will this mean if he does indeed stay seated and koreans already rain the country for decades i mean what do you see happening there if they just continue their leadership there in the country. one of the two sides to it one is the question of legitimacy for her brother so who wins prepare or he left right or center. looks like if anything it was finally confirmed this president he will come in in

a very weak situation similar to six years ago six years ago calderon won by point five percent of what a much closer difference in first and second place but there were very active protests against him it was even difficult for him to take the presidential oath the chamber of deputies was overtaken by the left as opposition i'm he had to come through a back door they'd cut through the wall so that he could take his oath of office that was very problematic beginning for for his election not because he was accused of having stolen the election this time around when you know it's further ahead six or seven percent but it looks like the social of this content is great larger than six years ago six years ago was the leftist opposition the politicians this time it's spontaneous civil society manifestation of repudiation and fear of the return of of the previous because these pretty leaders are well known for being highly

corrupt and for being very i for terry and for instance with regard to press freedoms to other sorts of freedoms and they need to himself you know was governor of the state of mexico and that's a one party state with mexico no other party has ever ruled they are in that state over the last eighty years and so if he pretends to rule the country as he ruled his state we could have a very difficult situation in terms of social protest or an authoritarian politics in mexico but it is a very long term for one party to rule john as a professor how do you see your students reacting to this do you see a lot of them getting involved and the activism mobilizing now and do you think that the resistance will just continue to grow against pre. yes well this is summer break here in mexico i don't have classes so i haven't had to have to actually speak with my students but all of this was starting to happen at the end of the semester and yes is that the general feeling is that there is a sort of or natured among the students to the possible return of the tree if you

look at the exit polls for the rather eloquent actually looked so it was way ahead among the population that had a high school education or college education the tree vote is really focused in the rural areas of the country voters who are over fifty and voters who are a party loyalists and also voters who have only elementary school education the more dynamic sectors of society students use the people in the big cities where all the looking for the dollars so this really creates a tension a social tension between if it does not represent sort of the new modern mexico even in the in that profile of voters is more of the old guard back again and sort of a new more to my dynamic society for instance that has access to social networks that's going to universities those are those people are overwhelmingly in favor of that not the sort of the sort of order but very critical of the trees so we could have

a very dynamic local situation and here the big question is how is thinking that they're going to respond as you can rest with repression with authoritarianism or if you're going to say well i will definitely be entertaining to find out it seems like there is a lot of dynamics at play and one of the gaps within the generations and thanks so much for coming on in and breaking down is john ackerman professor at the national congress university of mexico. in today's tough economic times it looks like gambling and booze may be the answer to america's budget woes or at least that's what cities and states in the country are banking on with local and state governments struggling to raise revenue we're seeing a trend across the country expanding liquor laws encouraging people to drink up but is this really the best way to solve the budget deficit and what are the true costs to society or to correspondent lives while explores. las vegas the brake lights entice an influx of people looking for

a good time. but if some cities and states across the country get their way what happens in vegas won't stay in vegas struggling to raise revenue and close the deficit some governments want to bring a piece of sin city home and marilyn marilyn ly recently opened its doors more than three football fields long the massive adult playground is welcomed by some great employers put a lot of people to work great tax revenue great entertainment venue i think it's going to be a real plus for the area but despised by others it brings a lot more people on gambling i don't know how great that is for like the kid in the mall isn't really a family place now. and on the d.c. maryland border lies a national harbor a picture arrested development along the water. a proposed to see you know would bring vegas to the potomac it's really nice here in vegas i mean even on the

streets they hand you cards for prostitution what impact that would have environmentally on this area because you don't have to push out neighborhoods in order to build it. and beyond gambling cities and states across the country are banking on booze. here in d.c. the mayor wants to extend bar hours so they can keep those drinks flowing later into the night. it would take effect in october and bring in over five million dollars in two thousand and thirteen it's a short term gain for a big long term loss dr david jernigan warns of the dangers of encouraging people to drink up he says when alcohol consumption goes up so do alcohol related problems things like hospital room emergency emergency room admissions that's a more sensitive indicator interesting lee liver cirrhosis to us. are fairly sensitive to changes in availability and it's not just d.c.

from connecticut but bill clears the way for package door sales and beer sales at supermarkets every day of the year except thanksgiving christmas and new year's to georgia supporters say the sunday cereal could bring in millions of dollars in additional tax revenue since the recession sparked in two thousand and eight dozens of cities and states have eased liquor laws as a way to balance their budgets some say the answer instead is taxes whether it's taxing booze the best way is to raise an alcohol tax in this country alcohol taxes do not keep up with inflation they are flat taxes based on the volume of the beverage or taxing the rich. tax a tax hike for the super rich would be bad because i'm a super rich but you know i think that would probably be a better idea well america during the government if the cat and drinking away our sorrows may bring in the revenues video from the country so desperately needs and

washington lives are too. and that does it for our show today for more of the stories we covered today go to our you tube channel youtube dot com slash r t america or go out and check out our website if you missed anything else our to dot com slash usa and also follow me on twitter. martin and be sure to stay tuned capital account is up next followed by thom hartmann that's it for now have a wonderful night and we'll see you right back here tomorrow. decline of american power continues. things in our country so bad might actually be time for a revolution. and it turns out that a popular drink of starbucks has a surprising him greedy i'm bored.