today on r t if you thought your cyber freedoms were safe you better think again after admitting to occasionally spying on average americans is the n.s.a. taking cyber surveillance to the next level some in congress say yes we'll tell you why. plus the mainstream media plays catch up in the deadly anaheim shooting of the shooting and the protests that resulted in yet another incident involving a police officer shooting has occurred this time in dallas the details ahead. and the anaheim incident one of been made public if not for the terrifying images witnesses gathered with their cell phones but filming of a police officer could land you in trouble in some places so where is the accountability and how can we keep law enforcement in line will question more.

it's wednesday july twenty fifth five pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wall and you're watching r.t. well from sopa to cispa to fight several bills have surfaced in congress lately that aim to regulate the internet and telecommunications now this has alarmed internet activists that say government spying can lead to abuse but at least one senator is leading the way to protect internet freedoms senator ron wyden has been very vocal on the issue and he spoke out against vice it today at the cato institute here's what he told our. plus certain certainly the government stated that there has been a violation of the fourth amendment. protections of individuals privacy and you start down that road on the my side of the confidence in my heart and our

government and i'm just not going to accept that as a standard way of doing business well if i so was passed back in two thousand and eight and allows the government to wiretap and monitor answer national phone calls it's set to expire soon but there is an africa in congress now to renu they controversial legislation for more on this government spying program aaron swartz founder of demand progress joined me earlier to give his take. well as i think you know one of the things we've seen is that the government has used this law as a technique to do much more than it says on its face you know originally like you said it was designed to intercept international phone calls it wasn't about spying on americans but instead to governments interpreted it to say that any american who calls someone internationally or is in a conversation that uses international computers or phone lines cannot be spied on and in fact as as senator wyden pointed out the government's admitted even not they haven't been able to stick to and they've broken the law under fire and spied on

people who it's not even legal the spy upon in the first place so i you are saying that they got with government spying naturally there is a tendency there for for that power to be abused. oh yeah definitely i mean i think once you open the door and put these kinds of procedures in place where it just becomes a routine part of the government investigations and even now it seems as if the government has whole departments just listening to all international phone calls all international computer communications e-mails internet records just kind of digging through this massive trove of data to see if they can find something on anyone once you have this infrastructure in place it's easy to use it for not just terrorism but for regular crimes for you know petty complaints that the executive department is for all sorts of things now this is the first time that the government has acknowledged that. these wiretapping of telephone calls has violated the fourth amendment rights the n.s.a. actually acknowledge this here is what senator wyden had to say about this

admission this is the first time as i indicated no sound now that the government has disclosed that right now any violation of the fourth amendment to privacy rights this is the first time where the government has knowledge that finds a court. this is not in the spirit of the fundamental fact i believe this is going to. possibilities for the date this comes from the fall months when i push so hard to have that information declassified and i was a response to our producer was asking you know why isn't there more support in congress senator wyden has really kind of been at the forefront of this fight for internet privacy or internet freedoms but he seems to be one of a few of the loud voices kind of speaking out against this but he's saying that hopefully that this could be

a game changer and get more people on board now that this admission has been made do you think that that that can happen. i mean let's not under emphasize the importance of what's another one has revealed government that they have broken the law they have missed that the courts have said what they're doing is illegal and now they want congress to rubber stamp it anyway they've gone to congress and say look we always applause you know we always comply by the law everything's been approved by the courts we now know that it was a law that they were misleading congress in order to get the stuff approved that's huge and it's important people know this it hasn't gotten enough coverage thankfully we can get the word out but i think once people understand i think it's going to be a whole new debate about usually this stuff is presented to congress as this is just standard stuff we do it every year it's to fight terrorism how could you be against that we now know that what the government has been doing is in fact illegal and now that now that we know that now that at least they've admitted it happened

at least one time away we don't even know the scope of this exactly because they were kind of limited and the information that they did disclose but i have a game they always play they always say oh it's classified it's national security you can know exactly how we've used it and that's why what senator wyden has been doing is so crucial he's been pushing hard to hint and to demonstrate to us that there's a lot more going on that we don't know about that they're keeping secret that many people would think is actually against the law and aaron talk about the implications of this i mean now that we know that at least to some extent that the fourth amendment has been violated under faisel i mean that means that government officials conducting surveillance do not need a warrant so i mean what does that mean for for our rights to privacy to the fourth amendment. i mean you know there's a reason it's in the bill of rights is fundamental to our constitutional order that the government doesn't get to just spy on you that they need at least independent

improver they need to go to a nonpartisan independent judge and get permission right i mean if it's common sense and it's the foundation of our constitution the government is constrained by having someone else check off to make sure they're not abusing their powers to what senator wyden has released and what he's hinted at is that the government is no longer doing this anymore that they've declared whole classes of information including the location of everyone in america as detected by their cell phones which report back to the cell phone companies where they are the government is now sweeping all of that information together without any warning they're spying on where everyone is all the time without getting a court to sign off on it that's a huge shift and very scary and sounds absolutely sounds very scary the n.s.a. has refused to give congress an estimate of how many citizens private conversations are being captured and there's a vast database i mean are there is there any indication or any clue at just how

you know the magnitude of this i think the fact that they can it gives you all the clues they need you know if they were following the law they're supposed to follow careful minimisation procedures to make sure all the targeted suspects are spied on only those conversations or listen to if they're spying on so many people they can't even count them they are clearly not following the minimization procedures the way congress intended they're clearly not minimizing this of all there and i want to ask you what do you make of the government's assertion that these wiretaps are all done in the name of protecting against terrorist threats. look i mean you know i'm not sure to support terrorism i think very few people are what i'm here to say is the constitution has protected us for hundreds of years and what it said is very simple it's not particularly onerous at all all it says is that you have to get a judge to sign off on it you have to go to someone independent and say this is look right here can you double check if the government not willing to do even that

but i think it's not about protecting terrorism it's about doing stuff the people that they're embarrassed so that they can't get anyone else to approve that should be scary that's not about protecting us that's clearly about doing something wrong all right well a senator why and why that is one of the few that is now speaking out he was speaking out today at the cato institute erin on how confident are you that this will not be renewed you know i think it's up to us you know that's what the men progress dot org we're trying to organize as many people as possible to talk about the spying issues to raise them with their members of congress like i said this is usually something that sails through but if enough people go to demand progress that org and sign up and contact the members of congress we can raise this to the level of a serious issue we can force a real debate and we can stop at this time aaron thanks for coming on the show really appreciate it i was aaron swartz he is the founder of the man progress and while congress cracks down on your cyber freedoms lawmakers certainly aren't the

only ones changing their ways the video sharing web site you tube is asking at the billions of users to reveal their real identity when making calm ads r.t. producer meghan lopez breaks it down for us. can the internet change and adjust the way billions of people use it the simple answer is yes and new pupil found hundreds of millions of viewers browse through u two and similar sites for the latest news and trending videos a whopping seventy one percent of americans logged on to video sharing sites like you tube and vimeo in two thousand and eleven that's up five percent from the previous year and rural and that users are just as likely as users and urban areas to have these sites with the amount of information flowing into the site each day monitoring the content posted is no easy task that's where you come in you tube relies on users to self police the site using the flag buttons. below is

a video you'll find a flag but click on it to reveal a dropdown menu listing different types of content that violates or guidelines select the type of content sometimes you'll be prompted to enter the window of time the sending content appears in the video then click the flag this video but it's that simple we review flag videos twenty four hours a day seven days a week and in most cases they're reviewed in acted on in under an hour that's the story remember we depend on you the community to read and understand our guidelines and flag content that you think violates the now there is such thing called a digital fingerprint but it's very hard to follow and quite easy to cover up and the fact is hackers grossly outnumber government commissioned cyber experts so what's the solution well you two want to take anonymity out of the internet by encouraging people to use their real names when it comes to making comments it all began last month when the company announced the initiative here's how it works when

you try to comment on the you tube video a box will pop up that displays your username along with a side by side comparison of what it will look like to let you to pull your name from google plus if you choose to make the switch another box will pop up to show you what your comments will look like from now on or you can keep your anonymity if you choose to keep your anonymity you just click on the button that says i don't want to use my real name but that only twenty one other dialog box that questions why you don't want to use your real name and there are six options for why including my channel is for show or character my channel is for personal use but i cannot use my real name and i'm not sure all the side later now some say this is due to the tab to become more transparent but for now it's up to the users to decide if this changes for the benefit in the long run negative lopez r t. as the mainstream media catches up to the chaos in anaheim a similar outrage is brewing and dallas hundreds of protesters taking to the

streets this was after an officer shot and killed a suspect that was reportedly an armed police in riot gear responding to the demonstrations according to the police the victim james harper was shot after leading police on a chase the officer claims he was fearing for his life when he shot harper dead but the victim's families and hundreds of protesters there are just not buying it just like the case in anaheim some protesters believe it was racially motivated and is just one example of a corrupt police force but i guess we're going to we're going to get more on this in a minute right after this quick break satans. a lot of american power continues. things that are. might actually be time revolution.

and it turns out that a particular drug or starbucks or the surprising him really are. looking to be a loner so they'll get a real headline with none of them are the problem with the mainstream media today is that they're completely disconnected from the viewers and for what actually matters to those viewers and so that's why young people just don't watch t.v. anymore if they want news they go online and read it but we're trying to take those stories that people actually care about and transfer them back to t.v. .

to the capital account i'm lauren lyster. well the community's outrage in the end anaheim is field in part by the fact that images of police brutality were caught on camera across the country we've reported on police to demanding people stop recording them stripping them of their phones even arresting people for rolling the camera all this has raised questions over our first amendment rights but at least a one police chief is making it clear that recording law enforcement is in fact illegal here in washington d.c. police chief cathy lanier issued an order explaining the constitutional rights of citizens here is a statement are to obtain from the police department. states quote. while we have

preexisting policy that addresses interaction with the media the new general order reaffirms the metropolitan police departments recognition of the first amendment rights enjoyed by not only members of the media but the general public as well to video record photographs and or audio record and p.d. members conducting official business or while acting in an official capacity and any public space of less such recordings interfere with police activity so what will it take for the rest of the country to follow suit and will this really work to discuss this oscar miskito he is a pedicab director he joins us now oscar thanks for coming to the studio i know you had a run in with police for recording them yourselves tell us what happened. there's going to clarify that the incident was on the national mall here in washington d.c. but it was with the united states park police which is a different police agency than the bunch of politan police department so i would

like to applaud the chief lanier for issuing such a directive because it's very important that we follow the first the first member of the u.s. constitution and i would hope that the united states park police chief teresa chambers would follow suit and issue a similar directive so that the united states park police would also. fall under the first amendment for citizen journalists so when the when this went down what happened you started filming what did what did the authorities do well so this was on march twenty fifth earlier this year and i was witnessing another arrest of a fellow petty cover on the national mall in front of the smithsonian natural history museum i was videotaping with my cell phone or at least i was attempting to videotape myself own can actually get to work but out of principle i kept my camera and followed every order that the officer issued for his order to really remove my camera put my camera away. feel like i know the first minute. well you know that i

am allowed to keep my camera rolling so when i get the camera up in front you know to record the incident he asked me clearly put your carry away i refused to until he put my hand behind my back and you were arrested and i was my hands were shaking little bit obvious i was on earth the time put my hand the comment back and the secondary officer threw me to the ground knocked me unconscious i don't remember what happened shortly after that next and when a patrol car was detained for twenty four hours arraigned and i have a court appearance actually trial tomorrow and friday in this d.c. superior court what did you say to the police officer did you say anything that might have. caused him to to react in this way or what exactly did you say well there's actually a preexisting bias of u.s. park police officers against petty covers here and d.c. and this isn't kind of an ongoing issue is the fact that we have three wheels were human powered transportation option they were already probably against whatever we have to say so the fact that i was refusing to like caraway. he just didn't like

that apparently actually this is not the first time this happened just a couple months ago officers also the park police also issued for citations against me not of him for videotaping specifically but they were in direct result of videotaping an experience with him in another petty cover so they had very much luck lately it sounds like well and so far i haven't been convicted of anything and there's no everything's been dismissed up to this point so what do they have against petty cab drivers that's a good question you know we've been trying to figure this out for the last couple years and this is like i said ongoing fight we've filed foia requests against the u.s. park police which has come back that helped a little bit but we have a civil lawsuit against the u.s. park police against them for you know a similar type of activity so obviously what happened on march twenty fifth was specifically a citizen journalism situation like i said in my video camera but it's part of a larger issue on the national mall or three in transportation now police here in d.c. have issued this order right. finding police officers that you know would citizens

constitutional rights be able to fail as long as they're it's not interfering with the job the police is doing are you confident that this well that this will work and police will well listen well i'm glad you brought that up because i think in the district of columbia being the nation's capital really needs to set a precedent for the rest the country and so hopefully police chiefs across the country will follow suit and issue similar directives as this. there might be some ambiguity in the law at the moment with brick with citizen journalism but the first woman clearly states that that everyone has the right to press at least be a president in this day when we have handheld devices and cell phones and whatnot there like i said there could be some ambiguity so it's really like applied chief lanier for issuing such a directive now what do you think is there a kind of fusion or maybe a misinterpretation of the first amendment that it only applies to members of the media and not to any you know everyday citizens no i think it's actually

common place because if you go to any type of event where there's media present the folks with the large cameras and you know the professionals which i think they're doing a great job at what they do but they are always given a kind of red carpet treatment while the citizen journalism is always kind of sort of citizen journalists always push the side it seems like they are because the cameras are smaller or they might not be dressed as nicely but bottom line is we live in a new era of journalism and citizen journalists should be protected just as much a professional journalist now despite these crackdowns i mean on you and other citizen journalists and people you know we're seeing in anaheim people capturing what has happened on their personal devices just like you. police are still continuing to go after these people so i mean what do you think do you think that they're ignorant of what the law is well you know i like to say for the record i'm not anti police and anyway. i definitely think there should be

a educated police force protecting the citizenry but that's the very bottom line is they should be educated and so it's up to the leadership of these officers to maybe remind them of the constitution or maybe the officers should all read the constitution were time before they're put on the streets because these are very laws that are the foundation of this country and enjoyed by every single citizen and you know it's videos like this that have really captured some pretty shocking things with their cell phone cameras want to show you one example it happened right here in d.c. back in may. so i mean we just saw there for ourselves police literally yanking a guy in a wheelchair and throwing him to the ground and of course this sparked outrage and

start a lot of controversy but without citizens capturing these things the public wouldn't even know that they happened that's exactly right and that's important citizen journalism you know everyone does or almost no one has access to a camera these days so you know that one should be comfortable and point out in front of police officers or any other public official the public officials operating you know on public lands so she went on uniform there's actually no question that that's who is inside the right to record them in their actions and this can really even happen on a much wider scale i mean for example what is happening now in anaheim a lot of the outrage is due to the fact that a lot of it is captured on camera we saw a video we played here just the other day of officers releasing a dog that seemed to run toward a woman with a child and there were just bystanders they appeared to be innocent bystanders just standing by i mean what to what extent do you think this has the power to really

change i mean even spark movements well again police officers have a very difficult job around this country and a lot of them are doing a very great job and i supplied them for their work but it seems like like i said of the ambiguity in the law sometimes and they might need to be reminded or it's up to the leadership of these police departments to go back in their meetings which for their daily meetings or mind them of the first minute all to alton and then to the bill of rights that matter and the constitution so i do hope and i do think that we're moving in a positive direction with citizen journalism. here in d.c. in the rest of the country now you seem to be an example of somebody that knows their rights and is willing to stand up for them what is your advice to others that . see something they want to record it and they have this run in with the police and what is your advice to that will be a lot of it to a nation that the police will try to use to be discourage citizens from videotaping or audio recording of any kind and systems do not need

a press pass of any kind if she took control record public officials at any time of course if they need them the police asked them to move to a certain area for safety or whatnot they should always follow those orders but other than that there's really no reason why a system journalist shouldn't feel free to whip out their cell phones or any other video or audio recording device. and just act very professional with them because they should be trained professional as well all right well i know your court day is tomorrow as you mentioned earlier what exactly are you being charged with actually charged with resisting arrest and this was like i said directly after i refused my video camera away so i'm not sure if the prosecutors will try to. push that i was some sort some way resisting the here because of some sort i will clearly deny that i was following every single order the only one i did not follow was the unlawful order of pretty much everywhere are at asco we're going to have to keep us updated on how it all plays out thanks so much for coming to think that any of that was awesome skater he's a pedicab director. well we are going to take

a quick break but coming up india is moving toward more affordable drug treatments up next we'll tell you how a shift in government policies could save millions of lives across the country. a lot of american power continues. things that are so bad might actually be time revolution. and it turns out that a particular drug or starbucks or the surprising him really here. they are. looking to be alone and so we'll get 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. . we turn now to news of a revolutionary move toward more affordable drug treatments in the developing world and it is all possible through a revised trade an international property property rights agreement passed by the world trade organization as artie's preassure the reports the agreement makes it possible for more patients in developing countries to have a chance to access lifesaving medication at a fraction of the price. she were the is one of the two point five million people in india dying from cancer while she spent three thousand dollars of her money and traveled for three hundred fifty miles from her home to

get proper treatment she believes there is no hope for her address back at the mater soon the stores are expansive we have come from so far so there are times we don't have money to burn it. but now there might be a chance in a revolutionary move india's patent office has decided that they are a german pharmaceutical powerhouse would lose its exclusive rights to manufacture a life saving cancer pill that i use was exorbitantly high. you do manufactured from abroad and sent here on the holder but. now a compulsory license would be given to a local indian pharmaceutical manufacturer that could make the exact same drug buy cheaper all of. a number of medicine and we're going to know the good news but. the price it's all possible because of the revised

trade and international property rights agreement passed by the world trade organization known as trips to trips agreements focus is to provide medication to all people in developing countries that means the global pharmaceutical companies are required to sell a life altering medication at a reasonably affordable price to people in those countries if they don't do that patent offices in those countries can ask these global pharmaceutical companies to provide compulsory licenses so that a local manufacturer can benefit make those drugs the idea is that the global pharmaceutical companies would then be stripped of their monopoly on drugs in developing countries. fair has said in statements that it is quote disappointed in the ruling and is looking for ways to challenge it this is a solid offer of water being do that but don't hold us to. the.