coming up this hour on r t can you hear me now well the government sure can the u.s. justice department is defending its use of warrantless tracking of cell phones and it isn't the only one a look at your mobile rights coming up. plus extremism comes in many shapes and forms that's no surprise but now the u.s. military has new classification standards for potential national security threats and changing your facebook status or social media preferences on that list and a little less than an hour from now president obama and his republican rival mitt romney will square off in their first senate debate but there are several topics you likely won't hear during tonight's conversation we'll tell you what those

topics are in just a bit. good evening it's wednesday october third eight pm in washington d.c. i'm christine you're watching our t.v. . well as many of you know we like to keep you updated on the latest methods of surveillance the government is taking since it's a topic a whole lot of other media outlets don't bother to discuss at all well there are a few new developments out there first the u.s. justice department argued in court yesterday that authorities should be able to get their hands on minute by minute movements of cell phone users over a sixty day period without having to ask a judge to approve a warrant first second out of concern for such actions like this because when you say legislature passed a bill stating that law enforcement agents and other entities would be required to obtain a valid search warrant in order to access location specific information submitted

or received by electronic devices and here's what happened to that bill california governor jerry brown a democrat returned it. he wrote to the members of the california state senate i am returning senate bill fourteen thirty four without my signature the bill would require a search warrant before law enforcement officers can obtain the location information generated by a cell phone a tablet computer automobile navigation system or other electronic device it may be that legislation legislative action is needed to keep the law current in our rapidly and evolving electronic age but i am not convinced that this bill strikes the right balance between the operational needs of law enforcement and individual expectations of privacy sincerely edmund g. brown jr governor jerry brown for more about this i was joined by declan mccullagh the chief political correspondent for c net and we first talked about his coverage of the obama administration telling federal judges in new orleans yesterday that warrantless tracking of mobile devices is perfectly legal legal. now i've just been

listening to the audio i wasn't there for the oral arguments unfortunately i knew it was up online and of that and the judge just seemed like they didn't really understand the technology that well but they understand the procedure in the principals pretty well so i suspect that they're going to take a pretty critical view of the government's arguments in this case it's too early to know i will have a decision in a few months i know that when you wrote that records kept by wireless carriers can hint at or reveal things like medical treatments political associations religious convictions even whether someone's cheating on his or her spouse or talk a little bit about you know privacy aspects of what is being sort of brought up and discussed in court. well marketers love cell phone location information makers people making i.o.'s or android apps do men the government does well of because you keep this is a device that you keep with you if you're like

a lot of people all the time millions of people to carry in their pockets or or purses and so whatever it is to use even if it turns on not making a cell phone call it's talking to the cell phone network so it can route calls properly so if you look back at the logs they're very detail and they show minute by minute hour by hour movements over a long period of time in season stitched together what someone's doing but if you have access to these logs and you mentioned you know marketers loving you know mobile devices that is on times after all the on us i've got my i phone and sometimes i like to ask siri you know hey sarah i'm in the mood for italian work i go or is there sushi where i am and you know she figures out where i am and you know give me back some responses always give me good recommendations but i think what a lot of people don't understand is that it's not just about you know googling you know where the nearest department store or restaurant is it's not about talking to siri that marketers are not like there's so much but that the government does have

the ability to see where people are. anytime right and. listeria knows where you are that means apple servers probably somewhere in cupertino california know where you are and that means that the government can figure out where you are as well if they have access to those servers and so look i mean nobody's saying that even the a.c.l.u. the electronic frontier foundation the civil liberties groups that are part of this case there are things that we should never have access to and that the issue here is under what circumstances they can have access to this location information and the groups are saying well we have a fourth amendment to the u.s. constitution and it says get a search warrant go to a judge demonstrate will cause that this is hundreds of years old this language is from. the bill of rights then acted over two hundred years ago you know how to do it just do that and then you can get the data and the government has said it's both the bush and obama thing it's bipartisan under under the d.o.j. that too that's too high a burden it'll make investigations more difficult we want to be able to get it by

without having to go through the warrant process. yeah i mean where is the get it is the warren process that is difficult i mean obviously if there's you know a kidnapped child or a missing person that getting a warrant should be pretty easy and pretty fast right and in reality you know you have exemptions for emergency this disclosure means doesn't exist like forty eight hours in regard to can do without a warrant if there is a fifth place is in danger facebook is going to turn over the data. and use an internal data without a word we're talking about anonymous emergency non-life threatening groups investigations and a few days as we've just want to be able to argue with relevance what investigation as opposed to probable cause us something that that's actually more privacy protective and so this is also what the federal legislation is proposing there's been a bunch of bills introduced most recently last week by representative last britain who represent the democrats represent the districts in some valley that had orders

to bunch of these companies including google and she says that the bill says it hasn't gone anywhere yet but it says that search warrant for location data let's talk now about what went down in california the governor are siding in this case with law enforcement over privacy issues. i was asking you this before but i mean. is it that difficult for law enforcement to get a warrant and talk a little bit about california and what this means. well the risk of sounding legally the standard is whether whether you can demonstrate probable cause before a judge other verses which is a relatively high standard for privacy protected versus just relevance with ongoing criminal investigation you know a lot of stuff is relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation and we seen over time that broad surveillance powers can be abused the department justice inspector general one of the bunch of reports but butler moving out to california what

happened is that the a.c.l.u. and some other privacy groups wrote a bill that really wasn't worded that well i like the idea behind the bill you are going but actually wasn't just one force in the decade it was also the cellular industry wrote an article for c. net in june i think it was saying here are the objections they're raising it didn't they just didn't it didn't understand the technology well enough so i think with a combination of industry in law enforcement officers and that persuaded governor brown to say better luck next time so what are the the objections by some of these mobile carriers why would they object to this language but if they think it's morally right and mentally imo this is i have to go back to my article four months ago but i think they raised things like civil penalties they didn't like the emergency exemption saying that they weren't broad enough to actually let them respond in the case of emergencies so it's i don't i think the brown can be convinced to sign a bill but this was kind of moving quickly and it didn't have it didn't have the

legislative record that you probably want so next time better luck next time it's interesting to me that when how much of this is unsettled at this point i mean i know that a scene that disclosed the justice department warrantless tracking requests from back in two thousand and five why seven years later are there still not clear lines drawn here. well in part i mean and in fact it was my article thanks for mentioning it that was the first to disclose this this was as you say seven years ago it was over seven years ago now it's a combination of a few factors the first is that seven years ago this is pre i phone right this was before people relied on the these devices as much as they do now that it's not just cell phones we're talking about is also they've got an android app had or not kindle depending on the model or an i pad three g. or something that's the fucking that it's the carriers on a network that this can be tracked as well so the combination of technology has

advanced and so relatively recently and that congress is kind of slow moving at one long foresman and including the department doesn't says no this is going to hinder criminal investigations well we saw this in the one nine hundred ninety s. during the encryption wars i'm going to call out a bot by this one again yes real briefly back and lay out for me some of the top one or two arguments by you know organizations like the a.c.l.u. in terms of why stop right now they have a technological argument which is that this is a vast amount of data one order can get i get it and i would govern to get megabytes gigabytes of it and the second is the constitutional argument the fourth amendment protect americans privacy including your location privacy as a supreme court decision dealing with g.p.s. physical tracking bugs earlier this year that they think it's relevant all right pretty interesting stuff here second mccullough chief political correspondent for the net thanks for weighing in. i want to talk now about the results of an

investigation conducted by a branch of the u.s. military a terrorism advisory organization inside the u.s. army called the asymmetric warfare group now they've determined some factors a smell test if you will to find out if members of the military have become terrorists warning signs include quote peculiar discussions complaints about bias or people who are socially withdrawn or are frustrated with quote mainstream ideologies now risk factors for radicalization include social networks and use so basically let's connect some dots here if you're in the military and you use facebook you have a higher propensity to turn against your coworkers and your government now i guess we shouldn't be surprised by this that was after all just a few months ago that brandon robb a member of the u.s. marine corps was taken into custody for his facebook posts. will now violate my right. here he is being taken from his virginia home by local

authorities and the f.b.i. they arrested him back on august sixteenth after the f.b.i. found his post to be anti american and quote terrorist in nature rob was initially taken to a psychiatric hospital against his will he since been released but his case is one that sheds light on a larger trend here the u.s. government cracking down on certain types of speech by members of the military branches attorney as john whitehead he joins me now from charlottesville virginia to break down what this could mean on a larger scale and john what do you make of the results of this report. well again if you're on a social network such as facebook and you say something the government doesn't like and gets in a lot of trouble with brandon rodd i mean you have the article the security the f.b.i. the local police arrive and arrest him and he asked what he did they said controversial postal facebook he was with them illustration luckily we found a judge that let him out within a week but a lot of people disappear so it seems here that if you're socially withdrawn you

don't have a life close family members that's one of the so-called risk factors or you're participating in chassell facebook and you appear to be anti american and year low these are all interpretations so it has to come up with the what is anti american you don't like the way you don't you're against the war in afghanistan well i know a lot of people say less anti american i say no that's free speech so what we're really dealing with here i think is the right to express yourself and not have the government chatter your eyes you as a weirdo because you have to disagree well and let's remember here a lot of people i have a lot of friends in the military and facebook is one outlet for them that they use to stay in touch with their families that they you know to look at pictures of their children all their friends and their college buddies to sort of stay connected while there are so far away i mean it seems to me it's a little bit ironic that what you know also be a sign of somebody who could turn radical it's a risk you know well as well the risk factors they look at see if you go to become

a terrorist which is crazy because you know as we'll that we know now every bipartisan basis facebook when i tell people today are really serious about this idea of what i consider to be a facebook post they're joking around or someone say don't say that because as it is you're you know your viewers may not know and some may know the national security agency has a facility in utah and out down those one point six million bits of information from the internet every day so they're putting these things electronic files they can be used against you later if you're to become a judge or whatever so i think what we're seeing is the. elliott free speech people really very nervous if they hear you i have a copy of the risk factors here i mean you're frustrated with mainstream idiology that makes you aware of her terrorist it does it makes woody allen look like a parent this ridiculous now this this is a little tricky i don't want to undermine this the study was commissioned in part in response to that deadly shooting at fort hood by major nidal hassan most people

remember he killed thirteen people back in two thousand and nine the government obviously has a responsibility to invest here to try to better you know detect early signs of radical thinking so john let me let you let me your take on this what do you think would be a better response well the f.b.i. did a rare e careful study of the school shooters and they what they came up with there's no profile school shooter. so the can't profile what we might consider to be insane people because most of the time there are exceptions they hide it they're very very good at that so the problem i see is what i see with schools cracking down zero tolerance behavior of a kid shooting a spit wad the kid with a gun is going to get through eventually in the military here so john people who don't have full squoze family ties or they may not like the war or fighting the the person i think that you should really be watching who is hiding all this is going to get through so what they're doing they're focusing on liners in the majors or

the problems so i see these checklists all the time people are people they're human beings you can put people in straight jackets and say here is your perfect robot like i said the f.b.i. cannot one. i want to talk a little bit about your client brandon rob from what i understand he posted lyrics from songs on his facebook page a thousand things critical of the government and was taken from his home against his will to a psychiatric institution first don what's the latest in his case and also kind of outline some of the lessons to be learned here you know he was taken away for is a controversial because he was never arrested they say although he was handcuffed that's correct was that in file arrest warrant against him a search already does all right for. what we're doing now as we were preparing to file a civil rights lawsuit on his behalf against the government because this is his rights were violated not only first amendment but he swore to militarize his statements were made on a private group so somehow the f.b.i.

got into his private facebook page and read the information without a search warrant so that's a real problem. i think the lessons to learn here is that when government gets together with certain groups maybe psychologists and comes out with the so-called checklist what we're saying is they don't work and they will or will say that i was on the people the first amendment is a way for people to express themselves and i tell them what officials dull bottle that up don't let people go into hiding because that's how you do get errors if they're afraid to go on the street corner i'd rather have a nazi and strickler preaching his gospel then somewhere in a basement making a bomb so what i'm saying is the first amendment is really important government should promote free speech and not limit that's interesting i have a friend in the us army did two tours in iraq and he's always joke and he said you know i'm going to fight for everybody's freedom even though i don't get to have any freedom of my own it's tough because a lot of these guys are on the they're on the front lines they're seeing

a lot of things and it's true they come back and they can't necessarily voice any sort of you know a disgruntled thought that they might have about what's going on in these countries when in fact they know more about it than any. and here in the country a lot of this is contact me and they're going over to afghanistan or iraq they're coming back and they're saying we should be over there and they're going on facebook in places like that and they're watching their discontent i would want to hear them and that's what america's all about the free flow of ideas but with these kind of regulations people are going to be nervous again i'd rather see the not fail the street corner although i don't agree with or not see them to be a base of making a bomb so we want to encourage people to speak otherwise you're going to get terrorists yeah i guess my last question for you i mean you just mentioned john that you have actually had other veterans other members of the military come forth and contact you i know that when brandon's case first came out it got a lot of media attention but most people sort of saw it as

a very unique situation i mean is this more common than most people think that people are getting in trouble with the f.b.i. in trouble with authorities simply for things that they post you know i had a number of veterans groups contact me and say the f.b.i. is investigating them because. they're saying things which again the first of them to do but are they about is a bigger problem civil commitment is the thing that happened to brandon robb the russian any he was in charge of the crime it's just what he did it what he said oh we're twenty thousand occur along that region each year the civil commitment so they can be quite dangerous what happened to him is we got. a lot of press and he got out on the freights of people disappearing a really good point constitutional attorney john whitehead thanks so much for joining us thank you very much for having me. so i had on our team the revolving door between the public and private sector keeps on spending this time

a former congressman is going to bat for the tobacco industry and he tells us when we come back. here is mitt romney trying to figure out the name of that thing that we americans call. the guy who cares about. you sorry. you know what to tell yourself you don't want to listen

to futurism a liberal press. has really sort of. you know the corporate media distracts us from what you and i should care about because they're a profit driven industry that sells us. facials that garbage because of breaking news i'm having martin and we're going to break the set. up.

r t is the state run english speaking russian channel it's kind of like algis zero . zero zero zero russia today has an extremely confrontational stance when it comes to us. and i want update to a story we continually cover here at r.t. america lobbying specifically the revolving door between congress and k. street and there are currently three hundred twenty seven former members that have made the leap from serving in congress to serving special interest groups and well actually make that three hundred twenty eight former republican congressman from

indiana steve buyer just made the leap joining the ranks at the tobacco company r.j. reynolds former representative byers spent eighteen years in office and during his term he received more than one hundred thousand dollars in donations from r.j. reynolds not surprisingly byers was a strong advocate for big tobacco and going so far as to compare smoking cigarettes with smoking lettuce saying quote you could have smoked that lettuce and you still end up with the same problems you could cut grass in your yard dry it up and roll it up in a cigarette and smoke it you're still going to have a lot of problems it's the smoke that kills not the nicotine interesting looks like he will fit right in at his new employer at his new gig as an advocate for harm reduction strategies buyer's intends to win the hearts and minds of the american public he will fight what he calls misinformation provided by the health community about the risk of smoking truly fighting the good fight even after leaving the hollowed halls of congress buyer's continues to look out for the health and well

being of the american people just another case of that revolving door spinning around. are you sick about it hearing about the elections looking forward to november seventh when the news cycle will change well a new financial disclosure disclosure from the fine republican national committee indicates that you may be out of luck the ahrens earmarked more than five million dollars for use after election day the money will be dedicated to recount efforts in close races federal election commission filings show the r n c has a five point two nine million dollars in donations for use after. election day now they are in ca is wise to save this money considering how many important races come within a few hundred votes of one another while the prolonged court case that pitted bush v gore in two thousand is an iconic example it's much more likely the money will be spent in congressional recounts take the norm coleman al franken race that was back in two thousand and eight norm coleman the incumbent senator in minnesota the day

after the election in two thousand and eight coleman claimed victory however because of the margin between coleman and his competitor comedian al franken was the point zero one percent a recount effort began franken was certified the winner in january with two hundred twenty five more votes than coleman it wasn't until june of two thousand and nine that coleman conceded the senate seat to franken so will this r. and c. five million fuel an extension of election day mainstream pundits can only dream. well the day has come it's about a half hour away from president obama and governor romney to take the stage and debate their stances but with the nonstop campaign coverage and media blitz at this point we know where the candidates stand on many of the issues and we're guessing that some of the most important domestic issues will barely get a mention tonight our correspondent liz wahl takes a look at the top five topics the presidential debate won't cover. now the much

anticipated first u.s. presidential debate finally kicks off but chances are there won't be too many surprises at this point we know where both candidates stand on the issues that have been in the forefront of the news cycles interestingly enough there are some critical and pressing topics the incumbent and his challenger won't talk about and we've compiled a list of the top five first off poverty a problem that has reached record levels in america and the numbers say it all take a look at these stats recently released by the u.s. census bureau fifteen percent of the u.s. population is considered poor that's forty six million americans one in five children living below the poverty line the income inequality gap is historically wide in the us and only growing another issue that probably won't be discussed as they were evolving door between wall street and washington former lobbyist and now convicted felon jack aber mob recently spoke about the systematic corruption on our

t.v. here is what he says needs to change i'd like to shut the revolving door between public service and cashing in in the influence industry lobbying or good byes and whatever one calls at the moment of every law that the congress passes should be applied to it so such as we see with the problem of insider trading where they can use insider information to make money in the row so this shouldn't be. a number three on our list the ever expanding use of surveillance and we've talked about trap wire and elaborate intelligence infrastructure that uses state of the art surveillance systems we're talking facial recognition point until cameras traffic cameras and vast databases all working together to track suspicious persons there's still a lot we don't know about much of this system was exposed on wiki leaks and beyond cameras the winding down of the war is means these unmanned aircraft you see behind me could be hovering in the sky near you the next up on our lists military spending an issue ron paul brought to the forefront time and time. i'm again i would wait

for my journals i'm the commander in chief i make the decisions i tell the generals what to do and i bring them home as quickly as possible and a good amount of iraq is well and i wouldn't start a war in libya i'd quit bombing yemen and i'd quit bombing pakistan i'd start taking care of people here at home because we could save hundreds of billions of dollars our national security is not enhanced by our prisons over there but we don't expect president obama nor governor romney to talk much about it and last but not least the national defense authorization act or. it was signed into law by president obama on new year's eve a controversial provision allows the government to detain american citizens indefinitely a group of journalists and activists say that the government over fear that they could be indefinitely detained under the law because their jobs sometimes require them to communicate with terrorists chris hedges is one of the plaintiffs here he

is speaking to r.t. about the dangers of this law. it removes due process for anybody who is deemed a terrorist but to have contact with these associated forces that's not a term that's defined it's nebulous it's quite a frightening piece of legislation how does on the other plaintiffs had some victories and blocking the controversial provision that allows for indefinite detention but on tuesday the u.s. court of appeals for the second circuit extended indefinite detention powers so there you have it the top five topics that likely will be discussed and the first presidential debate but who knows maybe it'll surprise us but i wouldn't put my money on it in washington liz wall r.t. . all right everyone that's going to do it for now if you missed any part of today's shows you're in luck we post all of our interviews online in full you can find them at youtube dot com slash r.t. america you can click come.