the. could this be the new face of terror according to newly released documents the f.b.i. secretly monitored the occupy movement and even deemed them domestic terrorists the latest on this new development in a class action lawsuit next in a live report. and some of the hottest high tech toys this christmas season could be spine on you we'll show you how these clever gadgets are able to track and even monitor your every move. and you know that commonly used phrase all boys club well it certainly applies in the state of iowa a male dentist wins his case against the female assistant he fired for being too

irresistible if it weren't for family values or a major step back in equal rights for all. it's monday december twenty fourth christmas eve here in washington d.c. i'm meghan lopez and you're watching r t well remember scenes like this that were happening across the country during the height of the occupy movement protests. now it's the occupy movement turn to fight back in court that is on november thirtieth of last year over three hundred protesters were arrested in at the los angeles city hall after being kept out in the city for over two months and estimated fourteen hundred officers clad in police riot gear showed up and blazed through the encampment and what protesters are now calling a shock in all attacks on their civil rights now five of those people are

representing two hundred ninety two others who were also arrested they filed a class action lawsuit for both the arrests as well as the protesters treatment while in custody joining me now for more on the lawsuit is one of the named plaintiffs in this case michael prysner he's an activist and founder of march forward he's also an iraq war veteran and a medical thank you for joining us this christmas eve so i have to ask what prompted you and others to file this class action lawsuit. oh well quite plainly of the fact that our civil liberties our constitutional rights were stripped away from us from committing no criminal acts but doing nothing but exercising our constitutional rights of freedom of speech and freedom to assemble those are rights that the city of los angeles not just the city of l.a. but city all across the country everywhere there is an occupying decided that our right to free speech no longer exists and that the state on a local level and on

a national level used up all of the force and its power to take away that constitutional right for many thousands of people who are exercising their right to protest for very legitimate reason because of the jobs crisis because of the student debt crisis and many other issues and so we're fighting on this front to make sure that the protest activities of every single person in this country are protected as they should be and that's really the reason we're fighting this lawsuit and michael if you were there can you set the scene for us what was the raid like really and i mean can you also describe as one of the things that also came up in the lawsuit is how you were treated while you were in detention can you tell us what that was like. sure well first of all one of the first main points in the lawsuit is the fact that the eviction itself with unconstitutional we were engaged and our constitutional right to assemble and to voice our grievances with the government in fact a majority of people who were arrested that day were not actually camping but who were there because they believed in what was happening believed in our right to

protest and were there to defend the encampment but the police came actually in the thousands in riot gear store through the camp throwing down everyone who's in their way i saw a photographer on the staff who was didn't even realize anything was happening was thrown down the stairs saw person in a wheelchair who was assaulted and there are people who are in sri from the park and they were immediately shot with rubber bullets to get them out of the trees something that could have caused serious injury or death and you know the entire camp was cleared out very violently by the police were going on the protesters had committed zero acts of violence and there was no suspicion that they would condemn commit any acts of violence but that's just the first part of the case the fact that we have the constitutional right to be there and that's something that the city of los angeles to go away but once we were in detention we were tapped handcuffed on a cot laying down on a concrete floor first seven to eight hours of people where you're engaging themselves because they weren't allowed to use the bathroom i personally was not allowed to use the bathroom as well as many others that i witnessed and the

treatment was it was very very obvious that this is intended to punish us. pre-emptively for a crime that nobody had committed punish us for free speech activities and not only that but once we were in detention we were charged a misdemeanor offense and the state of california said that if you are charged with a nonviolent misdemeanor you shall be released on your own recognizance meeting with no bail and you're just three of these but the city decided to give all of us five thousand dollars bail which is against the law to keep us in prison as long as possible and not only that but they refuse to arraign people and so some people spend about a week in jail. weekend detention just because the city was dragging their feet to try to keep. the ball. is a violation of civil liberties to preemptively punish people just because they were exercising their constitutional rights or so across the board the city acted with complete disregard for the rights of people and in this country in the city now

michael the protestors say that the police knew so called shock and awe tactics that term actually was in use first by u.s. defense secretary donald rumsfeld during the two thousand and three invasion of iraq i mean you're an iraq war veteran you been through these scenarios both of them can you kind of compare them and this term and specifically being used for them and then can you really talk about is there really much of a comparison between this invasion of iraq and what happened to you and your your fellow occupiers in los angeles well i don't think we can really say that there is really any comparison in terms of physical violence with the massive death and destruction that took the lives of over a million iraqis and what happened in the occupy encampment the intent of it was the same the intent of the shock and on the iraq invasion was just strikes fear into the hearts of every single independent state and every single independent talk a little bit throughout the world saying if you don't follow the dictates of

washington this is what's going to happen to you your life is going to be destroyed and the shock and awe tactics used on the occupy encampment not just in the los angeles but around the country had that same intent to strike fear into the young people into the students to the college graduates who are doing nothing but asking for the right to work on the right to not be one hundred thousand dollars in debt and then. let me stop you there and ask. did they strike fear into you and your fellow. not to me and not into many of the people that i was very protesting with and many of those people have stayed very active and very dedicated and very organized since then but i will say that that rate and not just knowledge but across going to be did have a severe psychological effect on many of the young people who this is the first protest activity they have ever been engaged in i mean we saw a new movement a new generation of rise up as a result of the conditions that they were facing and then they were beaten they were in prison they were subjected to extremely harsh treatment for doing nothing

but exercising the things that were taught make this country so great the right to peacefully assemble the right to air our grievances and the government should very clearly that all of these things were taught our entire lives are the most cherished constitutional rights we have in this country when people are actually standing up and saying that we want to exercise these rights not only does this government not protect our constitutional right to do those things when they use every aspect of their power to make sure that they could strip that right away and we have about thirty seconds left after this one quickly i mean hoping to know what you are hoping to accomplish with this lawsuit. well first of all we want to make sure that the city of los angeles in the police department are not able to do this kind of thing again when people are exercising their constitutional rights are the main point of the lawsuit is to make sure that there's change that happens at that level that when people are standing up that they are those rights are absolutely protected all right michael prysner founder of march forward activist and also iraq war veteran thank you for your time sir and we'll keep following up on this issue

and this lawsuit as it continues to develop thank you. according to reports recently released by the f.b.i. is the freedom of information act request that was filed by josh bernstein local law enforcement officials teamed up with the f.b.i. and homeland security in order to deal with the occupy movement what's more the f.b.i. actually invoked the term domestic terrorism when referring to the nonviolent movement essentially confirming movement organizer accusations that police that took a political policing tactics when they were arresting occupy protesters independent journalists and activists and elitist miller joined me earlier to break down the information coming out of this boy request and here's my conversation with her well we're learning basically that jason leopold paid make this request during the movement and in as she's a threat and it was not granted and now it's coming out that there is

a essentially lied about that this surveillance is happening the whole time meaning that there were informants planted and at the occupy and a new york and around the country and that the f.b.i. at the department of homeland security were basically in partnership with. corporate america which is really really frightening and what are the terms that the f.b.i. invoked was this this domestic terrorists term so i have a few questions based on that first of all what is considered to fall into the realm of a domestic terrorist or domestic terrorism and second does this apply to the occupy movement does it merit that title. i think that they're using a very broad definition of violence to discuss domestic terrorism because obviously an act of terrorism is doing something that's going to kill

a lot of people blowing something up something that's far more. terrible and life threatening than just a couple of people assembled in civil protest so i think that they really just ran with the possibility that could get violent and use that to create to manufacture this threat of domestic terrorism because that's really what the f.b.i. has done in a lot of these terrorism cases you saw with muslim and arab communities with the f.b.i. spying on them a lot of it was really. feeding this information to people who were alleged terrorists but had never done anything and it's that's happening with occupy right now and has been happening it just only got brought to our attention now ana looking at these documents i notice that they were heavily redacted meaning that large chunks of them were taken out what kinds of information do you think live below those black lines that that are crossed off from anyone else to be able to

read other than the people that are familiar with the case. i think that's where a lot of the names are and that's where a lot of the names of people who would be targeted. because they're there have been talks of this as a nation attempt plots and things like that so i think of those names were released of organizers of people that were being intensely surveilled and targeted and there would be so sure there are in the press then we're seeing right now and i wanted to know from you from from your studies of these that these documents they are raul relatively new and a lot of people have yet to sort through them but is there any indication of how far the surveillance actually expanded. that you know someone mentioned this is really just the tip of the iceberg and all we really know at this point was that they were there and that you know some of the people we chatted some of the people we were making friends with could have been informants and you know at this point

in the news cycle it's really the tip of the iceberg we don't know a lot and which is scary and one of the interesting parts of this is that it wasn't just the f.b.i. that was working with local law enforcement agencies is also the department of homeland security and also corporate america meaning that there was private security forms that they had talked to about this and actually reading the article that just came out recently it says that they discussed the old of us protests on the west coast ports in order to quote raise awareness concerning this type of criminal activity do you consider the with us movement criminal activity or maybe specifically what happened in los angeles versus what happened across the country. not at all it's it's. first amendment it's freedom of speech it's the right to assembly it's the opposite of criminal activity and what's so ironic result as. homeland security etc is that they're evoking this language of silence of care as

and the violent side was really the police crackdown in the use of the times and tear gas and beating it in seven cases really severely injuring people so you know it's there it's really unnecessary that was an elitist miller independent journalist and activist and one quick correction for you is that the foil request was actually filed by truthout reporter jason leopold as well as the partnership for civil justice fund. well it was the night before christmas when all through the land late shoppers filled carts with presents at hand the stockings were hung by the chimney with care and norad said santa would soon be there but before you go looking under that christmas tree check out the special report by r t turns out that high tech toys could be spying on you now so watch this story by our teams

christine from sao. it's a bird. it's a plane. no it's actually a drone the a.r. drone quadric copter two point zero which also happens to be one of the hottest toys of the season. and it doesn't just look like a drone it also acts like one snapping still photos and even recording video people really love the camera the fact that you can interact with anybody as well so aside from according to law supports these videos on you tube facebook as well you can lobby to see the kind of actually having brookstone a toy store for adults is full of military style contraptions but the drone is one of the most famous i'm going to give my kids with that this is one of the devices that we use a kind of bring the customers and also new this year. the rover two point zero comes. it's controlled from an i pad i phone or android and if you don't want the

person you're spying on to know they don't have to alter stealth mode. everything shuts off however still several so this year's model has an added function it has a two way audio capability that means the person controlling the device not only can record me but can also communicate with me. so what do people think they thought the technology was there you might as well use of the biggest thing that big people respond in neighbors the type of things you don't want to do there's evidence this is already happening as you can see on websites like spy based dot com that sell nothing but tracking and monitoring devices it's also eerily clear that it's become so normal that sites like amazon have devoted an entire section to spy gadgets with products like infrared stealth binoculars and night vision goggles . once a seemingly revolutionary almost sinai idea the future it seems has arrived

leaving any notion of privacy in the past. in washington christine for example. and speaking of privacy there's not much of it online these days you can find just about anything or anyone on the internet and if you think tankers are the only ones trying to get in touch with your personal information think again here's our tease liz wall with the top ten reasons you should care about cybersecurity issues being brought up in the u.s. congress well here at r.t. we pay close attention to what's happening on capitol hill regarding cyber security legislation but the effects reach far beyond washington here are ten things in your daily life that are affected by cyber security first off your personal correspondence our e-mails are saved and can be accessed by the government and the private companies they contract and under current laws phone calls can already be listened to number nine your health the establishment of electronic medical records

is a major part of health care reform but those records can be accessed by doctors and other health care providers some of whom aren't your personal doctor and also pinned up these private records to vulnerability from hackers and at number eight your money using online banking apps makes banking information passwords and account numbers easily open to scanning via smart phone and bank servers can store identifying features of the devices used to access the information number seven your vote voting machines have long been called hackable and on election day we saw some new regularities stemming from both being allegedly altered add to the fact that many observers claim the current crop of technology is in need of serious oversight and should make many wonder but the possibility of throwing an election might not be too far from reality. and number six mass transit transportation

systems work thanks to information and transit system networks that control navigation traffic signalling systems traction power systems traveler information and fare collection systems all of which are vulnerable to cyber attacks and number five infrastructure parts of our critical infrastructure from electric grids to water pumps and filtration systems to nuclear plants and cellular all depend on computers to function a number for government communication governments and corporations use security e-mail or secure e-mail or other systems to stay in contact but with techniques like spearfishing these e-mail service can be breached plus should whistleblowers like bradley manning face life in solitary confinement for passing along this information and number three global finance high frequency trading uses computer algorithms and technological tools instead of runners on an exchange floor of course time the global finance system to computers means that it is just another

part of our world affected by cyber security and number two news and information news organizations use web content systems to plug in and share their stories and governments large and small connect with constituents via official web sites which can easily be taken down and distributed denial of service attacks they can also be hacked and last but not least the surveillance state big data is here to stay the ability to store and compress huge amounts of information is getting easier databases are already finding patterns giving individuals a digital footprint between security cameras hiding and more and more places and cell phone location information there won't be many blanks to fill in and the privacy the expectation of privacy we have or at least our parents had will be lost in washington liz wahl r.t. . well it's our report scared you there are certain ways to protect your online

anonymity steps computer experts have learned and are now trying to simplify and teach the masses so that they too can protect their identities one of those techniques is known as a crypto party it teaches the basics behind digital encryption to any average joe no matter what their computer knowledge is r.c. where producer andrew blake actually had a chance to attend one of these crypto parties and brings us this report. right now right this second you're being watched no there might not be spies snooping around the corner or a vast surveillance system that may or may not be catching your every move what is for certain though is just about any activity conducted on computers can be collected and monitored but is there something you can do about it the answer is yes it's called the crypto party and they're happening right now around the world in places like boston chicago oakland and cairo people are getting together and learning about the basics of digital encryption from learning how to use the tor

project a program that allows people to connect to the internet by sending data through a series of nodes to essentially make traffic almost impossible to monitor or using a simple plugin to ensure conversations are encrypted from others here a beginner's guide computer cryptography secure it out in a single setting where amateurs novices experts and well anyone can explore and learn how to make sure what's meant for one person isn't put out there for everyone scoping out the agendas of some of these advanced crypto party dot org one can see that discussion is largely cover items such as smartphone security but somewhat almost all of them is an introduction to the tor project developer nadeem kobe c. has concentrated his efforts in recent years on crypto cat simple browser plug in that allows two or more people to communicate over the web off the record well a lot of people like to use facebook chat and google talk and you know the web services like that and that's great but these services actually communicate what you're talking about to facebook and google and there is no privacy your

communications can easily be intercepted by these parties and also by governmental organizations so cryptic out does the same thing it tries to establish a similar web service that's easy to use just as easy to use but at the same time there's also a transparent layer of encryption and all programs like the tor project encrypt or cat are being made so even americans can communicate freely with one another and might be the best move of any in hopes of keeping the internet open. with the launch of wiki leaks in two thousand and six activists around the world were given an established relatively accessible outlet to publish secrets about repressive regimes and air other dirty laundry that some states might not want out in the open but despite president barack obama's campaign promises for the most transparent administration ever the government has ramped up its attack and whistleblowers in fact just recently the house of representatives voted three new the foreign intelligence surveillance act lets the government spying on e-mails and phone calls they suspect to be sent to anyone outside of the united states so whether you're a whistleblower or just

a regular computer user who wants to keep their personal communications personal there is a need for insertion even in two thousand and twelve even in the united states but it doesn't have to be a bad thing al the reason the party in washington and you blake r.t. but it's not just a cyber world where your information is being closely monitored a casual walk down the street is enough exposure for authorities to learn a valuable personal information about your life how you may ask well then you can tell a lot from a person based on their face and specially with the use of facial recognition technology our computers their adriano settle tells you about the smile tells you to smile for the camera because it's already got you in the viewfinder every minute of every day whether you're out on the street working in the office or sneaking into the kitchen chances are. someone's watching facial recognition technology

was once something only side five flicks could dream up but now it's beginning to look a lot stranger than fiction the f.b.i. is planning on having a collection of over twelve million searchable frontal photos so here's how the process works you take a camera like this one then you take a picture like this and then it's uploaded onto a database and here's where the magic happens the picture is then cross referenced with other pictures in the already existing database pairing up you know your features like cheeks eyes what have you every facial recognition software has different methods algorithms if you will but you get the point facebook for instance is already employing similar technology and getting a lot of flack for it if you have a facebook account chances are you've already used it without even knowing about it when you upload pictures facebook automatically picks out similar looking people

and cross references the pictures with others that have been uploaded to the site 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 las 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 long 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. now today might be worth much much more

a point from washington in montana said o r t. on to iowa now where the state supreme court acknowledged that just because something is unfair that doesn't necessarily make it illegal late last week the court ruled in favor of dentist james knight who fired his dental assistant for being quote irresistible this despite the fact that night describes her as the best dental assistant he's ever had thirty two year old melissa nelson seen here with her family she's a married mother of two and has been working in the office for over ten years when i gave her a month's severance and a swift kick out the door in early two thousand and ten his reason nelson was a direct threat to his marriage because he was attracted to her now apparently dr knight asked miss nelson repeatedly to wear a looser fitting clothing the thing is that she says she wore scrubs to work each day the dentist's wife who also works at the nearly all female office was most infuriated when she found out that the two works changing text messages although

the messages were described as mostly mostly work and family related messages however according to the gender discrimination lawsuit filed by melissa nelson if the conversation did turn inappropriate it was always initiated by mr knight himself. it also is important to note that the two never engage in any type of sexual activity now you're probably thinking the same thing that i was when i first read the story at first glance it seems like a case that has to say discrimination written all over it but the state supreme court judges ruled that mr knight was right in his saying that if he could fire her mrs nelson was terminated he says that they was she was a terminated not to constitute gender discrimination under the i was civil rights act and a ruling that mr knight and his attorney stuart co-creating say was completely justified his attorney went on to say we do think that the iowa supreme court got it completely right our position has always been mrs nelson was never terminated

because of her gender she was terminated because of concerns her behavior was not appropriate in the workplace she's an attractive lady and dr knight found her behavior and dress to be inappropriate but here's another interesting moment from this case according to the iowa supreme court justices dr knight and knowledge is he once told nelson that if she saw a bold and his pants she would know that her clothing was too revealing and then there's this this is a picture of the iowa supreme court justices and if you're noticing something off here well that's because all of the supreme court justices are male leading many to say that the seven to zero ruling in mr nice fair in mr nice favor was unfair and discriminatory in and of itself now this is just the first case this is the first case of its kind in iowa but it's a very interesting ruling on the iowa supreme court's case and this case was based on iowa state.