the pentagon is a place where u.s. military brass make war decisions but the pentagon is about to ramp up a different type of battle this time of p.r. push what's behind the move will explain in just a moment. we live in a society that loves to update posts and tweets on social media sites but should you be required to hand over your information to your boss or your college get ready first nope a new bill in congress designed to protect your social media privacy. gearing up for round two senator rand paul is not a fan of the t.s.a. he even had a run in with the agency in an airport in tennessee now he's calling for an overhaul off the overhaul of the entire agency we'll tell you about his plans coming up.

good evening it's friday february eighth five pm in washington d.c. i'm megan lopez and you're watching r.t. . well the face of war is changing that much we've known for quite some time as a result we've watched the pentagon scramble to be ahead of the changes in turn multibillion dollar aircraft carriers an f. sixteen s are making their way for drones and cyber innovation wars are no longer strictly being waged between countries and the enemy isn't always clear for decades now the pentagon has use information campaigns in order to sway global opinions but now it's ramping up the effort in a massive way inform and influence activities department of the army is tasked with informing the american public of military ongoings and promoting u.s. ideals a broad as the manual puts it victory depends on the commanders ability to shape sway and alter foreign audience perceptions and ultimately behavior expression in the area of operations commanders rely on

a planning and employing information related capabilities to unify perceptions and support affects to attain their desired end state so are we winning this war of words both at home and abroad joining me now is anthony shaffer from the task force for national and homeland security and also the center for to advanced defense studies hey there tony welcome back to the program now obviously this information campaign has been going on for decades so what's so different now. just a different information operations mission work for mission management it's all been going on and i think right now the pentagon is trying to do this more for two purposes first a show that is really relevant to the current war be honest here the the al qaida folks telephone of all learn how to use social media global media very spectrum and frankly we've been kind of behind them secondly and more importantly the pentagon

right now is going through a number of changes if you stick late in the beginning of the segment here that indicate that you know they're going to be cut back and i think what you're seeing yours one of the things we bore is our operations properly and actually be a tool to actually do less combat and much more. interface with others and make even even working with our allies to have them do much more of the heavy lifting this is something that is in our best interest in details or you go about doing now tony as you just mentioned part of the stated reasons that the military is revamping this program is because of the belief that we're losing the propaganda war in afghanistan and as you mentioned that thanks to the taliban's use of messaging how are they outsmarting us and really how can we do better at this. part of it is managed by committee i mean helen yesterday when secretary defense panetta and determine the joint chiefs had to testify and they

were asked who's in charge and this like i'm just figure out. oh yes this is the problem we manage things like maybe you don't have leadership and one of the things that i've noticed over the past ten years is if people are so afraid to make a decision because of my goodness and they make a mistake and all i make a mistake i may get fired frankly the problem is this we don't make our decisions we don't do things well we can't respond as rapidly as we should to this message so the by the time we get around to it all it takes time to coordinate and it's just outdated and frankly we just cannot respond to them as rapidly as we should and frank with people are pretty thick initiative because they know. now tell me you've been on the ground multiple regions kind of seeing this firsthand one of the biggest challenges we face in wars in afghanistan and also in iraq is quite clearly the language barrier long report after another that has come out showing that we are lost in translation that our translators are inadequate and that there is

a general lack of a misunderstanding when it comes to the tribal culture then that's causing the problems that americans are facing right now the tribes are facing in particular so how can we win this this long words when we don't even understand what they're saying this goes back to the second problem that you brought up we have been dealing with cultures we don't understand we have this sensually we project our values on them and i think that's part of the thing that we can go very badly in afghanistan if you journals of gun control when the current director of the recognizes when he was there the crystals that we've been trying to understand and he said that london about a year and a half ago with that said simply having or stars on your shoulders making smart it makes you in charge but you got a very smart people into action understand the culture week. about this r r t the afghan people are ungoverned they're so tribal and the fact we misunderstood that the fact that we best understood pakistan pakistan will always act best interests

this is resulting in a lot of high expectations and low results on our side and frankly you've got to have people coming to understand this and then allow them to have freedom to actually act and that's one of the problems too we don't have the right people doing the right jobs with the right amount of freedom to actually act now let's turn this conversation back home because of this new i knew wallace said the american public really expects the military to become more transparent when it comes to drone use or targeting americans abroad or anything like that especially surprise you the drone process is actually more transparent the of the that is it's just we don't see it because it actually goes through a different entity goes the armed services committee versus the house intelligence committee but that said there's always room for more transparency why for all this you have people like security back to him actually trying to influence public thinking for example by saying on behalf of. all the troops. going about saying i'm going to have to get rid of blue angels all those threats what you're actually meant to imply and again this goes back to what we're talking about here

influencing public thinking it's a game of chicken and it's a shame to see that politicians do sector now or trying to extend the department of defense to start playing politics there are specific laws which says that the lobby and there's that's one of the problems with all of this is that some of this may be received ultimately the of the lobbying the american people to call for certain things in congress that is by law even legal so there's issues here that need to be examined more and more detail as this new regulation is implemented the cost of long time is not only is it the military talking about pushing an american information abroad hillary clinton also recently talked about this this war of words and i want to play a clip from high and then we'll come back and talk about it. we have done and i take responsibility along with our entire government and our congress and perhaps our private sector we've not done a very good job in recent years reaching out in. a public.

media way or in a culturally affective way to explain ourselves so it's hard to say what they're what exactly she's talking about but it kind of sounds like she's talking more terms of reaching out to messick lead to americans obviously there is a difference between information and informing the public and influencing those abroad do those ever cross referencing they ever get mixed we employed the globe or more ways we fully understand hollywood as the ultimate arbiter of heart influence i think this is one of the things that perhaps this clip is up oil under stand hollywood speaks for us whether we like it or not i went home. on an exercise back in one thousand nine hundred with the u.s. marines the attached and the i love american movies it was twenty four seven what use cherub will be so whether we want to cut all the board does

a lot of influence of course and simply put the government that we have introduced is nothing compared to the message but just by the fact it's commercial so i think what we need to do is i'm sure what we need to highlight in a way of attracting people to understand the best of our values having a watch given so gullible these people these cars away somehow think that that's americans oh well hollywood also does a very good job obviously with zero dark thirty have making a true film that you know maybe now imagine not have come out but also making the u.s. government good anthony shaffer from the task force on national and homeland security at the center for advanced studies thank you so much for joining us as you know the . well all this week we've been discussing the legality of drones in the new developments coming out of the u.s. justice department detail and this legality and the use of drone attacks against u.s. citizens we also know that drone use within u.s. borders is increasing dramatically and it's not just the military that's using them

the map you're looking at right here is made from data released by the f.a.a. after a freedom of information request sent out by the electronic frontier foundation it shows locations of eighty one public entities that have applied for f.a.a. drone authorizations and includes organizations such as law enforcement agencies sheriff's departments colleges and indian tribal agency so obviously drones are becoming more and more prevalent but on the same day that the obama administration released the trone memo that has stirred up so much conversation a small virginia city called charlottesville passed a resolution banning the use of drones against its forty three thousand residents for at least two years the resolution which was brought on by peace activist david swanson called on the state of virginia and in fact the entire country to follow its example the charlottesville resolution says quote the federal government and

the commonwealth of virginia has thus far failed to provide reasonable legal restrictions on the use of drones within the u.s. and police departments throughout the country have begun implementing drone technology absent any guidance or guidelines from lawmakers now this resolution is mostly seen as symbolic after all the city does not plan on getting rid of aircraft that have already been released out nor does it have the power to prevent federal use of drones in its airspace but it is proof that one small town is willing to take a stance on new avi's until tougher regulations are agreed upon already lawmakers in ten other states have started to draw up their own legislation based on charlotte bills for the resolution. goes to show that a symbolic action can sometimes result in real change. when you meet someone in a bar or at the bookstore or even at a seminar chances are the first thing that you do before you contact them is try to find out

a little bit more about them and the best place to do that is the internet it is after all the new age of information a simple google search can reveal a lot of information about a person's life for instance if you search social media sites like facebook linked in twitter or my space if you're still using that you can find out pretty easily a person's age gender and marital status you might be able to discover a person's sexual preference their political religious affiliations and even their family and current or past addresses don't believe me well child looking yourself up on dot com all of this could be very important if you're trying to get a job a company with conservative values is not likely to hire someone that doesn't add here to their politics or religious standards even your sexual preferences could get in the way luckily we have the right to control our own privacy to figure out how much you limit what outsiders can see you can even make your profile invisible

but if an employer asks for your logon information to your facebook account as they can and have done in the past then the gig is up so to speak well three lawmakers are working to change all of that and actually protect your internet privacy congressman eliot engel and michael graham along with congresswoman jan schakowsky have reintroduced a bill called the social networking online protection act or snow but that allows that actually prevents employers and schools as well as universities from forcing people to give their social networking passwords up to the employer so is this the first step in protecting online freedoms earlier i spoke to tom carr senior director of strategy at free press i asked him how likely it is that this legislation could get passed. well the person. they tried to get there through. well in congress expired before it was passed so they're reintroducing it again in the new congress now it seems to me like

a no brainer right why should an employer be allowed to ask for your online address and your logon and look at your social media accounts i mean it's sort of like having an employer or prospective employer follow you around over the weekend to see what you're doing you know on saturday and sunday it's a there's a there's a there's some serious issues here so i think that again if there's enough public pressure in support of this legislation there's a good chance that congress may take it seriously they have a lot on their agenda as you as you know. but this is something that if we continue to hear about these cases of prospective employers we've asked to hand over this information that there could be enough uproar in the media amongst activists amongst the average citizens that congress will take action on it so ten i have to ask why what is the reasoning that they could possibly give to to keep something like this all of a to allow it after all. i can't imagine what they're using i mean it's become

a standard out is that when you are applying for a job that your prospective employer will check out your facebook account they will check out your twitter stream they will google we do and i think that this goes a little beyond the pale i mean there really is the on privacy i mean there's there are two issues here there is the privacy issue that you've talked about in they shouldn't be allowed to do this but there's also the issue of free speech when your employers tell you that they want to get access to various account has a chilling effect and now you know we're all living in an age where most people communicate via the social networks and and we don't have the kind of first amendment protections. in social media that many people think that we have we're subject to their terms of service. polices like facebook can cut us off for any reason whatsoever it's in their own terms and now we have a situation where where prospective employers want to get access with information

so so it's we're in a really prickly era when it comes to first amendment protections for you speech protections and we need our members of congress to side with average speakers and social media and protect not only our rights to privacy but our rights to free speech now one of the congress people that have actually signed on to this and is one of the people that actually introduced it is congresswoman jan schakowsky as i mentioned i want to read how she describes this type of fighting or encroachment she says asking for someone's path or is like asking for a key to their home privacy is a basic right that all americans share and one that we should act to protect this legislation set boundaries no one seeking an educational or job opportunity should have to worry that their personal passport information will be required as a condition of their involvement or their employment decisions an accurate description. but the really good analogy. the beyond this legislation the

justice department has been a look at this to see if there are existing laws that would make this kind of snooping illegal and that is the problem again is that the dividing line between your personal and professional lives is breaking down increasingly in the arab social media and employers and then not only are they asking to look at this information but oftentimes when people are employed they're asked to sign a non disparagement rule that would say that you're not going to say anything disparaging about your employer and social media and things like that so so again it raises some really really deeply concerning free speech issues and we're hopeful that legislation like this will be taken seriously now time there's also a big difference to point out and the difference is you know obviously somebody can google you you can find pictures you can find whatever whatever you put out there and you know if you leave it to have a type of digital footprint but the real difference between being able to google somebody and being able to log into their personal account where they've had

interactions that are trying to they're trying to keep private is obviously a huge difference so are you advocating are others advocating that should they shouldn't be able to look you up at all when it comes to your social networking sites or that they shouldn't just be able to look at your personal information. well of course it would be impossible to police that anybody any employer is going to groom you and i would that since it would be scary to imagine a law that would prevent anybody including an employer from googling someone but when you when you ask for someone to hand over their password information their logon information that's when you cross a clear line where we've been steadily gl standards that would prevent that from happening and you can create a vehicle by which prospective employers and employers can file complaints to get it against an employer who decides to cross that line now obviously like legislations were passed in california delaware illinois maryland michigan and new

jersey in two thousand and twelve they've also been introduced in eight states and similar bills anyway so if federal government if congress doesn't pass that should we expect states to kind of find their own way to deal with this cyber privacy and pro-choice meant well there's always the question of groups that large they certainly can and have done this but there are instances where this kind of snooping goes across state lines and that may make it a federal issue which would then go before congress so i think in things like this it's always preferable to have a federal role that protects interstate communications in this case. and so if we could see something like this moving in congress it would be preferable to trying to pass these piecemeal basis the tim carr senior director of strategy to free press thank you so much for joining us welcome. from cyber privacy to bodily

privacy now kentucky senator rand paul is going head to head with the t.s.a. he has introduced a bill to privatized the agency and establish a passenger bill of rights senator paul has had numerous run ins with the t.s.a. over the years the most infamous instance was in tennessee last year where the senator was detained at a checkpoint after he refused to submit to a pat down and consequently missed his guest speaker appearance at the march for life now one of the two bills that he is proposing would require air force to hire private companies of their own choosing to conduct security screenings the other would provide travelers was a number of protections from procedures like invasive searches so how likely are these bills to pass and what will they really change well bomb is a transportation policy analyst for the reason foundation and he has some opinions on that matter his first question prototypes are not have to allan's are going to inevitably happen to some passengers so does it really matter who's doing the

touching so to say. well hi megan and thanks and first thanks very much for having me on so the answer that question is yes it does and what what senator paul's bill does specifically is it takes away a conflict of interest that the federal government currently has right now the t.s.a. conducts both the screenings and it also oversees the screening process and the issue with that is that there is basically an incentive for the t.s.a. to make the screening process as weak as possible so that its employees can you know pass all the tests and make sure that they can actually you know they can actually meet the guidelines that the t.s.a. sets and so the difference is with the private screening contractors the t.s.a. will still act is sort of the judge over the process they will still set the guidelines but there will be more momentum to set have your guidelines because there won't be sort of that conflict of interest there and the federal government

won't be policing itself but you have used raising the standards and heavier guidelines wouldn't bat a quite to more pat down more of this kind of invasion of privacy or not well i guess it depends on how this is and how the screening is actually conducted. i think have your guidelines is maybe not the best way that i could have put it basically what we're looking at is a lot of the tests that the t.s.a. currently does we know they're incorrect we know that this heavy pat down of passengers actually doesn't improve security there's actually different things they could be doing in these different mechanisms including some of the technology that they're not using would actually improve the screening process and make it less invasive for travelers well let's talk about the screening process i mean each security method has its own sound false i mean metal detectors don't pick up everything the body scanners emit lower levels of radiation they also can be very intrusive and the pat downs of course are very invasive so what what other methods

are what really of these methods even is the best way to go about it. well one of the thing that one of the things that senator paul's bill does is it actually allows travelers to choose which of the methods they're going to choose they're going to prefer and so i think that gives travelers the option i would also like to see some additional methods you look at how other countries do it such as israel that have security issues they actually have it based more on the background of the traveler in so they're looking at where the travelers been and what sort of risk they might be so that they concentrate the methods on just the people who are at highest risk instead of screening grandmothers and screening little kids who are not a realistic threat so it's a combination of being able to choose the methods and i agree that all three of the ones we have now are problematic and also coming up with some additional methods that would be a lot less obtrusive and more effective broke i'm going to play devil's advocate here obviously if you're going to choose

a method you're going to try to choose the least invasive least revealing one now you're saying and why the rand paul bill is saying and other people who are privacy advocates say is that you know grandmothers children they're not threats but we can't really put a face on terrorism these days a terrorist can look like anybody an enemy to of a state could look like you or me so how can we ensure that these methods are going to work such as to them which line are going to go and i mean obviously you know erin to choose the easiest one. right well we would have to ever that's a very good point you don't know who the terrorist is going to be and certainly you have some unusual characteristics from a demographic point of view that terrorists can take all three of the methods would have to be equally effective i mean that's the first thing you have to look at so if there is one method that is not actually catching issues when the t.s.a. does their test when these private companies do the test then we need to go ahead and fix that and make sure that it's rigorous there also are going to be some

random random instances where people are going to have to go through people like grandmother in chicago mothers and children who are not typically the profile they would have to go through the security is this is as well so it's overall less security but there are some double checks you have to include to make sure it works now one of the good things about having the government are one of the things that i think the government would argue is a good thing is have by having a standardized system is that it makes room for fewer errors i guess you could say could it be argued that introducing private companies into something that is standardized as it is could bring too many proverbial cooks and into the kitchen well it shouldn't assuming it's done correctly in the reason for that is the government is still going to be setting the standards in the plan that companies are still going to have to meet the government standards if you look at other countries that have this type of approach including some of the ones in europe there are still there is still very specific standards that these private companies

need probably a lot more specific and rigorous than the ones today that the government let me stop you right there because you had just said earlier that the standards that the government is imposing right now on the t.s.a. aren't strict enough so if we're going to be imposing the same standards on a private company really what difference is that. no no it would be let me clarify it would be stricter skin more rigorous standards it would not be the same standards that's one of the bandages is that you will because the government is not going to be doing the screening they will they will be able to set more rigorous standards one of the problems now is because the government actually conducts the screening and monitor screening there isn't there sort of an incentive for them to water downstream but know in the future with the private companies the standards will be higher than today now there's already i'm just kind of switching gears away from the security aspect let's focus on this that passenger bill of rights bill that rand paul's son trying to push there if we are to have one of those but it mostly deals with tarmac times and reimbursing lost luggage what will this one

guarantee and how likely is it to pass well i think it's not really likely to pass and let me get back to that in a little while what it basically does is it allows passengers one of them is the choosing of the screening and also allows passengers to see how their luggage is screening the luggage that they check in a so they can see exactly how that process goes and it gives a farm accountable set of steps if passengers feel their rights are violated that they can go ahead and complain about and there's a certain key for us and they can complain to you in a process to make sure that these complaints are actually resolved as opposed to right now we're basically if you complain you're out of luck so that those are the things that actually changes now the issue with them passing as i think neither of these bills is likely to pass and the reason is right now is these bills will go before the commerce committee and the senator who chairs the commerce committee senator rockets.