force fall in the. house. the move. with scars from sandy hook from the sandy hook tragedy fresh in americans hearts gun control is on everyone's minds what to do how do and force laws to protect our safety but one news network has remained suspiciously quiet during the debate had we wanna know why fox news is censoring itself. and one of the heavyweights in the gun control discussion is of course the national rifle association but the n.r.a. has national influence might not be as powerful as the media would have you think and it will tell you how this group keeps missing the target. and

a small step backward for law enforcement officials a giant leap forward for privacy advocates for months of pre-court puts a limit on how much digital information police can extract in criminal investigations a look at the case and the bigger implications than just a bet. it is tuesday december eighteenth four pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wall and you're watching r t well today the nation continues to grieve the deaths of twenty six people most of them young children after the massacre at sandy hook elementary school in newtown connecticut the tragedy has ignited a debate over gun control in the u.s. even those with staunchly pro-gun views have come forward saying that the time has come to take a serious look at the country's gun laws many are saying this latest massacre of young children is a turning point for a call to action even rupert murdoch the media mogul whose companies are known for

being conservative tweeted his support for some kind of change he tweeted on friday terrible news today when will politicians find courage to ban automatic weapons as an oz after similar tragedy and from sunday nice words from poetess on shooting tragedy but how about some bold leadership action. well despite all that fox news one of murdoch's companies apparently mandated that their employees are frayne from talking about gun control altogether new york magazine reports at the executive producer in charge of weekend coverage that quote is that work isn't going there and quote we were expressly forbidden from talking about gun control what a country embroiled in debate over the role of guns in our culture how could you ignore it to discuss i'm joined now by christopher chambers journalism professor at georgetown university chris great to have you there you so first off i guess what do you think has fox done a disservice to the public. in

a nutshell i mean this is policy that comes down from above from you not from michael clemente the editorial director but from roger ailes and you know you have to understand there's a couple of seems at work here ailes and rupert murdoch don't see eye to eye on everything as a matter of fact ailes is probably seen murdoch drift a little bit even he's facetiously even blame that on murdoch's wife wendi who's young supposedly progressive person he's blamed it on murdoch's son james who he views as a bean counter but it's it's basically you know ailes calling the shots and so when you have this sort of situation where from the top down from ailes to clemente to the anchors or by from bret buyer to the actual where the magic is done the talk shows and the guest and host driven content that is the scene that they hit on again and again and again and that spreads out because so many of their

contributors also write for conservative magazines websites eccentrics cetera so it's it's basically spreading out like an octopus and at the head of the octopus you have to have a unified message this is their unified message and it happens to diverge with what the chief wants now we heard because of this mandate apparently fox was a virtually silent over the weekend they didn't mention the issue today let's play a clip. one of the things that we've seen as a side story if you will and the murders that can and connecticut are is this reignited debate over gun control in this country with some lawmakers saying the president should take the lead on the issue and at the very least push for reinstating the assault weapons ban sen dianne feinstein of california author of the original assault weapons ban says she has been working on this bill for more than a year and that it will be quote carefully focused to protect the rights of gun owners the n.r.a. will soon start pushing back and sources close to the industry tell fox news they

will note just for starters that columbine happened in one nine hundred ninety nine smack in the middle of the ten year period when this country had an assault weapons ban. ok so they're starting to talk about it today and as watching yesterday and their evening talk show they had mentioned that now is not an appropriate time. to begin awake and wake in the wake of the tragedy but i think about that death with us i mean that's the those are the talking points coming from the n.r.a. the politicians that are in meshed in the n.r.a. and in conservative causes i mean that's that's that's not speculation on my part that's politics and media one hundred one for the last fifteen years they have a message they have a narrative that narrative has to percolate through their delivery system which unfortunately are their very competent very wonderful anchors and reporters so i would lay against any news outlet but there is the set up the delivery system for the pundits for the host driven shows where you have the right wing you know

mentality come in in this rehash in this shot back out you know in these various media outlets where they're pundits feed into somebody like laura ingram this is nothing different than what they did ironically two weeks ago to bob costas and one of their own employees jason whitlock when cost isn't whitlock talked about guns with respect to the kansas city chiefs who killed his girlfriend and himself and they unleashed this entire pundit machine that was a lot more hard edged in a lot nastier now you don't see the nastiest and hard ads what you're seeing is just the message here that well we had an assault weapons ban and columbine happened well. somehow they got those guns you know it's. this is their this is their message machine work they're also message the message machine is also mental health they also say well you can't guard against crazy people well

i mean what they don't say is that the people that they support politically the people they have on their show have pushed back against obamacare which is mandated mental health parity and they don't cover. cuts in mental health services by state and local governments so what you see is the picture of lanza or the shooter in the batman theater you see these crazy face plastered boom boom boom boom boom but you don't see the children you do not see any reference to the children their parents the deaths of these children you see crazy person crazy person crazy person crazy person that is the message so you know that this is just the medium and the scene that they have to fire on to sit their business model is nothing more complicated than that now obviously a lot of america devastated grieving over this tragedy this massive tragedy young children that passed away and this and then we're seeing that these views on

stricter gun laws are the highest if we can pull up some there was a poll that was taken washington post poll if we can pull that up there it shows that stricter gun laws the views on stricter gun laws are the highest it's been in five years and views on gun control measures have also increased this in the wake of the tragedy fifty nine percent support a ban on high capacity ammunition clips fifty two percent support a ban on semiautomatic automatic weapons we see that most people do not support a ban on handguns sales except to law enforcement so chris we're not talking about disarming the american right right but we are seeing that americans are in favor of doing something and that's ironically what murtha who i don't usually agree that a lot of things whether it's media or politics other just what he was hitting on because you have to also understand this disconnect between he and ailes murdoch comes from this mill you of of the united kingdom and australia which have some of

the toughest gun laws in the world in the u.k. he mentioned the massacre at scotland they outlawed. most magazine fed weapons of any kind because of that in australia it is a flat ban and the and this is where murdoch has cut his teeth in the media does not you know he doesn't identify with the looks at that is a bit of a different orientation that the boss has that he has but all murdoch assume is what most people with common sense are soon do people need you know two two three caliber bushmaster to hunt squirrels no you use the people right doesn't make sense but chris great to have you here as always those christopher chambers a journalism professor at georgetown university. meanwhile the n.r.a. has been silent since the tragedy we haven't heard a peep in their facebook page has gone black the organization has been portrayed as a force you simply can't reckon with dictating us politics despite what you hear

from the mainstream media however the n.r.a. may not be as untouchable as you might think in fact this past election proves just the opposite the n.r.a. had a less than one percent success rate in the two thousand and twelve election more than ninety nine percent of the money they spent went to losing candidates most of their funds went toward opposing president obama and as we know he's still our president they did support twenty seven winning candidates but they did happen but they happen to be candidates that they barely banked on just a few hundred dollars in some cases so is the n.r.a. simply not as powerful as the mainstream media would have you think to discuss i'm joined now by lisa graves the executive director for a center and media and democracy she also worked on national gun policy at the department of justice lisa great to have you on so when you worked helping to draft a gun policy at the department of justice did you have a sense that the and are

a had a major influence on politics. well during the clinton ministration i worked on gun policy after the columbine shootings and we had a gun working group that included representatives from the c.f. f.b.i. u.s. attorney's offices and around the department that was spearheaded by the deputy spraining general that was there colder at the time and one of his staffers when the bush administration came in all of the political appointees the clinician were gone and i was left as one of the only career people that was part of the gun policy team for mr ashcroft and one of the very first things that the bush policy team did was go on a secret a secret shooting event basically with the n.r.a. that was an indication of how things had changed that the gun policy task worst team at the bush administration was going to be hunting buddies shooting buddies with the n.r.a. and mr ashcroft was having secret meetings with the n.r.a. as well wow so we saw clearly there was

a coziness there between the bush administration and the n.r.a. however we did see how this last election played out and the fact is that it wasn't a big win for the n.r.a. is their influence waning. well i think that it is true that they didn't win in this last election the way they have won or they've taken credit for winning in some past elections i i certainly think that the horrifying tragedy in connecticut changes things it changes things for the american people because you just can't get these images of these little children out of your head is devastating and i think that their their influence is going to be waning as a result of people being able to see really and really understand with their heart the consequences of the gun policies that the n.r.a. and some of its allies like alec the change council have pushed over the past twenty years or so now since this tragedy it's been sign of silence as what we've

heard from the n.r.a. . but their own measures overwhelmingly there is support from some of their own members. to take some of these measures excuse me when it comes to gun control let's take a look at some of them they include require requiring criminal background checks on gun owners and gun shop employees prohibiting terrorist watch list members from from getting hold of guns mandating that gun owners tell the police when their gun is stolen goes on their concealed carry permit should only be restricted to people who have completed a safety training course and are twenty one years and older and concealed carry permit should be given to perpetrators of violent mista meters or people arrested for domestic violence the least of these here these measures are there they seem sensible and most even n.r.a. members support them we're talking at least seventy five percent of members in some cases yet you hear absolutely nothing from the n.r.a.

from taking any measures whatsoever why not well i think the n.r.a. like to talk about what a membership organization it is but in reality a lot of the n.r.a. budget is bankrolled by some of the biggest gun manufacturers in the world and so i don't think it's always pushing for. forward the interests of its members the members that are hunters that are commonsense americans who know that you don't need a thirty clip thirty thirty bullets in your clip to kill a deer that's not necessary in fact you would never use that type of weapon quite frankly if you're hunting deer but that's precisely the type of weapon that's been created for the military for use in killing human beings as quickly as possible obviously there are differences between civilian grade law enforcement grade and military grade weapons but at the end of the day what you saw in in the aftermath of the tragedy in connecticut is that weapon is precisely designed to make it as easy as possible for a civilian to kill as many people as possible in

a matter of seconds and i think the american people are fed up and they want change and they want it they want to die now so i think the n.r.a. has influence is indeed waning. to go along with that we do hear a lot now about taking meaningful action have we reached a breaking point where something has to cain and it's what would that change look like. well i think it would go far beyond what was passed in one thousand nine hundred four with the assault weapons ban and i know that senator feinstein has opposed it she's considering that his perspective in terms of future sales of these types of weapons or perhaps these clips of ammunition i don't think american people want to have a perspective solution i think they want to make sure that these guns are not readily accessible to ordinary people we certainly wouldn't allow bombs to be sold in every corner store in the united states we don't love long three sold at wal-mart and you know wal-mart one can walk in and get a gun like this get to get as much ammunition as they want and that's

a recipe for disaster is basically the recipe for mass for a massacre in a box. but now i want to ask you lisa. as we had mentioned it's been basically we've heard silence from the n.r.a. what would it take to hear from them you know we are ready to give a little bit in terms of. advocating some kind of change some kind of measures and gun control i'm not sure you know wayne la pierre works for a nonprofit get paid almost a million dollars a year to advocate primarily on behalf of whatever the global merchants of guns want it's not clear what wayne la pierre would do that would actually signal any willingness to give ground or result policy in this area certainly the n.r.a. position with alec has demonstrated a lack of reasonableness just last year the n.r.a. pushed for a model bill through the american what is this change council's task force that would bar cities from barring machine gun that is automatic firing weapons that as

long as you push the trigger down will fire implicitly until you run out of ammunition this is not the policy these are the policies of a regional organization the policies of an organization that has taken an extremist position time and time again some so that holding my breath for the n.r.a. to be reasonable but i do think is responsive to their citizens are going to have to not duck and i have to stand up for these children and for the lives that have been. lost in this tragedy in others well i think absolutely the figures show that we are seeing a shift in the way that the public sees these sees these policies lisa really appreciate you coming on that was lisa grey of the executive director of the center for media and democracy. now somewhat of a victory for privacy protection the vermont supreme court has ruled there are limits to how far authorities can go in searching a suspect electronic devices the case is rooted in burlington vermont where police were investigating a suspect for applying for credit card online using someone else's identity police

asked the judge for a search warrant to search all of the suspects information stored on all the computers in the home the judge approved the warrant but with some restrictions the rule was police could only sift through information related to. the accused what was accused of in the crime prosecutors though did not like these limits and took it to the vermont supreme court and just recently the higher court agreed saying search limits serve legitimacy privacy legitimate excuse me privacy interests for more i'm joined now by r.t. web producer andrew blake so andrew we do report here a lot on our t.v. about you know possible threats to citizens privacy is this kind of a glimmer of hope that we're seeing all asleep when i see a glimmer is the right word you want to hear especially in vermont which the course of the state is going to be a tiny little stuff but it's funny that two hundred years after you know we first draft of the bill of rights were still trying to iron out exactly how we go about

enforcing things like the fourth amendment protections docs americans goes on wanted search and seizure and right here we are seeing. that there are being some thrive if you see if there is being put in place to make sure that police can't just rifle through every electronic item that you have your house which is exactly what state. originally. ruling which i'm sure will be appealed at least attempted to that the judge can

actually say look we can put some limits on what the police can access and what they do with that stuff so just as a judge can limit physical searches now prove that a judge can step in and limited a digital search in a way actually it's making this so that we have at least in this example we have more privacy and more safeguards in place to protect our privacy when it comes to physical digital technology as opposed to what we're actually seeing more and more nowadays just like stuff out in the cloud as they say and we've been talking a lot about the electronic communication privacy act of one nine hundred eighty six i believe sir. and right now we're working in congress a lot of updates to it that would make it so that information that's stored digitally on the cloud on remote servers wherever you are g. mail your yahoo or mapquest or whatever you put on the internet that information right now prosecutors can go in estimators they can go and get that information

with just a just a court order and there really aren't a lot of privacy safeguards when it comes to obtaining information that's stored on the internet and what we have in this case here is a judge actually saying look if something actually is on a physical disk or on a physical device within a person's house you can't just go through a rifle through every single item looking for something there's just too much of a chance that you're going to stumble upon something that you shouldn't and another big part of the step here. justice in vermont is that what he wants are police to hand over any evidence that's collected and have a passed along to a third party service who can kind of go in and think of it as an example of and i heard this from someone from the earlier was that when state police take the blood samples to conduct d.n.a. analysis on potential suspects you know it's not the police that are sitting there and the. after the the squad car running a little test you know that actually have to find

a scientific way of going through this stuff and sure enough there are actually very scientific ways of going through people's computers something about necessarily agree with but it's good that we're seeing a judge who's actually saying look you can't just do whatever the hell you want. but the fourth amendment to read that way well so now we see that there are limitations being put in place but how exactly do authorities determine what is fair game and what is off limits on this still a good question because if you look at a lot of cases of computer crime or alleged computer crime that we've seen the last few months it's abundantly clear that computer legislation on the federal level is terrible right now the way computer lives computer laws are written prosecutors can pretty much put up an argument for that especially put anyone behind bars and we discussed last week. from who's after this who's been aligned with the anonymous collector for years he just pleaded guilty sorry not guilty

yesterday to twelve pounds related to copying pasting a link to a web site because he copied pasted that link into a chat room he's looking at twelve different counts that could put him essential you in prison for the rest of his life really decades and decades all for just taking a link and copy and pasting it there and if prosecutors were able to actually prove that point going by set precedents and second peter laws you can get away with a lot of things so it's really good that right here we're seeing even though it is like i said just a glimmer it is a small step but it's going to take a whole lot of reworking before computer laws are actually thought up to the point where we don't need the supreme court of vermont to intervene and say you know come up with things that should be just obvious right in mind and so i think you know as people conduct more of their lives on line you know in the digital ground that there is more of a need for clarity on on how our digital communication can be used and sifted by authorities and you know like i was saying with the electronic communication

privacy after eighty six that's so antiquated right now that all of our business that we do out on the cloud as they say. is hardly protected and so it's it's funny that we're finally catching up to put these safeguards in place in terms of actual physical of. electronic devices it seems like that should have been on the books back in one nine hundred eighty six when the c.p.a. was passed so here we are twenty something later twenty something years later we're still just trying to figure out how to handle computers but it's definitely a good step in my opinion right and here we are at a time great to see a great answer here as always that was our team lead producer andrew blake. well it is no secret that mitt romney is a bit thrifty despite being a millionaire hundreds of times over the former presidential candidate always maintained during the election that he was a penny pincher at heart and his wife ann agreed to take a listen. would you say he is frugal or cheap cheap cheap.

cheap too what do you want to know what he does when we leave the house he turns up the hot water heater do you know what he does with your children the hot water to do what he does when we come back from the house he pretends to he forgets he's got to turn the hot water heater on and he says cool cherries they're not that bad. turns out this was no joke a group of nine news outlets that traveled with the romney campaign agree the media group sent a letter to the remnants of the romney campaign they said they believe they've been overcharged for a cost incurred while traveling from one campaign stop to another here's a look at the complaint quote we're not quibbling over charter flights or hotel bills we are focused on what appeared to be exorbitant charges for food filing centers and holds and ground transportation some examples seven hundred forty five dollars per person charged for a vice presidential debate viewing party that was on october eleventh eight hundred twelve dollars charge for a meal and a hold on october eighteenth four hundred sixty one dollars for

a meal and hold the next day three hundred forty five dollars for food and a hold on october thirtieth so as you can see the group's glued the new york times the wall street journal the l.a. times of buzz feed and more and while these outlets agreed to pay for their own food and transportation they know that the charges are beyond pale though the journalists are footing the bill buzz feed reporter mckay coppins described that reporters with mitt romney got used to seeing five or six catered meals a day long before you tables filled often filled untouched food that campaign staffers also munched on it also turns out there is no such thing as a free lunch and romney land of the media outlets are demanding the specifics of each expense over two hundred dollars the letter also warned the romney campaign that some of them are. contesting the charges with american express this whole saga is all the more bizarre considering how much cash the romney campaign had on hand

after losing the election twenty five million dollars that's according to reuters and romney was right her husband certainly isn't frugal but if he forces journalists to pay for his campaign mismanagement then he definitely is cheap and we are going to leave it all off there but the capital account is up next on our athena let's check in with lauren lyster to see what is on today's agenda lauren hi there liz well some news in the precious metals space in japan pension funds there are they haven't typically invested in gold now they're starting to why is that could it be to head to get some of the risks in the financial markets and with currencies we will discuss with the men who together we call the gold antitrust action committee they are the men behind data also j.p. morgan a big bank that some have alleged or believe has manipulated the silver market now they have a new copper exchange traded fund so we'll talk about what could happen there

that's coming up in just a couple of minutes right lauren thanks for that update that is going to do it for the news but for more on the stories we covered check out our you tube channel you tube dot com slash r t america our web site r t done com slash usa and you can follow me on twitter at liz wall back here in a half hour. technology innovation all the developments around russia. the future covered. wealthy british style. markets why not. find out what's really happening to the global economy

with max cause or for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into counties or report on our. morning's today vaught.