as president obama signs twenty three executive actions to reduce gun violence thousands do a mad dash to the nearest gun store before new regulations kick in so much that it's causing an ammunition shortage for police forces coming up will debate safety versus the second amendment right. and the obama administration promised to be the most transparent in american history but when you look at real history this president appears to hold his cards close to his chest some argue a little too close i had a look at how he stands up against other presidents. and just one day after computer protege aaron swartz was laid to rest one u.s. representative is proposing new legislation to protect internet users

a critical analysis of the computer fraud and abuse act and how updating the law could prevent prosecutors from going after people like their. good afternoon it's wednesday january sixteenth four pm in washington d.c. i'm christine friends out there watching our team well the issue of gun violence gun rights and gun restrictions took center stage today when president obama and vice president biden announced in a news conference that this issue will not only be a priority but that action will be taken immediately the president says a lot of a-k. to strengthen and reinstate the assault weapons ban and ten round limit for ammunition magazines and that he hopes to increase access to mental health and require a criminal background check on every gun sale now he signed it twenty three executive actions including improving the federal background check system beefing up effort.

to prevent gun violence and prosecute gun crimes nominate a director on the bureau of alcohol tobacco firearms and explosives and to focus more on the mental health aspect including a reminder to health care providers that no federal law prohibits them from reporting threats of violence the only way we will be able to change is if their audience their constituents their membership says this time must be different at this time we must do something to protect our communities and our kids i will put everything i've got into this and so will joe but i tell you the only way we can change is if the american people demand. well those in favor of stricter gun laws a plot of the president's actions however those who think the government has no place making any laws about guns are going on the defensive immediately as so we

want to us explore the ins and outs of this issue and joining me now to do just that roger pilon vice president of legal affairs at cato institute and george washington reporter for the nation magazine gentlemen i want to welcome you to the program today let me just start by asking you roger in your opinion what will today's announcements accomplish not a lot the twenty three measures that he himself is going to take if you look at the relatively trivial for example pretty big as well pretty big as well calling for the centers for disease control to do a study of the causes of gun violence is if we don't have a pretty good handle of that already other measures to deal with data sharing in those are important better because right now that is a problem but most of the measures that are the ones that we hear about the. restriction on assault weapons that's informed is going to take legislation that

can be done by executive order right and george i mean talk to me about this because a lot of what the president did today is sort of call congress to action to keep this topic you know keep keep the bright lights you know shining on this topic how realistic is it really that some of the more important issues will be dealt with by congress i think some of them have a pretty good chance of passage i don't think we'll see an assault weapons ban unfortunately but i do think there's pretty broad bipartisan support for. closing the gun show loophole for for expanded background checks for limiting high capacity magazines if not the weapons i've heard republicans come out in favor of that so i think it's possible some of that stuff gets through and if it doesn't it at least sets that it sets the table for future action so that the people who vote against it perhaps that becomes an issue in the next midterms maybe that the train gets more fertile next time around and it can be the start of. thing that you know if it doesn't happen now it would have been four years six years eight years from now i think it's a good point that the ball is rolling because after all this is an issue that for

so long no lawmaker on either side of the aisle really wanted to touch and yet it's interesting because thirty thousand americans die every year from gun violence and you know we talk about the war in iraq for example about four thousand three hundred americans died that is so what do you think i mean is the n.r.a. a little bit out of touch with americans went when it wants. laws at all will they americans are deeply divided on the issues you as all the polls show when you talk about gun violence of course included in that is everything from suicide to police using guns to criminals to the war on drugs which is a big source of the gun violence in the country today and so on and so forth but when it comes to something like increased background checks for gun shows that eighty five percent of the american people support and i think that that probably will be passed but then when you get to some of these other issues for example the restrictions on large volume magazines he wants to drill duce or stop the sale of

thirty rome magazines and allow only ten round magazines well that is just simply putting your head in the sand because it takes about two seconds to switch magazines so if my arithmetic is correct three turn round magazines equals one thirty round magazine and so you're not going to accomplish anything by that it's sort of a feel good measure and yet quite a few people are citing this as perhaps something that could have stopped other events and i've never seen you know with this kind of magazine but i think you do it you know if it takes two seconds to switch magazines accomplished nothing let me ask you george i mean people are saying that fewer deaths would have happened at the gabby giffords shooting at the movie theater shooting i think it's a useful public policy measure look at. it's not just thirty or magazines there are sixty one magazines out there there are hundreds around that the shooter and aurora used the underground magazine and what's interesting if you look at that shooting

is that there was at most ninety seconds between the first nine one one call presumably when he came into the theater and when the police responded and in that ninety seconds he shot seventy one people so i think even and i agree that reducing the magazine size isn't going to solve the whole problem but but every second i think and tragic situations like this counts and i think i have yet to hear from most gun rights advocates of a compelling personal liberty case for owning a sixty round or thirty round magazine over say a ten round one of course nothing will be done to call back the millions of large round magazines that are out there millions of assault weapons that are out there and so i think when you look at this from the guns perspective this is really kind of feel good legislation but one measure that would immediately be able to be implemented and would serve to reduce not eliminate but you can't eliminate all that but reduce abstention to this is if we did have armed guards at places that

are no gun free zones and that of course is something that the american people do support exam around the fact that we're at a time when congress is debating the money that this country spends that the debt this country has adding armed guards to every school would be an extraordinary additional cost to the not to this is not something that belongs to the federal government to do this is a local issue education is primarily a state and local issue therefore communities can go in this direction if they want to they don't have to tell me about look at sandy hook elementary this wasn't in an area that ever saw any kind of violence this wasn't at a school where there were not all the time. to be sure but these are the in fact that's just the point these are very isolated incidents and so the question becomes how much measure do you want to take what kinds of measure do you want. if it is so rare and then it's up to a community to decide we're seeing communities today for example there's been stories about in pennsylvania where communities are moving in this direction

because they have decided for themselves we want to spend the money for this and this is the way it should be in this country that's why we have federalism in this country because each state can approach this as it wants to approach george i want you to get in here and respond to that i don't think more secure its causes per se a bad idea but i'm not sure that it does much to address the problem we saw in virginia tech which is the worst school shooting in american history there was not only one armed guard but an entire armed police force that was unable to stop the slaughter on top of that this year you've seen you know while newtown inspiring people to action it's not it's not the only place unfortunately where mass gun violence is happening you're seeing just this year mesh in exact movie theaters spas churches shopping malls and you know let's rising society lot of the recluses do have guards and others do not for example there was a shooting about a month ago you know or a gun in a mall in oregon and someone was there with a gun to stop the shooter you know it's

a good thing that you mention george the bridge and you turkeys because there is a case where as you know we have forty one states in the country that allow concealed carry if one of the students in the class had had a weapon we might have had one or two deaths not thirty two that's a big difference i want to you had mentioned earlier in the discussion on the american people and sort of where their public opinion is there's a new washington post a.b.c. poll i just want to put the result up of that and it shows that fifty nine percent of people surveyed said that obama and congress should make enacting stricter gun control laws a priority so i guess i just want to get your take i mean the n.r.a. is one thing gun rights advocates you know certainly are not all in one category but george to talk about this i mean why i can't if fifty nine percent. of americans feel this way that this should be a top priority why is it so difficult to get any changes passed i think for one

reason you know while that may be broadly shared it's not it's much less popular among the republican base and what a lot of the republican members of congress are worried about are not how they do in the general election but how they do in the primaries so even if they may personally support you know more background checks smaller magazines what have you what they're worried about is that in the primary they had an n.r.a. funded more right wing opponent who comes in and call them a gun grabber and then all the same they're out of a job so that's going to be a big obstacle well that's one aspect to be sure another aspect is that the country has various parts that are very strong gun supporters as opposed to some of the do with east but when you go to speak about gun control and you speak about for example assault weapons the immediate problem that arises well what do you mean by an assault weapon and this comes up in the for example the legislation that came out of new york state just a day before yesterday because they define it as

a rifle or a pistol that has a magazine and one military style feature what's a military style feature i mean this was the way the original legislation back in ninety four. was styled and of course it was very easy to get around that you just manufactured your weapon differently and it no longer has a quote military style future so the definition is very very difficult i mean i think i think that's a really good point that the whole issue of course very complex and i want to talk about another aspect of it here. shortly after both president obama's re-election and of course the shootings in newtown connecticut ammunition in this country started flying off the shelves this is according to police departments around the country police departments actually having a very tough time being able to get their hands on ammunition there are shortages people. you are worried that their guns will be you know that they will no longer be allowed to have their guns that they will no longer be allowed to have ammo

george talk about this i mean is there a gray area between you know no guns and just a couple stricter laws because a lot of people say that once you tighten the belt strap a little bit on these laws that it's just going to keep getting worse i'm not aware of any major politician who's who is in favor of stripping confiscating all guns in america whether they are that's a very popular argument for p. eight is that it's an argument made by gun manufacturers and their their allies in the media and the nonprofit sector who want people to believe that so that people go buy one gun but. in fact i don't see that as anything politically viable as long as any of us are alive i think a lot of the restrictions are just commonsense ones you know the president pointed out today that he wanted to ban armor piercing bullets which police departments don't want to see they don't want people shooting bullets for their vests and i think that's something where you might find a lot of common ground on but i've yet to see anyone actually seriously propose confiscating all but what do you think about this argument roger i mean. that i

mean i think it's an overreaction although it is in the background i mean we have seen in other countries where confiscation of guns did follow registration i mean it's one of the first things hitler did for example so it is not completely lunacy to believe that but in this country i don't think it's in the offing in anywhere in the near future because we are a culture that is very deeply. in love with our guns and it leads to lots of people for hunting for sport for collection and so on and so it was how do we change the discussion or the debate to say you know these sort of more extreme laws don't have to equal so obama is going to take my gun and we haven't heard anything about what is the five hundred pound gorilla in the room and that's the man. health issue i think it's a really good point that true and that is the issue that is the most difficult we

saw in the new york state legislation that came out yesterday or the day before. a requirement for mental health professionals to report to mental health officials people that they suspect may be dangerous to themselves or others well that raises very serious questions if they fail to report they could be prosecuted but there is a good faith exception will there's all kinds of room for difficulties there but the biggest problem and there are two major problems first of all it runs right up against the doctor patient relationship right private silence of that and even more important it would discourage people from thinking how on to seek help from getting it if they know that they're going to be reported to law enforcement officials if if and so i mean the thing we want to do is to encourage these people to get to get help george we have about thirty seconds left to your take on sort of the mental

health aspect of this that's actually somewhere where we absolutely agree i would hate to see people discourage their r.t. is a requirement a law that if a psychiatrist or doctor thinks their patient is an imminent danger that they are required to call the police i think going beyond that would be a bad policy that's certainly an interesting discussion and i think an intelligent one and it shows right here that there is agreement even for two people who sort of disagree on this issue that there is great matter that there are areas where some progress can be made roger pilon vice president of legal affairs at cato institute and george washington reporter for the nation magazine thank you both for being on the show you're welcome. so the president appeared in public to push forward these executive actions to get out his message but like so many public statements and appearances he did not take any questions from the press despite a promise he made shortly after taking the oath of office back in two thousand and nine when to make government accountable just make it transparent so the american people can know exactly what decisions are being made how they're being made and whether their interests are being well served well as it turns out the president's

mission to be the most transparent president in history has so far fallen a little short of political science professor at house and university crunched the numbers of presidents and the number of news conferences they held in their first term president obama has held seventy nine president george w. bush held eighty nine president clinton one hundred thirty three president h.w. bush george h. so he was one hundred forty three not the only person with fewer while the great communicator himself president ronald reagan he held just twenty seven news conferences now the same professor tallied a question and answer sessions with reporters and found similar statistics with obama underperforming them all except president reagan's now even when the president does hold press conferences he calls on people by name if you're not called on well here's what happens. thank you very much.

that was a great question but it would be a horrible precedent for me to answer your question just because you yelled it out so thank you very much guys. all right now it's not just this president obama's administration recently quadrupled the number of signatures that must be collected to get an official response from the white house those petitions on the administration's read the people web site must now get one hundred thousand signatures and this after a series of unpopular shall we say petition drive created by the president's critics now obama has certainly made himself visible during his presidency with accounts on websites like flicker and twitter but these still on the president seem to have total control over the content when it comes to two sided conversations obama would rather play it safe. well throughout the course of this week we've been

telling you a lot about aaron swartz an internet activist and regular guest on our team america who was found dead in his home on friday after an apparent suicide aarons family is blaming the government and its vast overreach for pursuing a harsh thirty plus year sentence for aaron who is accused of illegally downloading academic articles without permission no victims just information made public and he faced thirteen felony counts of hacking and wire fraud under the computer fraud and abuse act well now a u.s. congresswoman from california has drafted a bill to try to update the law and prevent what she calls a dangerous legal interpretation representatives though he wrote in an internet chat on reddit yesterday a site that sorts himself helped create that we should prevent what happened to erin from happening to other internet users the government was able to bring such just proportionate charges against aaron because of the broad scope of the computer fraud and abuse act in a wire fraud statute now she's calling it erin's law and i want to talk more about

it with trevor tim an activist with the electronic frontier foundation hey there trevor you know relatively speaking this is new territory so let's first talk about hacking laws overall many people see them as far too vague and therefore much easier you know to sort of interpret however the prosecutor wants to. right exactly the problems with the the main law is called the computer fraud and abuse act and unfortunately it was written. much more than a decade ago before we really had an idea about our conceptions of hacking and computer crime and all of that as we do today and so it can be used in these really harsh ways where as we saw in the aaron schwartz case he was facing thirty five years in prison for essentially. going into j. store and downloading a bunch of academic documents now you parrot to essentially checking out too many books in the library and he was facing decades in prison for this so-called crime.

now the problem is that it's defying words like authorized access to mean just about anything and you could and the department of justice has taken a bunch of cases to court saying that if you violate the terms of service on the various websites that you may actually be breaking the law and that should never be the case you know these laws need to be updated in the prison sentences needed to be relaxed especially for supposed crimes like this where there was no economic motive or there was no way for him to profit even if they said even if he did all the things that he did that they said he did something that a lot of people forget in aaron's case at least is that j. store the. place where he illegally download all the stuff didn't have a problem with a you know when all was said and done just or said you know they were fine with that so it's really interesting when you look at this case but also looking at

cases ahead and trying to sort of lay the groundwork for future cases so congresswoman lofgren still includes a provision to quote amend title eighteen united states code to exclude certain violations of agreements or contractual obligations relating to internet service from the purview of certain criminal probe and for other purposes trevor kind of break this down for me i mean could updating this law really make a noticeable difference in the fight for a free and open internet. oh absolutely and i think the bill's going to change a little bit and expand as they go forward with it but that was based that problem addresses what i mentioned before about the terms of service agreement where whenever you go on a website or you sign up for a service like twitter or facebook or google or forge a store for example you sign an agreement to abide by certain rules that they set out but because you enter into to and can contractual obligation with another company does not mean that you're breaking computer crime laws or hacking was.

allegedly violate that agreement so that would solve one part of the problem but there you know there are many others especially when you're talking about the definitions of of language in the bill and also the prison sentence. we've seen the prosecutors in this case really target him very aggressively far more aggressively than similar actions that you would see in the physical world so we're taking the allegations in this complaint as true even though they may not have been . aired was engaged in some sort of civil disobedience in protest in the maximum he should have gotten was something akin to trespass in like thirty days in jail like you do if you are involved in a sit in or some other sort of protest but it was because he. committed his alleged crime with a computer he was facing thirty five years and that's just not fair yes certainly a lot of people who have really been following this case closely really felt like

the prosecutors. attorney general's office wanted to make an example out of aaron swartz and sort of say you know this is what's going to happen this is the precedent and that's the problem here with so many of these internet cases is there isn't precedent. i want to get your take that i mean what else needs to be done with this specific act of computer fraud and abuse act what else needs to change in it before. people can feel comfortable about the future of internet freedom. well unfortunately i think there needs to be a kind of a. not necessarily looking at specifics in the law but looking at information that the general public gets about so-called hackers and. how we approach them in society you know right now in congress there's going to be coming up there's going to be a big cybersecurity debate again and we're going to hear all of this scaremongering about cyber crime and cyber armageddon everything. yet. here we see on the other

side. can do a lot of good aaron was a great activist that fought against so he created the original r.s.s. to help with creative commons and this is a completely different type of hacker than here the government trying to scaremonger about. the first problem is educating congress that there are a lot of people there doing a lot of good they're trying to. to further society with their so-called crimes and that we need to completely separate that from real cyber crime and potential cyber armageddons or whatever they want to say yeah i want to ask you i mean certainly we had aaron on our team america quite a bit to talk about the stop online piracy by the protect ip act. and those that did not end up passing and people like aaron people with outspoken voices were able

to get sort of those messages out in terms of why this would not be good for society we're about to have an inauguration here on monday a second term for president obama similarly looking a similar looking congress what are you kind of focused on trevor with the electronic frontier foundation in terms of sort of the next pieces of legislation to deal with cyber security. well it's not just cyber security of the internet prior i've seen general in the next year there may be more privacy battles in congress and there have been in the past decade you know we have this they tried to pass the cyber security bill cispa last year which basically carved the giant loophole into all of our privacy laws that allowed companies to give information and potentially your communications to the government without a warrant thankfully it didn't pass but they're going to try to bring it up again you know e-mail still isn't protected with a warrant like physical letters and phone calls is even though you know it's our main form of communication there's g.p.s.

tracking on our cell phone that congress has to take a look at because police have been using a warrant for that drone surveillance and even the administration wants to pass a new internet surveillance law which would basically force companies to install a backdoor into their into their networks so facebook and g. mail and everything else they would have real time access to it now they would still need a warrant for this but this would still obviously bring up huge cases for abuse and also would just make the internet less safe so. those are all the battles that we see only the next year and it's really sad that we don't have someone is great is there to sit here and to stand with us and fight against them yeah certainly aaron helped us a lot to understand what was happening to break this down and to put into perspective why it was important for every american to care about these issues appreciate having you on the show trevor tim an activist with the electronic frontier foundation thanks so much thanks a lot well that is going to do it for us for now but for more on the stories we

covered go to youtube dot com slash r t america or check out our website r.t. dot com slash usa and you can of course follow me on twitter i'm at christine. right. used today violence is once again. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. during operations room.

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