ten years after the a war in iraq began the veteran sends a letter to george bush and dick cheney bashing them for the needless war vet is dying in a hospice right now coming up we'll speak with thomas young about his letter that has gone viral. big brother is keeping an eye on you while drones are used most often by the u.s. for warfare overseas more and more police departments here at home are using them to spy on citizens this week lawmakers heard about concerns of this growing practice we'll tell you about that hearing in just a bit. and over five million people have been stopped and frisked by n.y.p.d. police officers and the vast majority of those people were minorities innocent to

say the least but thanks to several whistleblowers we are now learning more about this controversial program in the ways that police officers are implementing it will take a look at stop and frisk in just a bit. it's friday march twenty second five pm in washington d.c. i'm meghan lopez and you are watching r.t. . well we've spent a lot of time this week taking a critical look at the war in iraq the misconceptions that lead us into conflict the ensuing years of strife the lives that were affected and the thousands who were killed and now ten years later the troops about weapons of mass destruction today we are going to introduce you to yet another face of this war thirty three year old thomas young an iraq war veteran who was injured in the early days of the conflict and who is now preparing to die thomas was fatally shot in the spine and has been

paralyzed from the chest down ever since he now suffers from another of a number of other elements and is choosing to start taking all nourishment say on life extending that occasion he says he's simply sick of being sick but before this veteran in life ends he wanted to speak out about the iraq war and the deceptions that the american people were told he wrote a letter to president bush and dick cheney expressing his feelings and thomas young joined me earlier today to talk about this letter as well as his decision to stop accepting care here's part of an interview. with me. or. bear. drew why. i got. the why. so. close. there and.

live. but. maybe you go wait a. bloody long and. there. are some i'm bringing. mbali count i should be dead if i was ross who was two was where they. took care the blood. didn't go on for a day and when they came out there were long term bags i live a lot of. bog brings my beach of. being only. and. in july of last year my stomach

hurt so i go to a and they refuse the uming are god the payment occasion because of the low down the government will not allow me to baz pool. why they wouldn't give me. the boehm negation no matter how much there was they and the pain that if i were in truly all will pain that i wouldn't scream my ass. that the only people who are really yours. advertised the most sure know how for you traded when you are right back from iraq with those injuries where you received as a hero. i was.

the i wasn't the as the euro or you are not of the euro and. i was just treated like a regular guy. strong on the war when i can well. lost it when i got when i joined a group called the ivy a. and began active. so what i've written in this war is mine. i get. here now you have chosen to go on hospice care you are choosing to to end your life and before you decided to do that you wrote a letter to to george bush and to dick cheney and i'd like to report of that letter and kind of get your explanation as to why you wrote this part you said quote i

would not be writing this letter if i had been wounded fighting in afghanistan against those forces that carried out the attacks of nine eleven had i been wounded there i would be still miserable because of my physical deterioration and imminent death but i would at least have some comfort of knowing that my injuries were a consequence of my own decision to defend a country that i love so you sure you're talking about the difference between going to iraq and going to afghanistan what do you hope that president bush and dick cheney get out of this letter what would you like to see. i would like them to. variously. all the guys. or dropping the ball. on afghanistan in. a

rash. and i want them to admit. build a huge blunder in a terrible line from the america. do you think that these men should be prosecuted i know that the statute of limitations on president bush's if it if you could call the war crimes. the statute of limitations to prosecute president bush under the office of war crimes and expiring do you think that they should be prosecuted under those charges as. that drive they don't leave the ground there they're free if they step down and. they will be over. and finally. i want to ask you about. your last days what message are you trying to send what are your last words that you want your

merican people and the people around the world to know wow. the first one to do the job in and them of their. job when that was on the jury service service can be good for some people. when my brother was very well and before we signed up in them. but after each game out in the. persian you with north bond will more focused than so overall the war can be. i didn't jive with. the very well. and

them of the good bad. and to make sure they your son or daughter understand that they don't fly when or where they go to war it's rich. white men in that house and then. then have the power then. of their parents but their own children. off to die or be injured in. war and i was like. make sure that. i have.

and what. or. who or. that was iraq war veteran thomas young. a senate judiciary committee met on capitol hill yesterday to listen to arguments about the use of domestic drums law enforcement officers and privacy advocates spoke about the increased demand of you avi's and the laws that we currently use to govern them the current privacy protections from aerial surveillance are based on court decisions from the one nine hundred eighty s. protections that privacy advocates say are antiquated earlier i was joined by the font of it she is one of those people that disagrees with the laws that we currently use she's also the director of domestic surveillance project at epic i asked her if the lawmakers were receptive to her suggestions here's your take they

actually seem very receptive and we think it's a very positive development that the senate is considering this topic we think it's very important there are already two bills circulating in the house so the senate is the next step for legislation to be introduced so we do we are very. kind of happy about the direction that this is moving and i do want to play a part of that hearing this is benjamin miller he is the colorado sheriff from mesa county who is actually testifying on behalf of drone use and police departments so let's let's listen to that. one of the things that we've position our program on are of the concept is that we've not really invented. a new ability to collect information and you know the camera but it has done that for us it's done that for us for decades and you know in the past. and so there's case law out there that speaks to the direction of which we take when we consider putting

a camera in the air. so what direction are we taking i think it's it's not necessarily. it is the next step forward in surveillance but it's a huge leap forward because this is and it's a point that was made in the hearing drones are so cheap to buy and to operate and they really lower the cost of surveillance which means in correlation they increase how much surveillance takes place so while it's just another tool it's an incredibly invasive tool drones are designed to conduct surveillance that's really why they came into existence as a surveillance mechanism and they're just an exponential leap forward from anything that we've had in the past and some of the things that we're trying to determine is whether these things should be able to take pictures of people through windows whether they should be able to have facial recognition technology what kinds of legislations. and i was trying to advocate for what would be the solution here oh

we're looking at about three different uses so we for law enforcement and government use of drones we would like some data minimisation and data retention limits on information collected and a warrant requirement for law enforcement to use drones to collect evidence so that drones just don't just become kind of robotic cop police officers walking around or flying around the streets when it comes to commercial entities we'd like to see a lot more transparency and accountability for what information they collect right now it's very difficult to find out what and it does have a license to operate a drone so we'd like to see more transparency in that angle and we'd really like to see some of the states and maybe at the federal level re-evaluate their peeping tom laws and kind of the laws that prevent individuals from spying on one another because of the availability that this technology is going to have to increase it. as a very easy technology to get your hands on and as you mentioned it's a very cost effective way now there's

a lot of criticism about using drones and abroad. as well as back home former vice chairman of the joint chiefs of staff general james cartwright is one of those people who has actually gone on the record expressing his concerns about this program he said quote if you are trying to kill your way to a solution no matter how precise you are you're going to upset people even if they're not targeted so of course he's talking about targets of broad but do you think it could have similar impacts at home could we create essentially enemies because of what these programs offer possible and one of the things that we're looking at and it was a point that was made over and over again at the hearing is you have to involve the public now and address the address these issues you can't rule out the technology and expect that they're going to kind of come to a resolution on their own we have a chance here and it's something we don't get very often with technology to really dive into the issues and make sure that we have robust protections put into place and make sure that people know what's going on in our kept aware of what's going on and i think that's really necessary right now and finally i mean we what we heard

in the hearings was kind of two things really we heard that one that this is a huge step forward in terms of technology and you've even said yourself that this could be a good thing but on the other hand we're hearing there needs to be some type of regulation some type of legislation done so it almost everyone can agree on these two things why is nothing being done. we are starting to see some things being done especially at the state level we have thirty states that have introduced legislation and we would like to see a lot more and i think it's all about approach people are trying to figure out the correct angle to come at this from however like i said we're very very optimistic about the fact that we're going to see something move forward and i think that everybody should keep their eyes open should keep in contact with their senators at the federal level and at the state local level all of their lawmakers and make sure that their voices are being heard and it's just a matter of time before we start seeing real changes i missed the part of its director of domestic surveillance project at epic thank you so much for joining us

. it's a controversial practice that has ordinary citizens squaring off with the n.y.p.d. on a daily basis opposition to the stop and frisk program has swelled in recent days and weeks several police officers themselves have blown the whistle on the program saying that the department is forcing them to meet quotas to provoke and to provoke innocent civilians now up until this point there have been a lot of allegations and little evidence of wrongdoing until now two recordings have made their way into the spotlight each telling a different narrative about the program the first is an audio from the officer where his superior told him who to target he says quote i have no problem telling you this male blacks and i told you this at roll call and i have no problem to tell you this male blacks fourteen to twenty one in age now the second is a recording of a young man's encounter with police officers it's the first recording of its type we're going to. go to chicago we're going to wrestle with the.

two tapes that leave two very big holes in the credibility of this program the stepfather of the young man featured in the second tape joins me now to talk about the n.y.p.d. stop and frisk program. organizer against stop and frisk hi there jose so let's first of all talk about your stepsons encounter with the police what were your initial thoughts when he showed you this recording of the officers harassing him to be. i was infuriated me his mother was so traumatized by what has been i mean lulu just so pissed off and it was confusing because we have. no. who was an explorer of the twenty fifth precinct and then to a young man they want to be a cop and so but to get treated like this it was traumatizing and left the whole family and everybody there heard how he was talked to how he was treated was you

know was confused and traumatized over the whole situation and we just we just didn't believe it really happened and i can imagine that alvin was pretty shaken up as well ramming after that happened and we used to drive around and he used to be so nervous and back of the car if police was behind as he was like so nervous because he thought police was. there was either the looking for him or trying to find them he felt threatened by them because he was always nervous in a car when police was either you know saying to my left to my right when i was driving or behind and you know it started you know started affecting us as well because we didn't like to see him like that so you know we spend a lot of time talking to him and letting him know they're you know they're you know he needs not to be afraid and has he ever been stopped and for us before i have any of as friends. world dilemma really started he came here told me the police keeps oracene him so you know our kind of you know your says

you're always walking around with guy for want to download the recording at which he did and he downloaded the app and told him you know whatever you do you have the right to continue as question to now stop asking the question because i'm in the used in a question you know our fill of the day will be the the minute it a we the take more advantage of malaca more button on your stand your ground and keep asking questions like why you can stuff you have the right to do that i didn't know he was going to know he did a great you did what no one has spoke them to do he's stood there yes question we're just throwing food there it didn't turn out to be something else something no worries and we know that both mayor bloomberg as well as our police commissioner ray kelly have a ton of this program is a good thing the whole point of this program is to reduce crime rates but there is a certain amount of blowback critics say that these young men that are being stopped are not going to be comfortable going to police when they really do need

help what are what are your thoughts on this. you know after they have done and after i started noticing it happening to my nephew and other kids in the neighborhood i started to really see that it was becoming a big problem i really didn't pay too much mind to it because as myself it happened to me so many times growing up that i thought it was normal as part of my culture but you know once you start affecting when i was you have been to other people have realized that it was a big problem so i decided to find some type of group that i could get involved with. and you know when i found a group there was fighting against stop and frizz decided to get involved with the . fight against it from you know from you know from over twenty four hours all the way to now nonstop summer and i think that. you know. it has made the community very unsafe because no one especially the youth they don't trust the

police they are more afraid of the police and they're afraid of anything they might be happening in a neighborhood that is negative so police had been and they were put a lot of fear in these kids i mean even ray kelly made a statement when he said that he was disc is that when they leave their home he was deemed to be a free that is going to be stop question and for is he saying that there are more afraid of the place officers and they are of any harm that could befall them on their journey to wherever they're going now meanwhile some of the police officers have actually turned into whistleblowers as i mentioned earlier saying that they are forced to essentially have these kind of quotas although quotas are the term quote as for place officers is banned in new york city so do you think that it is a cultural problem within the n.y.p.d. or an individual officer a problem. well i think the whole deployment i mean even if you an officer that has been forced to do it you know you have the right not to do something that has no moral something to it bothers you can you know that bothers your conses and that's

where some of these officers are doing is psychologically bothering them you know to be a force to do this and they know was wrong so that's why. we're happy that there is some of them coming now and speaking i guess and there's others they're free because they aren't a lot of pressure you know i mean they have families to feed their children to take care so there aren't a lot of pressures you know how i understand but still there's no justification to go into into any community and harass people or target people just because you try to make you know make orders or make or so in amounted to i mean just to the one trial they have something there you know the off the you know no two and twenty you know go out there and get to rest today and get twenty some a city i mean they really you know it's really a lot of pressure. and certainly this videotape that your stepson made shedding light on like we've ever seen before on this program will have to see how his case

plays out in the courts or say it let's file a organizer against stop and frisk and stepfather of alvin the boy that you saw in that video thank you for joining us thank you thank you for inviting me well today is international waters day and for americans that doesn't really mean much but one billion people around the world don't have access to clean drinking water by twenty twenty five two point seven million people are expected to experience severe water scarcity so are we on the brink of a water war r.t. producer of you know guy reports. by twenty thirty a glass of water like this one might cost you something like this and while that might seem like an exaggeration now we really don't know what the future of water will be especially when the threat of severe water scarcity is expected globally within the next two decades according to the national academies water information center about seventy percent of the world's surface is water but less than one

percent of it is represented by that tiny dot over the united states now you can turn salt water into drinking water through a process called the nation making it seem like a simple solution but it is actually a time consuming costly process that can also have negative impacts on the environment so why don't we take the issue of water scarcity more seriously people here in the u.s. people believe that water will always be around and that might be because even in places like las vegas a desert environment where human life isn't all logically sustainable have the money to bring in water from elsewhere now compare that to this map from the world health organization it identifies areas like utopia somalia and western sahara where fewer than twenty five percent of the population had access to clean drinking water as of two thousand two back in one nine hundred ninety nine the u.n. development program said that fighting over resources as the scarcity of water over the next twenty five years will possibly be the leading reason for conflicts in

africa not oil so are we on the brink of a water war this thing goes water water everywhere but not a drop to drink according to former secretary of state hillary clinton speaking on the topic of water scarcity these threats are real and they do raise national security concerns and the risk of water wars only increases as water becomes scarce making a simple bottled water like this one a lot more expensive in the future in washington d.c. gov that i r t. so the question is how much more serious is this problem likely to become in the future and who will suffer the most earlier this week i sat down with peter walker he's the director of water at care here's what he had to say. water scarcity is pretty serious issue facts about one point two billion

people across the planet and we have a technical definition it's all about how much renewable water resources are available per person once it gets down below a thousand cubic meters per person the renewable resources we talk about water scarcity who will this affect the most it affects frankly poor people the most obviously if you live in an area of water scarcity it's going to affect you i mean i live in atlanta we don't have water scarcity as such there but we do have the impacts of you know three years without adequate normal rainfall means that i can only water my garden every other day but if you. think about poor people in the horn of africa who've been dealing with. you know periods of extensive drought then sometimes they have to get up and

move simply because you know there's no available water and even when there is sort of adequate rainfall they may still have to trek for miles to go and collect drinking water from from a hand pump do you think that there could be a water war in the future is that going too far where there's already significant conflict particularly in water scarce areas. we see it particularly in the horn of africa over you know water points we see it in places such as for where as you know there's been a significant conflict underlying all the conflict is sort of a fight over land and. water resources so you know we see this conflict going on at low level whether there's ever going to be

a major water war i doubt because i think my maybe i'm being overly optimistic but there are mechanisms in place to deal with these issues for example the nile basin commission which all the ripe area and country is along that is the countries along the banks the nile through which the nile flows belong to and that provides a forum for discussion why are we taking this issue more seriously we're not taking the issue seriously because it doesn't affect you and i defer somebody turned off the water to your house within a few hours you would be significantly concerned about it but that doesn't happen ok we have breakdowns in the system we have pipe bursts there fixed even if you live in the southwest of the united states where you know water scarcity is an issue. the utility has a pretty fast to get the supply back to. if they didn't then it would be

much more of an issue if you live in a country where the supply is cut off or fails then you very quickly become. you appreciate very quickly that it's a real issue i lived in in a number of sub-saharan african countries with. weak water systems that put it like that and my wife certainly complained. you know as soon as the water supply disappeared imagine looking after small children or. or elderly people or sick people when you have no access to water imagine trying to deal with . agriculture when there is no rain for. fails it's just that we are rather removed from it in the developed world and the fact that eighty percent of.