turn it into solid gold. request the gold and silver investors god. call today eight hundred two five seven gold. it was once only a technology only five five movies could dream up software capable of tracking your every movement by spotting your face in a crowd and then storing that information in a vast government database but that fantasy is now a scientific reality i'll tell you where and how. it's a small world after all and it's about to get a whole lot smaller in the near future and the u.s. to the u.k. canada to australia lawmakers around the world are proposing similar a fiver legislation so is it just a coincidence or a full scale assault on internet communication freedoms we will question more. and if the saying holds true that you are what you eat what you want to know exactly what's in your food california residents are considering g.m.o.

labeling will debate the economic and health impacts of labeling these food.

bowl and. it's not completely accurate but arguably getting there and it's not just social media companies either the government is getting into the mix as well paying private companies to follow you around you may have heard a lot about a certain company as of late called trap wire though not much has been confirmed about the program we do know this that the quote sophisticated predictive software used to predict terrorist attacks is already in place in cities such as los angeles new york los vegas and d.c. with a limitless data bank with who knows what or who well there you have it it seems the days of anonymity are gone and it's not just the camera but the data bank you

should also be afraid of so is a picture really worth a thousand words well as we found out today it might be worth much much more reporting from washington imagine a set of artsy and with most programs involving high tech cameras and an f.b.i. database the need for these programs is often said system from the need for greater security and safety on the f.b.i.'s own website it says the mission of the n.g.i. is to reduce terrorist and criminal activities by improving and expanding biometric identification and criminal history information services through research evaluation and implementation of advanced technology within the i.a.f. i asked environment r t producer adriano set of joined me earlier on set to really dive into the issue first discuss whether or not this technology is most likely the trend of the future. looks like it definitely i mean we're seeing this just as

technology is moving forward i mean even right now private companies are trying to track your every move and even anticipate where you're going to do next so it really comes down to yes. all points signs point to that and i know that it was really interesting that you use the example of facebook in your report yes anyone who is on facebook i remember the first time i saw that feature when faced with a new which ones of my friends were actually in the pictures before i even tagged them of course once in a while getting it wrong for the most part kind of being right i am right on i mean if that's what's being used on a regular person to facebook then you know what the f.b.i. and what some of these governments are using my absolutely not a little bit money is to create it much more sophisticated do you think that we're going to see pushback though from the public i mean honestly i mean we already are in some cases like there are some privacy advocacy groups in our friends and electronic. frontier foundation. so on and so forth have already come out against

you know these types of software is and also on the hill funny enough probably less than a month ago senator al franken himself was grilling facebook and you know facebook's lawyers over the use of this technology especially the fact that it's not really disclosed to any of the users so in other words as i mentioned before hand you are already submitting to all of this without really knowing the extent plus that what you should really be worried is that data bank because without anything to cross-reference there you go there is nothing so you've seen a little bit but at the end of the day you know does safety trumps your privacy that's sort of the question there and that's one thing you know when you go on facebook especially if you don't have the most secure of settings you're choosing to give up that privacy and i lot of people in younger generations i mean this is

just what they have always known they have always known a world with status updates and facebook you know uploading cell phone pictures of the energetic union to where you are at all of these things and you know we make choices to do this because we want our friends to know but to what extent do you think. you know if you're a fourteen year old plotting all your pictures and you know ten years later you're in a store when an armed robbery have and i mean what's to prevent you know the wrong associations from being made i mean it really that really depends i mean taking an example of a fourteen year old you know uploading pictures obviously you have to you are making that choice and obviously of course you you have to be smart about what you do on the internet that's there's no question about that but the question really isn't that the argument is when it's happening without your knowledge or your consent that's the problem so if something's happening for example if you're just

walking down the street you know there's a camera it takes your picture and then it cross references with something with a database from you know from i don't know if you were in l.a. for example and then you want to new york there's someone tracking your move why i mean there are there arguments to be made on both sides but it comes down to are you consenting to that that is the big issue a lot i think largely across the board the answer to that question is no the majority of people whose faces are put into the database not only are not consenting to it they have no idea it's going on and yet this program has been in the works in some of these cities that you mentioned for more than a year now is that right absolutely it absolutely has but i mean going back to something you said before hand i mean there is something to be said would be remiss if i don't mention security there is something to be said about being smart being able to identify those threats and being able to secure the homestead that's

absolutely a valid point how ever the very big issue is what i've seen and talked about with other people here in this office and you know that i've interviewed before and the problem is what to what extent are you giving up. your privacy in order to be safe so that is a meaning that's the million dollar question that exactly what i dreamed i want to get to something else you talked about in your package and that is truck wire. wire is something that we kind of laid out the groundwork for kind of explains to our viewers just a few days ago we were the first ones to i mean if you go online right now not to sort of have. shall we i mean room first ones to really cover that in. this is a program that was really sort of released in some documents on wiki leaks. talk a little bit about trap wire for those people who don't know and the concept also of sort of outsourcing this activity i mean it's pretty much what we know for

certain is that it's it's a private company that has its own software its own cameras all of this that is in d.c. in new york in l.a. and i think i'm missing in las vegas so what we do know is that it just keeps tabs and. security so in theory it is supposed to keep you and i safe so if we're in new york and there's some suspicious activity that should be the first thing to raise a red flag however the problem comes with it's a private company so it's not the government doing this it's a private company so they're taking all that information and storing it somewhere where what's happening with it. so you have a private company is made up a largely of former you know f.b.i. yeah i don't know but i'll absolutely certainly a lot to talk about a really neat way that you laid it out in your report i've read it with you so much . and while we're on the subject of surveillance and technology let's talk now

about plans for a controversial new laws regarding increased internet surveillance it's not just happening here in the united states it's also been proposed by governments of canada australia and the united kingdom in recent months government officials of these countries have made independent efforts in regards to the monitoring of internet communications now here's a few examples of what's being proposed first of all a mandating that social network sites and online chat providers build so-called back doors to be used by law enforcement instituting what's known as quote deep packet inspection technology that would allow the monitoring of the data there have been some negative reactions though from online privacy hawks regarding the potentially damaging implications of these laws what's more is that telecommunications companies many of you have heard of including microsoft eighty and t. sprint time warner cable varieties in many others they've already met with government representatives to talk about how to integrate surveillance into already existing

and still evolving technologies now earlier i spoke about this with rebecca bow international privacy coordinator for the electronic frontier foundation and we started off by talking about the standardization concerning these surveillance laws i asked her why it seems that other countries also seem to have taken a keen interest in this here's her take. and the i'm not really sure as much about you know we're not we haven't really looked into so much the sort of collaboration between countries but i do know that we heard governments saying that you know they want to be able to capture sort of all of the different online communications that are out there and that there so much happening there on able to capture you know our users and that is that a radical expansion of police surveillance powers really isn't the answer and privacy has to be protected and civil liberties have to be upheld. just last year or so for a second rebecca. but it is really interesting and we can call it

a so-called coincidence just that a lot of these these countries are working back we've got you back now i want to ask you about a proposed surveillance bill in canada this is called the c thirty just talk a little bit about what this bill entailed and what the public reaction in canada was like yeah you know and this is a really unpopular design can it you know basically there you would require broad and online surveillance powers for internet service providers actually slept in store information about individuals communications records online. about media and lots of canadian authorities easy access to use you know people's mind activity and it was even forced internet service providers to hand over. anything without a warrant people in canada were really unhappy with this proposal and they actually mobilized and their staff and the law has been placed on hold for aerially so they

are still concerned that it could be servicing them that very interesting and of course in the u.k. as well there's been of course to require internet service providers to keep records of these of the records of internet data from a wide range of interests in a vigil i guess we're back i mean who looks at. this information and what do they use it for yeah so this is what we're seeing sort of happen around the world in the u.k. in canada in australia is a proposal for what we call mandatory data retention and we can either pirating internet service providers to actually maintain records of people on line i see that is their use of social networking that i e-mail voice calls over the internet this kind of thing and in some cases they would be required to hold onto that information for she's years such differences that we just saw in australia is a two year mandatory got our attention so this means that he's really going to be

there and then if the government feels like they want to lean in and have a look at what you've been nazis and be there for them. and i want to go back to a term that we sort of introduced in the introduction to the segment on the term is a deep packet inspection zz top itself a little bit about what this means and you know why people who are against these proposed surveillance laws are concerned about this yeah i mean that essentially means that you know there's the ability for. the government to sort of look within the content of meta haitians and not just sort of you know moose being sent by you so that actually dealing with the content of the nation so we talked about canada and we've talked about some of the laws in the u.k. let's talk now about what's going on here in the us in terms of surveillance laws how do the laws here both that have been passed on that have been proposed to back up against kind of what we're seeing in these other countries. yeah you know we we

actually had three s. in the unit for eight hour and she believe here in the u.s. but of course you know the electronic frontier foundation is famous for our case against national security and even eighteen heat for the warrantless wiretapping which you seem kind of you know because dragnet on target is not there and in that we're seeing are supposed to meet other countries like u.k. and attic so what do you what do you think people should be concerned about and i know the fs has not focused so much on the role of some of these companies that we mentioned some of these large corporations but what do you think are some of the major concerns when you have you know the rise in on the comcast on the sprints you know basically that the major providers of both cell phone and cable when you have them kind of collaborating with governments what should we be wary of any you know i think this is really really be way area is

a shift from sort of the you know the system where government will listen you know people communication because they have probable cause and because they have an actual mission of wrongdoing and moving to a world in which they're listening you know everyone mediations this is ordinary people regardless of whether they're suspicious or not. you know you know and on targeted surveillance that we really worry about. yeah certainly a lot here to talk about and you know we also hear from from some of the top officials in this country and other countries the need for this as well so certainly the mixed messages coming appreciate having you on the show or back about international privacy corner for the electronic frontier foundation in san francisco. still ahead on r t two label or not to label and california that is the question whether it is nobler to know that g.m.o.

or take companies out there word when they promised that it's safe coming up will debate the pros and cons of labeling food.

state run english speaking russian channel it's kind of like. russia today has an extremely confrontational stance when it comes to us. what drives the world the fear mongering by politicians who makes decisions. breakthrough it's already being made can you trust no one. with the global machinery where we had a state. capital it's called. when nobody dares to

ask you. question more. well california voters this november will have the option to choose whether or not to require genetically engineered foods to be labeled as such proposition thirty seven is drawing quite a bit of support with a recent poll taken by pepperdine university showing sixty nine percent of respondents in favor of the labeling but we should mention genetically engineered foods are not some sort of rare commodity according to california's legislative analysis analyst office in two thousand and eleven eighty eight percent of all corn and ninety four percent of all soybeans produced in the u.s. were actually grown from g.e. seeds between forty and seventy percent of foods sold in california grocery stores contain some g.e. and gradients and the cost of regulating the labeling of genetically engineered foods between a few hundred thousand dollars and over one million dollars annually and speaking of money with as with most political issues there's another powerful force behind

this whole lot of money now the yes on thirty seven campaign it raised two point four million dollars no on thirty seven has raised nine point nine million so what's the breakdown this prompt thirty seven earlier i was joined by ronald bailey science correspondent for reason magazine he also wrote the book liberation biology the scientific and moral case for the biotech revolution i asked him what he felt about the food labeling and informing people about the facts in their food take a listen. well the interesting thing about labeling in the united states is it's not about facts. states as a rule that basically we put labels on food for two reasons information or safety or warning information in either case where that applies to. crops or ingredients using. juniper crops they are completely safe every independent scientific body anywhere in the entire world has ever evaluated the current crop

and evaluated them and said that they are perfectly safe for humans to eat and that they are no different nutritionally from conventional or organic crops so there's no reason to do so why do these people want the labeling the reason they wanted is because they know that americans would change the labels a warning label and therefore would steer away from these types of crops from conventional crops even and move in the direction of the organic crops that they're from they're promoting to their profit but i guess when you look at especially the money that's involved and of course you know as we know every single proposition california resident grew up there and everything every prop has a whole lot of money backers on both sides who have something to gain and something to lose but what i'm curious about is why not put that money into convincing people and educating people on what you just said to me which is that you know science quite a few scientists have shown that genetically engineered foods are in fact safe to

eat why not educate the people instead of trying to prevent it from appearing on labels. well i believe that they do is u.k. people in that regard by particular thing and i want to stress that what i was looking at with this is whether or not the people who were in favor of the proposition were making anti scientific arguments i don't want to get necessarily into the labeling education argument i just want to make sure that people understand that the folks that are saying yes to proposition thirty seven are doing it for less than honorable reasons they are actually misleading california voters about where the science stands on the safety of these products they're claiming in their materials behind the yes on prop thirty seven that these that there's evidence that genetically modified crops can cause human harm or harm to human health and that's simply not true and that was the main thing that i was focusing on in my particular article i do not want people to think that there's some pretty

some sort of consensus behind is that somehow to think about a cross or a danger to people they flatly are not and the people who are promoting this proposition are lying to the voters in california and that's what i want to focus on but when you look at who is promoting this proposition and you specially look at where the money comes from the majority who are in favor are organic farmers their owners of organic restaurants their consumer interest groups and thirty five percent of the money that's been raised has been from inside of the state now let's look at the nine point nine million significantly more money that is coming from the large corporations corporations like monsanto coca-cola del monte nestle and just nine point six percent of the money raised coming from inside of california so how do you convince california voters that these large corporations are the ones with their best interests at heart. well first of all i'm very puzzled i kept looking for any money from monsanto and in this initiative and i think could find

and if you have some please let me know because i'd like to find it but what's interesting about it is that in a certain way this initiative process process is going to be an educational process basically what both sides are trying to spend money to convince voters that they are right and i think that this this way will help educate california voters and i'm hoping that everybody will stick to the scientific arguments now with regard to money coming from outside the states one of the problems is that the leading companies are worried about this is because what would happen is you have this labeling in california all the sudden that would apply since it's the entire country we're not going to start segregating food just for california and not for the rest of the country and this will cost a lot of money possibly and there are studies that said you know i've seen that legislative office study here but basically earlier stages said if you tried to segregate organic conventional and genetically modified crops one from the other it

would cost literally billions of dollars and that would of course go to the bottom line for consumers they would have to take more for this so the idea that and i think that this is the bad intent on the part of the people who are in favor of the proposition their intent is to scare consumers into voting against you in voting in favor of this kind of labeling so that ultimately what would happen is that large companies would say simply we can't take in each and every modified crops that would be bad for the environment and would be bad for farmers that we've had for consumers if that would succeed but you know perhaps that's the case here in the u.s. but let's look at where else as this goes on genetically engineered foods are already labeled in several european countries the european union japan australia and china so why you know don't they have a problem with putting you know about. what the ingredients essentially on their labels and why do we i understand and if you look at it as a fact of the matter is because of that labeling there are very few products that

actually contain genetically modified ingredients in them in those countries and other words the scare campaigns have succeeded in europe japan australia know the countries and the attempts to do the same thing here is again a scientific campaign and then because it works in europe it will work here and that's what i'm afraid of i'm wondering why you think that this particular proposition has gained so much attention from around the country so much national attention what's the big deal here that others should care about again as i say what will happen is that if it happens in california it is likely then to be rolled out across the country i think that's why we're getting that kind of attention. what are the polls showing that you're seeing i talked in the earlier part of the show about the pepperdine poll that shows sixty nine percent are in favor are you saying different numbers no actually i'm seeing higher numbers a.b.c.

news did a poll even earlier this year i think it was in july and found a three percent of americans would like it to be labeled and the problem with that as i say is that we label united states on scientific grounds and not on consumer rights and no grounds when you the way you think about it i believe that people should be able to voluntarily label their products they would like to do it but they should not require the rest of us to pay for their particular kinds of tiers i mean you want for example labeling is the way it works and i was voluntary you have to go into the factories and production and they look at make sure that the rules are followed and therefore they can label their food as the same thing with organic and i see no reason why we can't do that voluntarily across the country but my objection is requiring the rest of us consumers to pay for the few years of the few ronald bailey science correspondent for reason that has seen.