the pentagon is a place where u.s. military brass make war decisions but the pentagon is a balance to ramp up a different type of battle this time a p.r. push what's behind this move will explain in just a moment. we live in a society that loves to update post and tweet on social media but should we be required to hand over our social media information to our bosses colleges except get ready for snow but 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 of the agency we'll tell you about his plans coming up.

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

the area of operations commanders rely on a planning and employ information related capabilities to unify perceptions and support effects to attain their desired end state so are we winning this war of words both at home and abroad i was joined earlier today to discuss this very issue with anthony shaffer from the task force on national and homeland security at the center for advanced defense studies he began by saying this recent p.r. effort is just a matter of renaming the information campaign that has been going on for decades. information operations missions work for mission management it's all been going on . right now the pentagon is trying to get us more for two purposes first a show that is really relevant to the current war be honest here the al-qaeda folks tell us on of all learn how to use social media global media very effective and

frankly we've been 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. they're going to be cut back and i think what you're seeing here is one of the. operations properly and actually be a tool to actually help you do less combat and much more. interface with others and make space even even working with our allies to have them do much more of the heavy lifting this is something i think is in our best interest but in the whole 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 the secretary defense panetta and determine the joint chiefs

had to testify and they were asked who's in charge and. 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 i might 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 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 frankly people are probably sick 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 there's been a lot of porn 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 a second problem that you brought up we have been dealing with culture 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 a few girls have gotten dropped from 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 aren't ungoverned they're so tribal and the fact we misunderstood that the fact that we best understood pakistan pakistan will always destined for us

this is resulting in a lot of high expectations and low results on our side 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 be effective now let's kind of conversation back home because of this new i knew all of the american public really expects the military to become more transparent when it comes to drone use so our 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 to a different entity goes the armed services committee versus the intelligence committee but that said there's always room for more transparency my problem is this you have people like security back to actually trying to influence public thinking for example by saying on behalf. of all the troops nonsense going about

saying i'm going to have to get rid of blue angels all those threats which are actually meant to him and again this goes back to work we're talking about influencing public thinking it's a game of chicken and it's a shame to see that politicians do a sector that's now are trying to expand 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 perceived ultimately is the of the lobby in the american people to call for certain things in congress that is by law even legal so there's issues here that need the senate more and more detail as this new regulation is implemented the cost or a long time it's 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 and terms of reaching out the mess to clean to americans obviously there's a difference between information and informing the public and influencing those abroad who don't ever cross reference do they ever get mixed. we employ the globe and our more ways we clearly understand hollywood is the ultimate arbiter of heart influence i think this is one of the things that perhaps this witness the fully understand hollywood speaks for us whether we like it or not i want the whole. lot of exercise back in the next united stuff with the u.s. marines attached and the love american movies it was twenty four seventh's watching these terrible beat movies so whether we want to. hollywood does

a lot of implode or us simply put the government that we have introduced is nothing compared to the message in hollywood just by the fact it's commercial so i think what we need to do is understand what we need to highlight in the way of attracting people to understand the best of our values rather than having a watch steven seagal though because the movies cost of labor somehow think that's american but that was anthony shaffer from the task force on national and homeland security at the center for advanced defense studies. all this week we've been discussing the legality of drones and the new developments coming out of the justice department dealing with the attacks of drones on american to citizens abroad we also know that drone use within u.s. borders is increasing dramatically and it's not just the military that's using that the map you are looking at here is made of data released from the f.a.a.

after a freedom of information request was sent out by the electronic frontier foundation it shows locations of eighty one public entities that apply for f.a.a. drawn authorizations and include organizations such as law enforcement agencies sheriff's department colleges and even an indian tribal agency so obviously drones are becoming more prevalent but on the same day that the obama administration released the drone memo that has stirred up so much conversation a small virginia city of charlottesville passed a resolution banning the use of drones against its. forty three thousand residents for at least two years the resident which was resolution which was brought on by a peace activist david swanson called on the state of virginia and 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 residence 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 a symbolic after all the city does not plan on getting rid of aircrafts that have already been licensed out nor does it have the power to prevent federal use of drones in its air space 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 their own legislation up based on charlottesville resolution that's just goes to show you that a symbolic action can result in some real changes sometimes. now when you meet someone at a bar or in a bookstore or at a seminar wherever you happen to be chances are the first thing that you do is content to before you contact them is find out a little bit more about them and the best place to do that of course is the

internet it is the age of information after all 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 even my space you can find out pretty easily a person's a their gender and marital status you might be able to discover their sexual preferences their political and religious affiliations even their family and current or previous addresses if you don't believe me just try looking yourself up on spoke aoe dot com now luckily we have the right to control our privacy depending on how you limit what outsiders can see you can even make your profile invisible to others but if an employer asks you for your logon information to your facebook as they can and have done in the past then the gig is up so to speak well three lawmakers are working to change 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 it prevents employers and schools as well as universities from forcing people to give their social networking passwords to them so is the first step in protecting online freedoms well earlier i spoke with him carr he's the senior director of strategy at free press and i asked him how likely it is that this legislation can actually pass. well let's go to 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 at a to allow it after all. i can't imagine what their reason 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's 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 these 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. policing 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 worth a really prickly arrow 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 cyber 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. of their own 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 the look at 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 tom there's also a big difference to point out in the difference is you know obviously somebody can google you you can find pictures you can find whatever whatever you put out there 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 for the police 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 can settle legal standard that would prevent that from happening and you can create a vehicle by which prospective employers and employers can file complaints against 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 that 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

chant well there's always the question of your state 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 states as the tim car 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. senator paul has had numerous issues with the t.s.a. over the years the most infamous instance of course was last year in tennessee when the senator was detained at a checkpoint after refusing to submit to a patdown now one of the two bills that he is in to do saying would require

airports to hire private companies of their own choosing to conduct security screenings the other would provide to travelers with a number of protections from procedures like invasive searches so how likely are these bills to pass and what will they actually change will discuss this issue i was joined earlier by a bomb he's a transportation policy analyst for the reason foundation what ten or 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 in the issue with that is that there's basically an incentive for the t.s.a. to make the screening process as we could 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 in 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 moral madam to set have your guidelines because there won't be sort of that conflict of interest there in the federal government will be policing itself but you have used raising the standards and heavier guidelines wouldn't that equate to more pat downs more of this kind of an 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 maybe not the best way that i could put it basically what we're looking at is a lot of the tests that the t.s.a. currently does you 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 downfall i mean metal detectors don't pick up everything the body scanners and that lower levels of radiation they also can be very intrusive and the pat downs of course are very invasive so what whatever method there 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 to 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 then which line are going to go and i mean obviously you know what you're in a choose the easiest one. right well we would have to the evidence 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 inch grandmothers and children who are not to you 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 think the government what are you as a good thing as 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's still there is still very specific standards that these private companies need probably a lot more specific and rigorous than the ones today that. 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 it would be let me clarify it would be stricter still more rigorous standards it would not even same standards decile of the advantages is that you will because the government is not going to be doing the screening they will a they will be able to set more rigorous standards one of the problems now is because the government actually conducts the screening in monitors the screening there isn't there sort of an incentive for them to water down but no in the future with the private companies the standards will be higher

than today now there's already a kind of question get away from the security aspect let's focus on this that passenger bill of rights bill that rand paul is trying to push through we already 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 the past. well i think it's not really likely to pass let me get back to that little while what it basically does is it a lens 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 piece 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 is i think neither of

these bills is likely to pass in the reason is right now these these bills would go before the commerce committee and the senator who chairs the commerce committee senator rockefeller from west virginia is not a big fan of these because he gets a lot of support from public employee unions and the public employee unions are the ones that do the federal screening right now and so for obvious reasons they would be in favor of it's contracting the screening because some of their workers will be out of a job leave as well obviously that's a lot of money and they say that people don't like people touching allowance money is our mistake about money and just the second transportation policy analyst at the reason foundation and thanks very much for having me on and that's the defendant as for this week but be sure to tune in next week we're working on a whole new lineup of stories for you first up the immigration debate has been on the minds of nearly all americans since the two thousand and twelve election.