it was already labeled the do nothing congress but did you know the one hundred twelfth congress ended without renewing the violence against women act we'll dive into why some lott lawmakers block the bill just ahead. and the hacktivist group anonymous is known for fighting corruption and exposing wrongdoing worldwide so why does the new what does the new year hold for this group they have a message for what to expect in twenty thirteen and we'll share it with you plus for years iran has been under circling sanctions spearheaded by the u.s. but how has the nation been able to build a massive military arsenal our team looks into that issue in just a moment. it's

friday january fourth four pm in washington d.c. i'm meghan lopez and you're watching r.t. . all right we begin this hour with the one hundred thirteenth congress they were sworn into office yesterday and not a moment too soon the one hundred twelfth congress left a sour taste in many americans mouths with the seemingly endless dare i say it fiscal cliff talks but that wasn't the only bill that muddied the reputation of congress another bill a seemingly straightforward act to protect women against sexual and domestic violence was also punted as the debate grew more political now for the first time in almost two decades the violence against women act has expired so let's take a quick look at what the bill protects and then like them in some of the new add ons that have house republicans reeling right now the bill allocates federal money to government agencies in order to aid in the investigation and prosecution of

domestic violence offenders it creates a rape shield law that prevents attorneys of effect of the offenders from using the victim's past sexual conduct against them in trial it covers the expenses incurred by the victims for the rape exams that hospitals conduct it pays for the training of law enforcement officials prosecutors and judges when it comes to domestic violence crisis calls it also establishes and funds the national domestic violence hotline which averages about twenty thousand calls a month so those are just a few of the things that the bill already includes and has done since an inception in one thousand and ninety four but after speaking with thousands of women rights advocates police officers and prosecutors the senate added three new protections into the bill when they came up for a vote in april they are barring the government agencies from discriminating against the community in cases of sexual and domestic violence allowing illegal immigrants who experience domestic violence

a temporary legal status in the form of a u. visa and also allowing tribal authorities the power to prosecute non-natives in reservation courts something that's considered a major gap in previous cases so i want to talk more about. this new add ons and why house republicans are so opposed to them with sharon stapel executive director of the new york city gay and lesbian antiviolence project had their share and so we know that people there's people that say that this violence against women act is redundant because like violent crimes you know assault and battery and whatnot they're already illegal regardless of the gender of the victim so what's the point of this bill and is this a misguided understanding of the law well i think absolutely the violence against women act is the nation's response to intimate partner and sexual violence across the country and these are matters that we used to treat as private matters between family members since the violence against women act we've now been able to see

these as social and health crises across the country that need a specific response and violence against women act does just that now i do want to take some time to break down pretty quickly added protections in the senate version that passed the senate in april so let's look at some of the details that house or conservatives are complaining against first the bill is attempting to bar government agencies from discriminating against the l g b t community in cases of sexual and domestic violence let me ask you what's the sticking point with that. well first what the bill would do this is the reauthorization of the bill which is as you mentioned earlier than one thousand nine hundred four the original bill which actually expired in january of two thousand and eleven not this january but is reauthorized every once in a while every five years or so and in this reauthorization the senate after speaking with the thousands of advocates that you talked about determined that it

was critical to include protections for lesbian gay bisexual and transgender survivors of violence and those protections were modest in three places in the bill the first was that survivors would be characterized as under-served populations that is survivors of violence that have not traditionally been. included in much of the response that the country has to domestic and sexual violence the second is actually not that the federal government wouldn't discriminate but that service providers who received funding under the violence against women act would not discriminate in discriminate in providing services to survivors of violence so they would have to provide services whether they were or whether they were. bt and the third is that people would be considered a specific purpose area and what is called the stop provision which is a specific provision for funding to states to allow states to respond to domestic

and sexual violence there and another thing i know you can't get into specifics here but also this bill that and the reauthorization also gives tribal authorities the power to prosecute non-natives in reservation courts now this is a really a measure to fill a huge legal gap from what i understand the women who are raped or beaten on tribal lands by someone who is a non-native and up in a sort of legal limbo the reservation cannot take a non-native to court because they don't have the right to do that and the reservation lands are outside of federal jurisdiction so. those women don't really have the right to be able to prosecute anybody their offenders in court so how how can you argue against something like this i also understand that there's they're trying to do some type of a compromise. able to prosecute those people and stead of on tribal lands in federal court instead in the the leaders would be able to hand that that trial over

. well these kind of cases can already be prosecuted in federal court i think the issue here is that they are not often prosecuted and when they are the survivors of violence often have to travel very huge distances to be able to participate in the case that make it almost practically impossible for them to do so and so these provisions would allow for their very modest provisions actually they would allow for tribal courts to prosecute misdemeanor sexual and domestic violence cases in those tribal courts and another big sticking point is the fact that this new bill allows illegal immigrants who experience domestic violence to seek a temporary legal status now this helps with the legal relief because it takes away the predators ability to abuse the situation when he knows that a woman who is an illegal immigrant won't be able to go to authorities to complain since she is not in the country legally so it's not a question of they the fact that they are illegal immigrants we know they're illegal immigrants in this country but it's

a problem that you know are we expecting these illegal immigrants to not speak up at all and also doing want them to self deport because they know that the u.s. government won't listen to their cries for help i mean what exactly are they trying to accomplish to house republicans by by not wanting this part of the bill well i think there's a couple of things first of all you're talking about the u.v. says which is actually not a new provision that you visas have been involved since its inception and the only difference in the two thousand and twelve reauthorization bill was the ability to recapture some of the says that had not been used in the past so this wasn't even an increase in the visas the visas are a critical law enforcement tool and they are a way that encourages folks who are undocumented to come forward and cooperate with the authorities so that the authorities can address domestic and sexual violence in a way that they wouldn't be able to without the victim or witness coming forward and they are

a part of the fiber. vala they've been uncontroversial until this year and i think what's actually going on this year with the provisions with the tribal provisions and with the immigration provisions is what we're seeing is the sort of polarization of ideology in this country and in my opinion the resistance in the house to these provisions is really based not in any sort of concern for survivors of violence but in a in attempt to prevent any legislation that would help people immigrants or tribal women from going forward now sharon i do have to ask you about this as well house conservatives are really the ones that are holding this legislation up so i have a few questions for you about the reasoning in the matter first of all relations between conservatives and women this past year have been rocky at best let me remind our viewers why that is for what i understand from doctors that's really rare if it's a legitimate rape. the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down i

mean with it myself for a long time but i came to realize life is a gift from god and i think even would life be good for that horrible situation agree that it is something that god intended to happen now because of those two comments republicans essentially lost two senate seats so i have to ask you i mean haven't republicans learned their lesson when it comes to dealing with women and speaking out about rape. well i think that the election hopefully showed that it is not going to be we are not going to tolerate in this country those kinds of comments that ignore the rights of any violence any survivor of violence but i think what we have to really look at is this is a country where we have seen in this past election this is a country where it is broad and diverse and the representation in congress does not necessarily reflect that breadth or diversity and congress really has an obligation

to represent every single person in there just heard during their state including people including immigrants including tribal women and until they understand that they're going to continue to face the kinds of public repudiation that you just showed in those two examples are and what we do know is that it's more or less certain that some form of this bill is going to pass whether it's the watered down version or the version that includes these these new provisions is really the question. and i appreciate your time thank you for coming on the show i mean after in the conversation there sharon staple executive director for the new york city gay and lesbian antiviolence project thanks for having me. and while we're on this topic of violence against women a disturbing video went viral on the internet this week showing members of an ohio school football team bragging about the rape of a sixteen year old girl the girl was allegedly drunk possibly drugged and had been accosted by no fewer than two members of the football team before being dragged

from party to party in a semi unconscious state now we hear it artier choosing not to show that video frankly it seems recorded that don't deserve any more recognition then they have already received it's not a video itself that we want to talk about but how it was obtained members of the night sect a group that is loosely affiliated with the hacktivist group anonymous released this video to protest the lack of legal action by local of four authorities is the latest example in their vigilante style activism where there's a lack of action by law enforcement officials or the government. and they've promised to cause even more cyber commotion in the next year here's part of the group's newest video about what's to come in twenty thirteen. i think it would really be informational recovered but we really don't

think i might joining me now to talk about some of the most notorious cyber attacks the group carried out in two thousand and twelve and look ahead at what is could be in store for for this upcoming year is our team weapon douceur and blake and meghan hey andrew i want to start off by looking at this latest case that we just kind of talked about a little bit look at to some of the things that they did i don't know about you but this was the first time that i've really seen the group covered in a semi positive light for releasing this video of these boys bragging about this girl's rape so let me play you what what the media did really quickly enough for you. if it were not for social media as susan stalking about how this became exploded in the nation's consciousness with this case if it ever gone anywhere and made it to a prosecutor want to celebrate even though anonymous is a bit of a controversial group i want to celebrate social media including anonymous for what

they did here because this is a new era where democracy in action and people going to the internet are now able to share information in a way that will hold prosecutors and law enforcement officials accountable every time when they don't proceed with the case and people think it's on just this is that you said a form of vigilantism only it's a good kind so they're celebrating their behavior more or less this quiet change of face from what we first heard when the court came out about them being completely lawless you really haven't seen anything like that in the mainstream media and really long time actually in fact when anonymous first started getting any sort of coverage whatsoever it was back in zero six zero seven and if you talk to some announce always point you towards a video that was done by a fox affiliate in southern california where there is like an initial package done on this evil terrorism group called anonymous that was just destroying the internet they were hackers on steroids and their mission was just to to do harm and get

there lol well you know things have come a long way and people actually start to wake up and realize ok well people with this group or who are aligning with this group are doing stuff where. the majority of people at least in our society might actually accept with what they're doing we saw that just last month after the newtown shooting when westboro baptist church said look we're going to go over to connecticut and we're going to protest use the moral services and anonymous pretty much sent out a call to arms immediately and they were anon from all over the country who actually traveled to newtown and were not just on the internet but they're in real life trying to stake out members of the westboro baptist church so they can alert other people of. where they're going to be how they're planning on protesting what they were going to do to demonstrate and they were able to counter that before it even happened so they were doing this you know real life vigilante work not just behind a computer screen and that did receive a little bit of attention to that was something where people really looked up and

said oh these guys are doing something more than just crazy internet hackery more and maybe they're doing something more than just raising alarms on there and shutting down websites and maybe they're trying to make a message with every web site that they shut down as they are it's always been the case i mean if you go back and look at the old operations going back to the last several years there's been i mean there are always there for a reason you know anonymous has always been able to pull people together and say look here is a mission that i think we can all get behind let's try to do this and in some cases you'll have a few dozen or few hundred few thousand people you know often have no idea who each other are but can get behind a common cause and say you're right we have to do this by any means necessary and that's exactly what we're seeing here in every day we're seeing more and more people actually join in and say look the whole steubenville rape thing that we're going to talk about this seems ridiculous and that's why we're seeing so much coverage right now because it's something that people like the american mainstream can actually say it's relatable it's not like the. where where it was crazy

internet legislation where only crazy internet nerds like myself are really really really freaked out over this is the rape of a sixteen year old girl people are taking this pretty seriously and very fully so in india from what i understand it's not that they are really trying to protest against the lack of law enforcement in prosecuting those two individuals that they know were involved in the rape is that they were upset about from what i understand the eyewitnesses that videotaped on facebook and instagram and tweeted about that instance while it was happening and then when local law enforcement agencies asked them to step up they chose not to and is that correct you know that the whole assault itself happened i believe august eleventh two thousand and twelve almost six months back into the past six months of gone by and let people really haven't heard about this. story at all the new york times did a great like eight page article a little while back but. after a while anonymous started seeing will look what's going on here in one specific cell that's what i want to refer to a cell of anonymous called night sack actually have people working with sources

directly in steubenville and have actually been getting i've heard upwards of like hundreds of leaks coming in from locals who want people to be aware of what happened and make sure that justice is had because we go back to those five months ago in august there's only been two charges filed against anyone's whole case two youths who are allegedly responsible for actually raping this sixteen year old girl but if you go online you can go through what knight sec has has uncovered what they handed over to a website called local leaks the stuff that they have published there pretty much show that this was not just like a one time one moment flash rape this there's a lot of people involved a lot of people a community who are aware of it and there's a lot of stuff that needs to be done i think law enforcement will do and it's going to take people like anonymous to actually go and put a fire on their ass to make it happen so let's keep this conversation going and let's show some of the things that they've done in two thousand and twelve and they can actually help me and help the viewers and let's let's walk through their viewers everything last january they did they perform the operation go ahead talk

about. one hundred twenty of megaupload obviously the file sharing site run by kim dotcom one point it was in the top five most visited websites in the entire world and the f.b.i. in the part of justice didn't like it said it was encouraging copyright infringement and shut it down in response a bunch of a nonce got together and they took down the f.b.i. web site they took down the web site for the recording industry association of america and so on and so forth and that's let's keep going through this they also attacked the israeli government website after israelis launched a deadly airstrike on the gaza reason and they are israelis also threatened to internet service to the people they're moving on they. the similar thing in syria in november when president bashar al assad threatened to take the internet out of the country they kept that internet going there and last month they actually did exactly what you were talking about they hacked the westboro baptist church members website because they were planning on picketing the funerals of those kids so it's

been quite a busy year for them has it not yeah i mean absolutely in a lot of people don't realize that because a lot of people think these are just some nerdy computer hackers that are hiding behind screens in the united states who only care about you know the lowell's if it where but no actually there's you know thousands upon thousands of people spread out over the course the entire world who are making sure that like we said about with syria and israel that people still have open access to information that people are safe that people can can figure out how to get by these hardships when government regimes step in and try to censor the internet or you know like we saw in gaza kill innocent civilians so i have another quick question for you i've got two quick questions trying to get to first of what are we expecting from in twenty thirteen is there any way to know no of course not i mean if the whole i don't know . if you're really interested in finding out what like minded individuals are doing on the internet if you have if you think that you can relate to some of these

things and you can get behind some of these exact missions you should just go online and look them up it's crazy to see just this this operation right here with the rape in steubenville you know it got picked up by c.n.n. and it got picked up in the atlantic and people are caring about it and going online saying how can i help how can i learn more and that's how people end up going to these chat rooms people and you know exchanging tweets so i mean obviously no one really tell is going to happen in the future but if people who actually think that they can get behind i want to see a common cause because you never really know how things are going to move but it's not that hard to go and find other people on the internet who share the same interests and beliefs of you and to carry out a mission with them and the whole point of view has bring people together right and it certainly does that the world wide web of course you know one thing the. that is quite interesting is that it's hard to paint them in a bad light because what they're doing yes is a label but at the same time when they're helping out a rape victim it's hard to say that what they're doing is the worst case scenario where producer andrew blake thank you so much for weighing in on this topic of

course thank you so we wanted to know what you think about the hacktivist group anonymous how the americans even heard of them or if they have do they even think that this vigilante style justice is just as well served lori harshness of the resident dot net hit the streets of big apple to find out. the hacking collective anonymous issued a statement warning the world to expect them in two thousand and thirteen is that a good thing this week let's talk about that it is no cost of business that they need to feel with they can write their congressman they can vote. i work for the government i don't appreciate people hacking us we've got people's personal information that has to be protected that these people if they decide that hey i want to take the money that i'm in now that's their information because they decide

to take the law into their own hands this is ok yes definitely keep on going to why are they important in the world today well because to bring a certain information to the public. because of the activities social injustice is real thing and so something has to be done to feel like if we have the means to do it then we should do it what about the fact that they do it anonymously they don't show their face and their name to think that they have to because what they're doing is illegal or do you think they should show their names and faces well i think showing their names and faces would just blot them out blacklist them and stamp amount so i think that's the reason why that the anonymous i think they're meddling kids legally should not be doing what they're doing definitely but so do we just let governments and corporations do whatever they want unchecked no not in charge but do it legally through the law and follow the guidelines that are set before us for example with the united states were built on the constitution and

that's how we have to follow the law through that i'm against anything illegal just because i like to follow rules and i don't want to be a put in jail or i wouldn't want to be put in jail even if it does mean sticking out for other people i think it's a good thing we should continue to do what they're doing what about the people who say that the just meddling kids. well i think a lot of people are ignorant to the reason that they're protesting. i think what they say makes a lot of sense and so i think people need to do more research are so interested in exactly what the true purpose is love them or hate them anonymous has promised to put on a good show for twenty thirteen we'll just have to wait to see if they live up to that promise. the in.

and now look at the country over on a country that seems to have learned a thing or two from the best vintage shop earth turns out that you can kick quite a deal if you buy something used while reliable figures of the country's defense budget are hard to come by here's a good way to look at it the most recent budget bill passed for the entire country of iran was four hundred sixty two billion dollars that's two hundred fifty billion dollars less than the united states' own defense budget alone which was seven hundred eleven billion dollars in two thousand and twelve and the smaller budget isn't just because iran is a smaller country sanctions an international pressure from the united states and its many allies over one's nuclear program have battered the country's economy despite this the country still has quite a military arsenal as air force for instance is one of the largest in the middle east maintaining about five hundred warplanes so what's the trick well iran skips the whole research and development phase which can get quite costly instead the

country focuses on manufacturing and updating already invented weapons from countries like the united states russia and china and also helps that sometimes that technology falls right into the country's lap the united states drones have crashed in iran's backyard multiple times in the past two years and iran has allegedly used these as prototypes to build their own drones with some modifications of course as you see in this video taken by syrian rebels captured in iranian surveillance drones another weapon in iran's arsenal of course is people a new pentagon report found that the country's intelligence services thirty thousand strong approximately the same population as john you alaska just goes to show that you don't need to break the bank to hold down the fort. and the couple account with lauren lister is coming up next let's check in with lauren to see what's on today's agenda hey there lauren i know jobs numbers came out just as it

came out you know not a huge earth shattering report this month may again we pretty much have the unemployment rate unchanged because last month it was revised to seven point eight percent about enough jobs created to keep pace with the population growth so not much noise there we won't focus much on that because there's so much more to look at like megan i don't know if you have seen this chatter that's been going on all over the blogosphere really some actual economists have been talking about it too but this crazy idea that the u.s. could solve its debt ceiling stalemate if that's what lawmakers come to in a couple months with a trillion dollar platinum coin or two that they could just deposit in the treasury's accounts at the fed it sounds ridiculous some people are actually serious about it but we will talk to our guest chris martenson about that and more pressing issues like what really is likely to be done about the debt and the deficits and why it matters so state in a couple minutes now we're going to see whose face they decide to put on that trillion dollar coin war and i value high hopes so that's going to do it for now

for more on the stories we covered go to youtube dot com slash our to america or check out our website our t. dot com slash usa see you back here at five. blemish and. accreditation three times four charges a brief summary commence a brief. brief periods i. am mostly blonde just one in video for your media projects and free media oh god r t dot com. bubble. bubble. bubble bubble bubble.

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