eleven years ago today the u.s. in the world watched in horror as the temporal love and terrorist attacks unfolded so in the time that's passed what's changed in america from our loss of freedoms to sacrifice lives our t. questions more. and in the eleven years since that fateful day the u.s. has turned to drone warfare around the globe for the first time president obama is actually talking about his drone policy coming up we'll tell you about the specific criteria he claims the u.s. uses to conduct drone strikes. to pictures the subway system said it would love to buy you pictures and then i and the post nine eleven world

security is a top priority even the simple act of taking pictures can land you in trouble have we become a nation that sacrifice our freedoms for our sense of security. it's tuesday september eleventh eight pm in washington d.c. i'm not going lopez and you're watching r.t. . well for three hundred sixty four days a year americans go about their daily lives they pay their bills work a normal nine to five job and worry about having enough money for retirement but one day a year this day we stop to remember the extraordinary circumstances that brought us to where we are eleven years ago today on a day very much like this one three thousand men women and children lost their lives in the years that followed thousands more died in wars and even more were sacrificed or were scarred both on and off the battlefield since that fateful day

americans have watched as u.s. military plunged into wars the economy tumbled and the rights to privacy were stripped away now for each of us nine eleven symbolizes something very different something very personal but today we want to take a look at the bigger picture we want to know if the actions taken since then were too much or just enough and to look at the toll these past eleven years have taken on all of us to help me do that archie correspondent on a saucy a church going to join me just a little earlier we talked about the many sacrifices in the years following nine eleven from ramped up t.s.a. to the patriot act was this ramp up enough to take a look. megan of course we have to be fair here and say that certain measures were of course necessary but there have been many measures put in place throughout the last eleven years that many people will of course agree that have been a little more than excessive i mean when we're seeing mothers at airports that have

to throw out their baby bottles because of worries that there might be explosives in their mothers having to taste their own breast milk at airports because they're worried that this might be dangerous for the other people taking the airplane people removing their percentage lives that airports to prove that. to go through security these are of course measures that i'm sure many people would say are of course a tad to say the least excessive and this is something that americans have been dealing with on a day to day basis ever since nine eleven and a necessity i just want to put some numbers on the toll that nine eleven has taken on all of us i want you to take a look at this along with our viewers as far as the human toll goes nearly three thousand people were killed in the september eleventh attacks around four thousand four hundred seventy seven were killed in iraq over two thousand words less dead in afghanistan and then back here in the u.s. one hundred sixty seven suicides were marked in two thousand and eleven while

there's one hundred sixteen suicides in the first part of twenty twelve so it goes beyond the initial nine eleven numbers and now as far as the financial toll goes before nine eleven we had one hundred twenty eight billion dollar surplus today we have a sixteen trillion dollar debt the new york city recut destruction efforts and policy decisions alone cost three point three trillion dollars and we've seen a two hundred thirty four percent increase in oil prices since two thousand and one and as you just kind of spoke about a little bit there the t.s.a. is also has an annual budget of eight billion dollars so i mean obviously these numbers are not nearly extensive enough but they do begin to paint a picture of where we are now forces then can you talk a little bit about how far we've come as. nation since two thousand and one absolutely megan here you know you paint a wonderful picture of really it seems like nine eleven became the daily one for the rest of the future of the united states because what we're seeing these deaths

that of course might have been avoided these excessive spending that of course might have been also cut down tremendously especially in a in a very complicated economic situation really a lot of experts and common americans believe that it's been a way downhill and september eleventh became this sort of terrible tragic day be that lead to consequences that a lot of which were quite chaotic and could have been avoided and could have been handled differently and of course this is something that's a very huge reality today and as the united states of course goes through this turbulent time of economic attempts of economic recovery it cannot be ignored that these enormous amounts of money billions of dollars that were spent on security billions of dollars that were spent in wars abroad abroad could have probably been put to better use here at home and we don't know how much if people would actually feel safer today and honest there's been a lot of reports coming out in the news today expection island last night as the

new york times was one of them they published an op ed last night called the deafness before the storm and in it contributor kurt eichenwald talked about the numerous warning signs the bush administration had received that pointed to a possible terrorist attack and not just talk didn't only talk about the one on august the sixth of that year but many others and i want to read you part of the new york times article it said while those documents are still not public i have received excerpts from many of them along with the others recently deceased decline declassified records and come today in scaife inescapable conclusion the administration's reaction to what mr bush was told in the weeks before that infamous briefing reflected significantly more negligence than has been disclosed in. other words the office fix document for all the controversy of controversy it provoked is not nearly as shocking as the briefs that came before it so on a stuffy and his article he cited several examples of blatant oversight many came down very hard on george bush for ignoring the science but it can be argued as it

was in my newsroom this morning that it wasn't simply the bush administration's fault but numerous agencies fault is the bush administration most at fault here are there other people to blame well you know magnets of course you know it's been eleven years so whether or not a blaming game is really in place now is a question but it's you know i think here the bottom line is this whether george bush his administration any of the agencies some of the agencies involved had even a hint of even one percent of what we saw on september eleventh certainly more should have been done and more could have been done so if that was in fact the case that there could have these signs could have been taken more seriously then of course everybody who had any knowledge of what was to come is to blame on a stuff there's been a lot of reports coming out also about the money that the first responders are now

receiving or supposed to be receiving within the next year we're going to have to talk about that segment later or refer us to our online database for that for that discussion are to correspond on a stuffy a turk in a new york thank you so much for joining us. and that's on a stasi i mentioned in that interview because of the nine eleven attacks flying is much more of a hassle these days that's where the t.s.a. steps in it's a three letter agencies that has many americans saying a lot of four letter words and yet the agency has a fifty four percent approval rating but despite the having billions at its disposal the results aren't exactly justifying the cost r t correspondent liz wahl takes an in-depth look at how invasive the t.s.a. really has become. but this is the entire eleven years after the september eleventh attacks the t.s.a. faces growing scrutiny here's the bottom line it takes. in fact it's been a long time coming marking the anniversary of nine eleven top officials from the

department of homeland security testify before the house subcommittee on transportation security reasons t.s.a. was born from the strategy tragedy and lives this event every day from banning liquids to installing advanced imaging technology to enhanced pat downs many passengers have had enough attention i just want to have your rest of the others staged newsworthy protests the t.s.a. was created after the september eleventh attacks to help passengers feel safer when they travel but according to this report out of the subcommittee on transportation security the agency fails to meet taxpayer expectations and infringes on the privacy of passengers the report isn't titled rebuilding t.s.a. into a smaller leaner organization that outlines ways to make the agency more effective and less invasive the proposals include prioritize the harmonization of aviation security standards

a worldwide expand the use of canine explosive detection assets modernize and automate the passenger screening process to reduce pat downs and reduce the size of the t.s.a. workforce the cost of screening per passenger rose by over four hundred percent since two thousand and one and over the past seven years t.s.a. has budget increased by sixty eight percent while the number of travelers essentially stayed flat but top homeland security officials defend the program we have t.s.a. cannot afford forget what our job is. we cannot be distracted by critics and others who forget we face a threat john lindsay deputy administrator for t.s.a. says it's a job they vow to keep doing our commitment to never forget the significance of this day includes an understanding that commercial aviation continues to be a priority target for terrorists but as t.s.a. becomes more invasive the question remains how far are americans willing to sacrifice privacy for safety in washington liz wahl r.t.

. now while the military can see that most of america's enemies are abroad that isn't stopping them from taking a critical look at the people back home a warning now to catch camera happy tourists be careful when next time you're taking photos in public it turns out that petard refers to be detained as potential terror threats the l.a.p.d. has released a new counterterror guidelines that are coming under serious scrutiny artie's among the lindo has the story. never existing. before you ever think about. the man you see surrounded by six arrests in miami police officers is photographer and blogger cargoes miller while on a public street during an occupy protest in january miller was a rested after a minute's camera at officers and the recording us they don't want to record of them. they really want to put a scare factor into it miller who runs the blog photography is not a crime has been arrested three times for exercising his first amendment right of

freedom of speech and expression according to many police departments across the country including the los angeles police miller's actions fall into the realm a potential terrorism this is the police state that people have been talking about or have talked about in years past this is no longer paranoia or conspiracy this is where we're headed investigative reporter jason leopold compares los angeles's anti terror campaign to new york's controversial spying program l.a.p.d. officers have been given the green light to report photography and other usual activities to their counterterrorism division. here in los angeles journalists say they've been detained for doing just this taking photographs in front of the jail now free speech advocates believe this is part of a larger trend of law enforcement taken anti terror tactics to the extreme whatever

you want to do you take pictures of the subway system of title would love to buy your picture so i want to know if you are in cahoots with al qaeda to sell these pictures to them for terrorist purposes photographer shaunie was detained by an overzealous los angeles sheriff's deputy who tried to connect me to al qaida that sheriff's department is now being sued but even lawsuits like shanny's are not deterring police from. i mean their anti terror crackdowns in the us are democracies and says nice these days attorney jim lafferty and other civil libertarians are especially concerned about the l.a.p.d. policies given the department's history of violating public privacy throughout the decades is long as we do that and don't get totally into the fear we can kind of we can prevent that kind of return to a full fledged mccarthyism or some of the others periods in our history when fear won the day but lafferty believes the fear mongering in the media is partly to

blame a chilling new warning about terror on u.s. soil leopold agrees also pointing the finger at our nation's leaders for using nine eleven as an excuse to create laws which in his view repress dissent and by late the constitution the public is quickly becoming desensitized to this and they also feel that they're powerless in a sense what can they possibly do about it as miller fights his latest legal battle he's convinced police tactics in fighting terror will ultimately backfire i guess to the point where there we have an issue we had a police officer why bother calling a police officer and when police news credibility they lost everything which started as a simple way to express improve claim his innocence miller now uses his blog to tell similar stories they continue his crusade of freedom of photography in los angeles ramon glinda r t. in the years since president obama took office he's changed the way americans fight wars mainly with his use of drones to

target and kill enemies up until this point he has been silent about this tactic and his involvement in the decision making process of who to target but last week he opened up about it on c.n.n. stressing the need for the u.s. to use drones sparingly to minimize civilian casualties but with the recent ramp up of drone strikes in yemen and the rise of the number of civilian deaths is the obama administration sticking to the criteria that the president laid out while douglas macgregor is a retired u.s. colonel and also the executive price vice president of the burke mcgregor group l l c and joined me earlier to discuss this very issue. well we've lost i think somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty strikes this year in yemen which is a significant increase over the past i think what's important to understand is that there are legal authorities that justify the use of force against targets overseas

who are considered to be enemies of the united states now general michael hayden when he was the cia director said that liberal democracies do not normally wage war on the basis of memoranda locked away in a safe in the department of justice and he urged more openness but the truth is it's not open we really don't know the quality or the value of the intelligence that were provided and how these targets are selected and that's part of the problem and that is what president obama spoke about a little bit in that c.n.n. interview is that they that he wouldn't confirm his involvement or picking up the targets but that to some capacity he is involved now if they also carry with the taint and what tunnel bay for a number of years he also went through a saudi rehabilitation institution that's supposed to i want to get this right focused on replacing militant ideology with religious moderation and obviously those methods that and work very well if if we are going to hand down a few years later well first of all in fairness to the saudis they have had

considerable success with a lot of former al qaida types but the truth is that right now this gentleman and most of his peers that are involved on the sunni islamist radical side of the equation are really focused on syria right now and most of their focus is really internal to the region you know distinguishing who really represents a threat from who doesn't is a difficult proposition because we tend to regard anyone who seems to be opposed to us as a potential adversary well there are lots of people that fall into that category killing them does it really make any difference what if we didn't kill them would it make any difference i mean these are questions that we can't answer we just don't know enough about it but here's an important point for your viewers to understand the reason this continues that is actually increased is because in the eyes of the american people this is a legitimate. and legitimacy is a powerful force americans are convinced that there are large numbers of people out there trying to do us harm and that killing them wherever they show up whether it's

pakistan yemen sudan anywhere is justified as long as that perception exists whether this is truly legal it international says makes no difference it will continue now i ask colonel anthony shaffer last week if these airstrikes are fighting or fostering terrorists and i'd like to get your opinion on that well those of us who have looked at this point out that we continue to kill large numbers of people and we're told that there are still more to be killed so if the idea is that somehow or another you're thinning the ranks it doesn't seem to work in fact you could make a good argument that we're cultivating the emergence of more enemies new cells that are not necessarily brid from some central location in northern pakistan they they pop up as independent franchises again in response to us into the into the perception that we're trying to impose a military political had germany on the region so in that sense i think in many

cases these are in fact counterproductive and i also want to take a look at what qualifies as a military target so to start off we need to look at the number of drone strikes in yemen there back in two thousand and two there was only one and i think we have a graphic to show that there was only one and two thousand and eleven there was ten and then this year there have been thirty three now part of this reason could be that there were even present peninsula took advantage of the arab spring to start controlling the south part of yemen and this next part that i want to show you if we can bring that up really fast this is the number of civilian casualties versus militant al-qaeda khalil t is casualties of militants are in the red so significantly higher but i mean according to the new york times article those who qualify as a militant are quote all military aged males in a strike zone unless there is explicit. intelligence post humorously proving them and it sent so it's all male well it is that until proven guilty and here's another

piece of bad news there's a tendency to regard the collateral damage that occurs as the fault of those who are foolish enough to support or be associated with the targets their words if you're providing any sort of sustenance if you're meeting with these people you are by definition guilty and therefore you deserve to go down with the target in the strike again i think these are counterproductive i don't think that they're working their magic by any stretch of imagination and again the last thousand years of history suggests that if we are less visible in the region and we are less active in this regard that the people that live in the region will turn their attentions to their enemies in the region and not us now i've laid out a little bit early on the five criteria that president obama says that he uses to use these drone strikes to the best of your knowledge is he following us criteria i'm sure he is and again this is a judgment call this is you know the president sits at his desk and he's added something by people he trusts who are telling him these people deserve the worst

what is he supposed to do how many how much of his day to see devote to systematically examining the gunner lying intelligence to determine whether or not this makes any sense i don't think he's got the time that there are a lot of people who are supposed to deliberate about this but again you're dealing with the same people now who were there in the last five to ten years of the previous administration they see the world through a lens so they see lots and lots of enemies who deserve to be destroyed whether or not that's justified whether or not that makes any sense particularly at this point in time that's another matter entirely so i don't think the president is lying by any means when he says this is what i'm doing whether or not it's effective you know who else is externally reviewing this and advising it that's the question so just to be very clear for our viewers what you're saying is to. best of the president's knowledge he was following this criteria but not necessarily to the best of the military intelligence communities. do you know the same people who were

there who were there for over ten years ago there has been no change they see the world in a certain way even if that doesn't necessarily align with reality right let's let's go back to yemen for a minute the yemeni government's involvement in these airstrikes the pro-forma president ali abdul fully transfer power to his vice president back in february to quell the arab spring unrest so he was very complicit with the u.s. air strikes and his vice president seems to be even more so because more strikes have happened to yemen so why is it only the u.s. that is. advocating for these drone strikes to save american lives and kill or enemies in the process or is it yemen as well well there are some other factors at work here the more complex issue first of all there are people who are opposed to the status quo in the middle east many of them may or may not be associated with al qaida most of them or islamised that at the moment should use a lot of. that was douglas macgregor retired u.s.

army colonel and also the executive vice president of the burke mcgregor group l.l.c. and drones certainly aren't the only advanced technology being tested by military minds today more and more machines are becoming advanced enough to fight our wars for us both in the skies and on the ground let me introduce you to the newest four legged robot being tested. i. this mechanical beast it's called the alpha dog more formally known as the leg of squad support system it was designed by darpa that is the defense advanced research projects agency and if you think you've seen it before you have but this is the bigger better version of the alpha dog but there is one. very important difference between this robot and its predecessor like its well as trained organic counterparts this robo dog can obey instructions to follow people and that's

certainly not all it can do the machine which was designed by boston dynamics can stand upright walk twenty miles without a break and carry up to four hundred pounds through the rough terrain so are you impressed yet well despite the noise that you heard the robot is ten times quieter than before and they're working to silence it even more now despite all these improvements the robot dog is not quite ready for combat yet the next step comes in december when the marines will embed the robot dog in a series of field exercises on military bases in virginia and the california desert to see how it handles those claimants but it looks like it's in the not too distant future man's best friend could have some very serious competition and now into the saga of julian a son despite the legal battles the wiki leaks co-founder finds himself in these

days the web site itself is still alive and well just today to mark the eleventh anniversary of nine eleven terror attacks the site released half a million documents gathered within twenty four hours of the attack so it seems that despite the political turmoil faced by a son for wiki leaks it's a business as usual kind of plan are to have the chance to speak with julian assange his lawyer both asarco so on and the latest developments about the latest developments in his case take a look. it isn't justice because the u.s. is conducting a criminal investigation into week elix and that's according to a few but nevertheless very reliable reports in this case targets mostly julian asuncion but other founders of the organization are also involved in this respect it is absolutely clear to us that such investigation and prosecution i would join a list who is in essence just doing his job violates freedom of speech in the us it

cancer you which prides itself in always defending freedom of speech feel have value firmly stipulated ensconced it to show that this is a big concern and largely this was the reason why jewel in a sense decided to see correct future from sweden in the ecuadorian embassy because he knew that he could have been extradited to the u.s. and that's what it was all about and ecuador took this responsibility and granted diplomatic and political asylum to julian asuncion so mr assad and his defense team don't have to justify this decision he exercised his fundamental right. it is clear that political asylum was granted because julian essential is facing terrible injustice and this is what we are fighting against at the moment and we will continue to fight and prove that there is no reason to prosecute mr sunshine and

also julian assange she is ready to give his statement he is ready to be questioned in sweden submit himself to other procedures but only if he is guaranteed that it would not lead to more complicated gaze in which he's right to freedom of speech and information would be violated. so there is no you say that you have prove that the u.s. is conduct in a secret investigation do you think it's legal to conduct such investigations. and make every country has a practice of conducting secret investigations of course if there are good reasons for that we don't know whether the u.s. has such a reason in this case but we know for sure that the case has been opened in the u.s. government admitted the fact we also know that no official charges have been brought against mr asuncion so far but it only means he's not charged at the moment they

could as well charge him and danny time in the future we also know that the u.s. continues to give their day there on the case and theoretically it could be this source for indictment which would supposedly be used to issue an international arrest warrant in line with us law we have sent a request to the american authorities to confirm that they are indeed conducting an investigation if he's a tit is if that's so why then is mr is songes defense not taking part in it if the defense has no access to the case then in what ways the on going collection of evidence consistent with us legislation as soon as we clear that up we'll be able to say whether this case is in line with the law so far the statements made by some prominent american politicians indicate that he could be indicted under the espionage act l all which has not been enforced since the cold war. i don't think

mr a song she's a spy. he merely published information he received from outside sources through we kill it's information that was available to thousands of people. all he did was exercise he's right to freedom of information he received and shared it but i'm much more surprised that there has been known best to get into the glaring crimes documented in those leaked reports featuring the us interference via different channels of information or proxies in various states with issues that have absolutely no relation to either national security or the safety of the american citizens or defense but rather are indicative of the internal disorder in the united states that was both are some still in a lawyer and that's going to do it for now for more on the stories we covered go to youtube dot com slash r t america or check out our website are tied up.