nearly seven weeks after wiki leaks founder julian assange refuge in the ecuadorian embassy has faded it's still uncertain and the international community is getting impatient now sweden is adding even more pressure to a high profile pursuit coming up a report from london. and if you thought the curtains were closed on u.s. cyber legislation get ready for act two the u.s. senate is where our play takes place for major fears comes new cyber legislation we'll tell you all about the latest assault on your privacy and also take a deeper look at the seedy dealings of the n.s.a. . and shown blasts mercy even animals shocking allegations against the

f.b.i. for the drugs used to put inmates to deb some states using pad drugs and their lethal cocktails others not checking the potency and effectiveness of the ones they use is this a form of cruel and unusual punishment or question more. and clot clad in enough riot gear for a war zone u.s. police officers are a force to be reckoned with some call it a safety measure others and intimidation tactic all taking a critical look at the evolution of the outfits and the already of today's police officers. it's tuesday july thirty first five pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wahl and you're watching our. well starting off this hour with an update on julian assad the swedish government has rejected a request by aqua dorian officials to interview a songe in the u.k.

that's according to the wiki leaks twitter feed

it by the. to plead her case and she says she's extremely worried about the state of his health she says he's under extreme stress in the ecuadorian embassy and he's been under long term extreme stress for the last two years while these this case is being going on and he's really living in conditions similar to detention that was our correspondent laura smith with an update from london now arts he has been covering this story since the release of the collateral murder video which poll wiki leaks in the public eye as never before and we will continue on this story as it develops julian assange and his mother arrived in ecuador on monday and as we speak an r.t. crew is in ecuador following the developments from inside the country there's much more information coming out so stay tuned. well a number another cyber security bill up for debate today in congress this time it's

the cyber security act of two thousand and twelve the bills aimed at regulating the internet has stirred a lot of controversy recently but this one has the white house standing behind it and this bill appears to have some very positive provisions let's take a look at a few of them. first when they're ensuring that only civilian agencies not the national security agency are in charge of our nation's cyber security systems and x. y. and sharing data isn't shared with law enforcement except in very specific limited circumstances and ensuring that data collected through cyber security programs can't be used to prosecute other unrelated crimes and the last one car carve outs for free speech and terms of service violations and that all sounds great but privacy advocates are still skeptical to talk more about the cybersecurity bill aaron schwartz found evidence and progress joined us earlier today here's his take . well i mean it's certainly good that they've made these improvements to the bill

and like you said it has a lot of protections for privacy that weren't there before but there's still the fundamental question of why we need a bill like this at all i mean obviously if we are going to have a bill it's better than it has privacy protections than the previous bill which you know actually trampled on privacy in all sorts of ways but the government still hasn't explained why we need to you know even of a civilian agency to monitor all our cyber communications against some sort of nonexistent. i mean how would you compare this bell to other some of the more controversial pieces of legislation so. says the latest to pass the house so it's closest to suspend that it's the same basic idea it's about letting people share cybersecurity information more easily but it doesn't have some of the most egregious provisions in that bill like you mentioned it has saved cards in place in response to the popular uprising about the bill but what it doesn't do is

it doesn't change the fundamental approach of the bill it still says what we need is another government agency whose job is to collect information about americans in order to stop some sort of terrorist threat from the internet and doesn't attack the real problem of cyber security threats which is that the government groups like the n.s.a. been funding. in the creation of vulnerabilities in our computer systems and exploiting them for their own purposes in till we stop that until the government stops funding cyber security holes it seems a bit ridiculous to say that the solution in the cyber security is more spying and collecting more data about america but what are the implications of transferring that power away from the national security agency to a civilian agency. well that's certainly a huge improvement i mean if you look at the track record of the n.s.a. it's infamously been one of the most ferocious groups spying on americans collecting data about americans building huge databases and drawing that try and collect all sorts of material you know from a tweet or e-mail records putting more material is really frightening and taking it

away from the n.s.a. is a huge positive step but it doesn't i mean you know at the end of the day it's one government agency or another government agency it doesn't solve the underlying problem now there are these ramped up fears there and a you know a cyber hack cyber terrorism and i. would you say that there shouldn't be any oversight whatsoever to you know put safeguards in to prevent against potential attacks now like i said i think it's really important that you stop cyber attacks and the way to do that is to make our cyber systems more secure to close the vulnerabilities that allow attackers to get it but the problem is the government's doing the opposite they are funding the creation of vulnerabilities they are offering rewards for people to bind and build vulnerabilities in the misses them and give it to the u.s. government when the u.s. government can launch fiber attacks in other countries as long as u.s. government is paying people to create vulnerabilities we're not going to get rid of

the problem and so instead of actually addressing the underlying problem which is that there are these holes there are these vulnerabilities in our computer the government trying to work around my saying well yes we're going we hold open but we're just going to watch them carefully to make sure only the u.s. government uses it that's most. added to the sound of. i do want to mention you know senator ron wyden he has kind of been at the forefront of all of this and trying to advocate legislation that would protect internet freedom then he plans to introduce an amendment to this bill that would prevent warrantless g.p.s. tracking so aaron i mean it looks like there are still a lot of concerns areas of concerns within this legislation i mean it's great to see senator one doing that and he's brought a lot of attention to this issue which basically is that the government claims they can spy on all of our location without a word because it's just our location and it's not a new thing. it's an absolutely ridiculous argument that the argument that so ridiculous they refuse to make it publicly and we've only been able to hear about

it because senator wyden i was with the classified information and he continues to push the use legislation to fix the loophole that the government has simply invented out of this now and as we had mentioned earlier what this bill does it transfers power out of the national security agency to a civilian agency and a lot of controversy surrounding what exactly the n.s.a. has done in the past and if they did compromise people's privacy and constitutional rights want to break up a general keith alexander he came out recently and said that the n.s.a. did not maintain files on americans he says if that happened that it wasn't intentional this was at this was recently at a hacking conference over the weekend but many aren't buying it i mean what do you think is this is this an outright lie well i think we have this a whistleblower saying he was playing word games with the troops you know i think

if you really painted damas info yes. we just have a database with information about all sorts of americans but you know that's that's a distinction without a difference the fact is as little blowers again and again have alleged the n.s.a. is collecting enormous amounts of information about americans putting it all huge database. his word can be searched and information about any one of those can be pulled out the fact that ok today the n.s.a. isn't pulling all of the individual files with the names on it nor millions of n.s.a. bureaucrats taking notes on all of our conversations doesn't change the fact that they're recording them or keeping copies of them and they're searching through them all right so you know we saw so we saw we saw system now we have this cyber security bill that they're debating today and i know you're still you still not happy still not satisfied what would it take for advocates internet privacy like yourself to be to be satisfied. well what i would like to see is some movement in a positive direction we have spent so much time in trying to get rid of the worst

aspects of these bills get rid of the moves to use the winds that we've seen in and there have been improvements made on those fronts but what we are starting to see in this bill is small positive improvements so like you mentioned one of the changes in this bill is that it will change the definition of terms of service right now the government's position is that if you you violate the sort of click through agreement you get when you sign up for facebook on multi-page thing that i don't think anyone ever reads if you violate that the government's position is that's a crime well there's all sorts of silly things in that agreement like you have to use your real name on facebook so the government's position is if you if you use a fake a name on facebook that's a crime that they can throw you in jail for a certain draft of the bill would change that that's a positive step but we need to see more steps like that like senator wines amendment and so on but instead you know what we're seeing is not positive bills but small positive excuse attached to overall it's a bad bill right erin appreciate you coming on the show that was eric schwartz the founder of demand progress for the food and drug administration coming under fire

for how they administer drugs and executions apparently when it comes to killing people they don't look into the drugs poesy or effectiveness the f.d.a. reportedly gave dream pharma the green light to sell a drug called sodium pentothal to several states this drug is raising questions of constitutionality and whether the use of that can be considered cruel and unusual punishment to discuss this rayman bodner author of the book and natalie of justice a murder case god ron. raymond welcome so i mean what do you think can using this drug be considered cruel and unusual punishment. the supreme court has said that lethal injections in not cruel and unusual doesn't violate the eighth amendment the prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment but at the same time it effectively said that the drug has to work and if the right if the

administration of the anesthetic which is one of the three drugs used in the lethal injection protocol is ineffective or isn't say that it might be subject to the person being killed the prisoner to cruel and unusual punishment and what is it about this drug sodium pentothal i mean how does it work and why is it more controversial than other drugs use and lethal injections but it's it's it's an anesthetic liz and it's the first of three drugs. the first that is used and it's close to and that's the size the prisoner or the maid was strapped to a gurney for the deseret means the other two drugs are then administer and although this may seem a little bit. ironic if you will or. you know when that we're killing somebody

but we want is killing to be painless which is a lot of the proponents of the death penalty say if you saw the reaction both to my book and to the the article that i wrote in bloomberg view this saying why do we care about the pain and suffering of somebody who are primed it trying to put to death well this very court has said it's ok to use lethal injection but it's got to be saved in a way that doesn't subject the prisoner to excruciating punishment and i mean how does this compare to other or other forms other ways to administer the death penalty i guess in terms of the the humanity of that. if it was gone through this in the supreme court addressed that as well i mean first we had hanging's and then they had the electric chair and then they had the gas chamber and now they've gone to a lethal injections in each one is supposedly more.

humane quote unquote than the other forms and the supreme court over the years over over one hundred years is upheld every form every method of execution. and it so when it comes to this drug seems like the f.d.a. they did they gave it the green light and the f.d.a. is supposed to keep a close eye on all drugs except you think maybe they are not as concerned when it comes to the drugs used in executions exactly that's exactly what this is if the f.d.a. the food and drug administration has said we do not test drugs for their africa see if they're going to be used in execution you cannot sell sodium thiopental to a hospital or a pharmacy. without f.d.a.

approval but the f.d.a. says if you're going to sell the drug to a state prison system who wants to use it as executions we don't have anything to do with that. how many remain how many inmates would you say have been subjected to this drug. liz i don't know but scores by now i mean it started and it did the thing is is see the drug for a while it was manufactured in the united states and it had f.d.a. approval then the u.s. manufacturer hosp era shut down its operations for technical problems not any out of any moral issue because the drug also at legitimate uses so american death penalty states began looking abroad for the drug and they first found it in britain by this company dream pharma which operated out of the back of

a driving school literally had two rooms in the back of a driving school an organization here in britain called reprieve a non-governmental organization which is taking up the rights of prisoners as well as as represented a lot of men who have been subject or shorten or rendition enter are in quantum of one tunnel reprieve began to challenge this and they persuaded the british government to shut down exports of sodium thiopental so then american death penalty states found a supplier in india in mumbai and this supplier operated out of two rooms no air conditioning no he now how safe are those drugs. and the food and drug administration says hands off that's not our that's not our obligation to check those drugs now they've been sued they've been sued by inmates

the f.d.a. has been sued represented by a lawyer who was a lawyer in the bush administration so i mean what are you saying that the f.d.a. has no responsibility whatsoever to oversee these drugs that's what so what i say that's what the f.d.a. says judge a judge rejected that to say it and i'm a lawyer as well as a journalist and author quite stunning language and in the judge's opinion he said he said this is what the f.d.a. is defense is that they do state law enforcement authorities and the judge wrote how disappointing and then so the f.d.a. last in the f.d.a. has appealed. you know lastly i will address it a little there earlier about really quickly i mean for those that say you know why should we care these are people that have arguably committed these heinous crimes

and and they have been sentenced to the death penalty why should we care about the manner and wet they are served that sentence a lot of people say that a lot of people say that. why do you care why do you care about things that last book. you know somebody wrote as a comic one of these things we should have you know they used to be public executions in britain them in the united states and these have the public gatherings and the people came and they had beheadings and the stuff that why do you think this stuff that why are their public image executions why do they try to make a court of court more humane because they want to continue the death penalty and they they want to keep it out of the public eye as much as possible if there were public cares to sions again the death penalty would probably be a limited. really eye opening and controversial discussion but thank you so much

appreciate you coming on the show that was a raymond baader he is the author of the buck anatomy of the end just as a murder case gone wrong. thank you both. still ahead here on r t extreme policing is not a new phenomenon here in the us what social media we are seeing more examples of police going overboard and that starts he looks at how policing has evolved for the worse. kind of american. revolution.

to the capital and i'm laura mr. 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.

well we saw throughout the occupy wall street protests and now one at a high disturbing images of police brutality and while. cases of police brutality have gone out there or gone odd throughout time the difference now is that it can all be caught on video and we've played it for you police resorting to using pepper spray tasers but taunts and other weapons on protesters often times decked out in riot gear so our police expanding their arsenal and enhancing their tactics to talk more about how police tactics have changed throughout history our own group the founding editor of the independent joins us now welcome so i mean what do you think are police getting more sophisticated and their tactics these days. nothing much more sophisticated than the militarization of policing. a lot of the photos and video footage coming out of that the people in common a thing on them looks like exactly like us soldiers in iraq they're in cab applies

full body armor they're carrying and sensually grenade launchers military and solve the rightful. but what it points to i think in the much more disturbing trend is that there is a dependency on the state now to see the people as the enemy. and any sort of dissension in that and that with massive war and this is something that's been a long term trend that goes back i think the whole idiology of zero tolerance that they will not stand even the you know one little infraction in new york that was known as the broken window theory of policing which which has proven to be really based on the suspect. study but it was the idea that you know you can even have a broken window in a neighborhood because it leads to all sorts of other criminal activity similarly

you know people if they are just like standing in the street engaging in peaceful protest well if they're doing anything to defy authority they are there for a rat and in the post nine eleven months that we have to deal with any sort of read with it that's the poor and then we add in the social media which i think the interesting thing about that is a lot of this is a tremendous about after on film in the images on video alive and yet very little of it is finding its way into the corporate media the u.s. and there's a lot of reasons for this that we can discuss but i think overall that at the do that the corporate media are very much part of the governor. they don't care about that they don't care about the information there are their jobs make money they require. or so. their inclination is one.

with the police they report everything they say even when it's. a lot of. better. and you know throughout these protests you had mentioned a lot of these things being caught on camera we saw police using you know pepper spray projectiles. other for other forms. and other weapons that they used to subdue these crowds and i wanted to bring up this i guess this timeline that shows the evolution of the uniforms that police where there as you see in one nine hundred sixty eight i mean it looks pretty pretty run of the mill you know guy in blue he's got his baton there gets a little bit more sophisticated in one thousand nine hundred five and and here you

look at two thousand and eleven and the officer there you know he's got a gas mask he's got a a twelve gauge shotgun he has a he can use this less lethal projectile he can use tear gas so aaron i mean what do you make of this i guess it appears that that there are quite men is getting a lot more sophisticated. what will like if i did not so much of this to cave in to militarize that one of the effects of september eleventh the joint terrorism task force you have huge amounts of money going towards the local police department coming from the federal government that a centrally allowed them to buy million dollars' worth of toys they especially among a lot of local police departments will use the summit like the nato summit in chicago or the upcoming convention in charlotte north carolina and temp by they'll get

grants to bike and the millions of dollars worth of weapons and now common even for small cities that have actual physical. the link the park with. and but the underlying idiology is that the people are the end of that this is how the government really the people in the country i think i don't think it's different than most countries in the world but it is interesting to double lucia and i also don't want to say that those the other words that like golden era age of leaping or some out of the league were less brutal than the as we know in a. chicago during the democratic national convention that was a brutal police riot is essentially what what occurred there is that but now what they do is they do have the standoff weapons that having been that many occupy movements across the country over forty in the last they must have seen the police

come about in the masses and a lot of it is psychological that they're quite intimidating people you know when you come out like that or like they are literally covered from head to toe it really looks like the pig out of star wars that that they are covered with so much with it and it's to intimidate people to suppress any sort of free speech or does that. all right i think that is all the time that we have today aaron but thank you so much for coming on the show appreciate you weighing and that was aaron goob the founding editor for the independent and that's going to do it for then for now for more of the stories we covered you can head on over to our you tube channel that's youtube dot com slash r t america you can also check out our web site that is r t dot com slash usa our web raters are busy working on stories that we don't always have time to get to on the air or you can also follow me on twitter at liz wall we'll see you right back here and have to.