that's not a meteor you're looking at crashing down to the earth that's a drone being shocked out of the sky by a navy laser it's the future of anti drone technology and it's the first stop is in the persian gulf so is this a sign that tensions between the us and iran are about to heat up once again. and one man's art is another man's criminal offense a twenty year old montreal woman who was picked up by police officers for posting a picture of police for feeding the online a look at this situation coming up. and good for snooping bad for business in the past it was high taxes that scared companies away from american shores now a slew of amendments that promote government snooping could be costing the u.s. a lot of business will take a look at consumer privacy and how it could be costing us jobs.

it's tuesday april ninth four pm in washington d.c. i'm meghan lopez you are watching our t.v. so let's get straight to the stories science fiction meet military fact the u.s. navy is boasting that it now has a huge technological advance an airborne technology a prototype of the drone deflecting laser is being deployed on a docking ship in the persian gulf this laser is capable of turning you avi's into fireballs and rendering enemy patrol boats useless take a look at this the laser can perform two main tasks one is burning a hole through an enemy vehicle with ultra hot ultra focused beams the other is a non-lethal burst of energy that were literally dazzled the adversaries computer sensors to stop them without actually causing them any physical damage this technology is a game changer folks the congressional research service office says that it is the biggest navy advance since the shipboard missiles came into play all. we're back in

the one nine hundred fifty s. but there are two important issues to address here first is the fact that it is actually being deployed to the persian gulf instead of anywhere else in the world second is the american dominance over the skies to talk about that and more i'm joined now by alexa alexandra tomas she's a nuclear nonproliferation expert and a truman fellow thank you so much for joining us so first off let me just ask you straight up how big of a deal is this technology. well it as you mentioned it as the congressional research service report mentioned it is a game changer what i will mention though is that it is a prototype as well this is the first time we're pioneering this technology in so many remains to be seen how effective it will be ok now is this a chairing a change in the pace in the way that the u.s. is currently dealing with iran up until this point it's been diplomatic sanctions or hasn't really been any kind of strategy in terms of military physically so is

this a change of pace i don't i don't think so i think again we need to sort of see what happens and what the reaction is from iran obviously to what we know to the laser but i think this this introduction of this new laser is not going to shut the door on diplomatic efforts nor should it i mean we should have and we should be pursuing all types of relationships and relationship building with iran what kind of a message do you think that this type of laser entering the persian gulf actually sends to i mean i think it's a sons of message saying look we're not going to allow you to sort of use your swift boats to come close to us and sort of. play with our ships like they did back in two thousand and eight remember that incident and so it's more of a defensive measure i think it says you know don't do that we're here we're serious you can't mess around with us and as you mentioned back in two thousand and eight it was a couple of quick moves and luckily no shots were fired so that that was a quick way to get. out of something that could have potentially turned pretty

damaging really fast let me ask you this what if firing this type of laser even if it's the one where you dazzle them without actually hurting it be considered a first shot yeah i think you're right i think it could be but i think a but the main point that i mean is that you can sort of use this sort of razzle dazzle instead of a hole in your ship function of the laser if you know if it works as it's supposed to work so i think it has multi is multi-functional and that's good it's cheap which we like that members of congress will like with the sequester in the budget crisis we're undergoing right now so i think it will be interesting to see how it actually plays out and what the tests are going to do so what that will look like so even though nothing would technically be damaged it could potentially be still considered a first shot but something else to mention is that this technology is by no means perfect it has a lot of problems the first of which is the weather bad weather what affected so if there's raindrops if there smoke if there's dust in the air it will not work

properly also it cannot it's not powerful enough to take down fighter jet missiles it anybody that puts a reflective. face on their machines it can actually confuse the laser so it's not perfect there's a lot of flaws in it so what does it possibly mean that we are putting ourselves into a political posturing with iran before the technology is actually ready for that kind of thing yeah you know it's a really good point i mean the other thing you know you need to have your. insight so you know as you mentioned it's a cloudy day it's dark it's at night you know those sorts of things there is certainly and again it's a prototype so there's certainly a lot of things that you need to work the kinks out for but i think yes i think it's a signal i think the single as i said it's a single saying you know it's defensive we're here you can't skirt around you know as we've done in the past and you know. that we should continue to focus on the

policy but it's also it gives us another tool in our tool kit for the types of really complicated negotiation that we're now undergoing over there and they say it's still just about a year out from actually being fully functional just even more time possibly for diplomatic talks but the laser obviously gives the u.s. near limitless control over the skies they can control their own drones because we do. by far the most the vast the biggest range of drone technology and also the stealth mode that we have is unlike anybody else but at the same time we can also shoot other people's technology down with this lasers so do we have unprecedented control the skies and if we do is that they are necessarily i mean i think i mean look they are allies in the reason i was there we need to make sure we're protecting them no matter what we're doing and i think we're doing that and this again has is another tool in the tool box to be able to do that. you know i don't know that you are eyes sitting here can know all of that and

a lot of this technology obviously is classified and so i'm not sure about whether our adversaries have things that matter us right now but i do know is again sort of to repeat is that this is something new to us and something that will give us a leg up in the region and in the necessary diplomatic talks that need to continue to happen over there and finally just talking about those diplomatic talks now as i mentioned you are a non proliferation expert what can we possibly do right now that's not sanctions that's not anything else now in terms of diplomatic talks what would we present or that they could present to get the ball rolling again in terms of these talks i mean i think we just need to keep i mean it's sort of blah sort of what you would expect someone who believes the nonproliferation. and believes that a war in iran i agree with the president i agree with the military leaders that a war in iran in the region would be devastating so i think we need to keep keep the door open keep continuing to talk with with our allies in the region including . israel. and figure they figure this out we do have another i mean i think maybe

we'll be taking a little bit more seriously now by the iranians. a nuclear nonproliferation expert and a truman fellow thank you for joining us. well a twenty year old canadian woman found herself on the wrong side of the law last wednesday when she posted a picture on instagram of some graffiti art that she passed while walking police showed up at the doorstep of montreal resident jennifer paul walk with an arrest warrant in hand after she posted this picture this is a depiction of police commander in a with a bullet in his head he is the head of the communications of vision at the police department now keep in mind jennifer pollock did not actually create this art she simply posted a picture of it and as a result she now has an april seventeenth trial date and has been issued a restraining order that forces her to stay away from the commander as well as the main police headquarters also in the news last week now the three hundred

protesters were arrested at that find for over six hundred dollars for not providing the police with and i ten or mary of their protest by law p.-six made these fines possible but now city lawmakers are looking at repealing this measure for more i'm joined by criminal defense attorney eric sutton eric let's begin by talking about this young woman who was arrested is it really a little post a picture online. well that will be determined if the case goes to trial. i was quite surprised to hear that she was arrested and she's actually charged with harassment. specifically she would have allegedly engaged in conduct that would make this officer fear for his safety. we will see if the case goes to trial i'm not convinced the prosecution once they really think about this case will necessarily necessarily want to take him to trial but it seems to me very dubious

and i felt the police were really just trying to send a message to the public really do intimidate the public to ensure that they don't do anything that might tarnish their their image because i have doubts that this officer really feared for his safety i'm not sure if he was simply pressured into into into pursuing this by way of a criminal prosecution and you are not the only one that has expressed this kind of doubt over the tars of harassment now jennifer pollock says she should have been arrested for the all i want to play a recent part of an interview that she did what c.b.c. news to so i. think it's a little severe because of the picture i took he says i believe the person that created the graffiti should be in my place so it's not like i wanted to get the artisan turbot i took a picture because i thought it was well done but it's me that stuck with being arrested so let me ask you this when does art go too far to the point where you can actually be arrested for it because it's a considered

a threat. well look first on let me say that you know i'm somewhat sympathetic to the officer even say it's a rather tasteless picture i mean this man is really just a spokesman for the policeman is a picture of the graffiti with a bullet in his head and blood coming out of his forehead and then i understand that it's it's distasteful i don't think it's really a criminal act but. bridge express themselves much like in the united states so we have the same protections you have the united states but there's limits on that if you express yourself in a way where your conduct becomes criminal bass where the line is drawn and that's where the question in this case arises has had she gone across that line i'm not persuaded tree has and did did battle will be will in fact be between what is freedom of expression and when does preventive expression go too far and cause and individual to feel he's a victim of a crime or the subject of. threatening conduct or harassment that is the issue and

like you mentioned i mean obviously this could be taken very seriously as a police officer with wallace had the police also said that this was not the only reason that they had for arresting her but they declined to comment on the other reasons now this fellow and was a part of the mass student demonstrations that happened a little bit ago shows rested then as well could cause that play into it. well she may have a profile with the police i really don't think her presence in previous demonstrations should influence the police in any way. she has the right to demonstrate some people are arrested some were given what we call the tickets they're not really arrested criminally but they have to pay fines. i don't think that there should be any presumption on the part of the police that people are parts made in these demonstrations the students have been very active in the past year in montreal are demonstrating very vigorously complaining about student fees and see hikes and and

other issues that they feel they're entitled to but i don't think that they should be profiled in such a way that they would be seen as more threatening because of subsequent conduct they might be involved in as well to someone who may not have participated in the dems for instance i really don't know what the police about their sleeve but i hope if they have something that is it's more than the fact that she merely participated in student demonstrations and i want to shift the conversation just a little bit to talk about the past six by a law that i actually spoke about a little bit earlier if forces protesters to submit an i ten or it's a police before the march begins and bans people from wearing masks and now obviously this was a new it was way back in two thousand and one but the new measures were added last year is this in your opinion and infringement on canadians constitutional rights well you know it's hard for me to really take a position without having seriously studied the issue the issue of wearing a mask. has resonated with some people there and there are

a lot of people who feel that that's not an unfair imposition on demonstrators that their faces should be should be revealed. there's been almost a comical arrest of someone who's wearing a panda bear costume and he was he was arrested as having violated the bylaw and in reading the police looked very foolish so you know that's debatable the issue of in a train or areas not unheard of there are many major metropolitan areas that have. the demonstrators are providing a tuner week otherwise they can they can be the demonstration can can can can become quite chaotic and can paralyze the downtown core that hasn't really happened for the most part the demonstrations have been reasonably peaceful last week and perhaps a bit cumbersome for the public but i haven't noticed that there was any need to insist that the press why didn't the tenor every and if there isn't a good basis for the good well why a late their constitutional right to peaceful assembly and the right to express

themselves publicly and if we're to know that both of montreal's main opposition groups have agreed that they say that this law infringes on people's right to assembly over seven hundred people have been arrested that case against the by a lot is actually up for debate on april twenty second criminal defense attorney eric sutton thank you for joining us thanks for having me. entrepreneurs be warned america is online privacy practices my note be good for business that's because of laws like fire and the electronic communications privacy act they actually open the doors for the government to snoop through your client's data and that is opening the door for competition r.t. correspondent liz wahl takes a look at how government practices could be making companies think twice before investing in the u.s. well as we've reported here at r.t. the government has made several moves lately regulating the internet and getting access to online data we see this in cyber security bills like the foreign

intelligence surveillance act allows the government to tap into international e-mails and phone calls without a warrant similarly the electronic communications privacy act lets law enforcement access online and with a court order no warrant needed and perhaps most well known the patriot act a law passed after nine eleven which significantly expands the government's ability to surveil citizens that these laws have raised red flags when it comes to our privacy but turns out government snooping could be having an effect on the economy now foreign companies are cashing in boasting that their service is guaranteed privacy that american companies can't take german telecommunications company deutsche telekom for example. trojan that's working. quickly for your very little. more secure as a person. and over in france bull s. so yes markets itself as a cloud company that makes their clients privacy

a top priority the company's c.e.o. says quote the cloud must be a secure sovereign space where no gadgets or risks and data communications or transactions and that has to be guaranteed. now these foreign companies can boast they're able to ensure users that their data and communications are safe from prying eyes essentially trying to distinguish themselves from the giant internet companies you see here in the states this some of these companies come under scrutiny for selling users' information and lack of protection from government accessing data so if lawmakers are serious about getting the economy back on track it may be wise to take a look at the literal cost of failing to protect privacy in washington liz wall r.t. . well more information about u.s. foreign interests is coming to light today interests that span even into countries the u.s. considers to be its close friends we told you yesterday about project k.

plus d. a massive release of diplomatic communications by wiki leaks the documents spanned the period between one nine hundred seventy three and one nine hundred seventy six and they paint a unique picture about the united states as relationships with foreign nations during one of the most important moments in history in terms of international cooperation r.t.d. has been carefully sifting through the one point seven million documents released and here's what we found out today wiki leaks has revealed that australian foreign minister bob carr is a long time intelligence source to us car then an up and coming figure in local australian politics help the us to gather information about internal labor party politics and the players involved meanwhile former prime minister carl bildt played a similar role in sweden acting as a source for the us feeding them information pertaining to strategic interests now before we go on it is important to note that these two men that are under scrutiny

happen to play a direct role in wiki leaks co-founder julian a songes current political predicament senator bob carr is from a songes home country the country assigned to accuses of abandoning him during his time of need now as the australian foreign minister he plays a direct role in the case in his refusal to get involved meanwhile swinish a swedish foreign minister carl bildt is responsible for actively pursuing the extradition of a son he is demanding that us on face the allegations of sexual misconduct and has worked with bob carr to figure out a solution so perhaps the release of all of these documents by wiki leaks isn't purely for educational purposes then again these men did play a major role in shaping modern international. a role that they continue to play forty years later we will continue to sift through those documents so stay tuned.

today marks the tenth anniversary of the fall of baghdad now we've all seen those pictures the ones of the statue of saddam hussein being brought to the ground as a symbolic gesture to the end of the dictator's twenty four year reign. corporal edward chynna was one of the men who actually helped tear down that statue our international correspondent marina porton i actually had the chance to sit down with chin this week to reflect on the significance of that event and look ahead at the future of iraq here's part of that interview exactly ten years ago a u.s. marine from new york city made international headlines for his actions in baghdad edward chen tied a large noose around a massive statue of saddam hussein wrapped the face of that statue of an american flag before that monument was eventually toppled right now i am joined by mr chen for a one on one conversation thank you for speaking with parties today. ten years have passed since that. moment where you essentially became a symbol for the u.s.

occupation and invasion in iraq you were twenty three at the time when you climb that statue what you know about the iraq war now you do know that all around me what i know though it's not ten years longer than expected. they're still struggling to rebuild their country to have a stable government not statue of saddam hussein and wrap the face of the statue in an american flag looking back on your actions do you think that was the propre thing to do as as a foreigner coming in invading a country climbing the statue. was the leader of that country drafting the peace in america. the iraqi civil war in sudan. as a simple walk. no but you know my reasons are the reason why we didn't know it was for us we would have been in iraq for. over

a month. and only five got to baghdad and we were hoping that it would be more going to the rule of law to go home to a family and i was of course was i would have seen america fly for so long it was not something we did just to show any kind of sounds like a person in the country just the way a spur of the moment what you know about us foreign policy now that didn't know that we're not we're not going to tell the truth but what happens because time is going to harvard suck and all because you just come out so the public will go to war. to you know be able to control the oil without a region of course not just is going to come out and and how many people are going to sign up to risk their lives as akeley is acting weird of military here we do what we're told and. we hold that you know there's no this right says our maintenance room go once we're there you know we're going to follow of honor but he thinks the war was for him i personally think it was for.

us to know how to gain a foothold here through a sea of lies a region you know i don't believe. you tell me that evil is for you to love isn't that mass destruction so war was lives lost is the thing not worth the bribes you know you know today there was still no weapons to be found you know it would be worth it it was to. free a country of a dictator yes but that if there was a reason that there's a lot of dictators in the rules that used to be taken out to hope that i would it was part of the reason i look for the right reasons and because how can i not know where. the roots of. difference is now worth justified. thank you very much for your time. well if you're an average career woman in the u.s. working assault on. your male counterparts this past year you would have had to keep working until this current year until today actually in return as much money

as the man made a new year's eve last year that's why activists marked today as equal pay day is a vivid reminder that women in the u.s. overall across all professions are earning around seventy seven cents to every man's dollar so what causes this gap well there's no one answer a condom is generally agree that about sixty percent of that pay differential is due to what they call explained differences women being over represented in lower paying jobs for example like how more women are nurse practitioners but more men are actual doctors but that means there's still forty percent that is just plain discrimination less pay for the same amount of work with the same amount of qualifications among different industries the gender pay gap is worst in the land of court and the get go according to a bloomberg survey of the six worst paid gaps on long major professions include

personal financial advisers clerks and insurance agents all of them are actually on wall street now that same study found only one major profession where women actually earn more personal care and service workers it may seem unsurprising that women would dominate in this traditionally female male sector but this might shock dominate means only earning two cents more than their male counterparts dollars no matter how you slice it the pay gap persists split the country geographically and there's still no state that's reached gender parity washington d.c. comes out on top with women earning ninety percent of what men earn but down at the bottom you've got utah louisiana and women all. wyoming women all earning less than seventy percent. what men do it could be an issue of expectations but it could also be an issue of confidence too anecdotal evidence shows that men are more likely

than their women counterparts to expect higher pay big promotions and better jobs despite the equal pay act being around forty years ago looks like there's still a long way to go in terms of equal rights. are you feeling sad sensitive mad or low on energy. those emotions could describe just about anyone having a bad day but now you have to worry about more than a barrage of antidepressant commercials targeting your soft side that's because a new system for your x. box can actually diagnose you for depression the system is called sim sensei and it uses an interactive avatar to conduct verbal interviews with the user and monitor your answers and body language to determine if you are depressed take a look when was the last time you felt really happy. when i was. i don't know.

i'm not someone who's really like i don't have any real high rise i feel like i'm a level person. now obviously this is not a licensed therapist and therefore not a clinical diagnosis of depression just as a cure outlet for users to express their emotions without the awkwardness of telling their secrets to a complete human stranger that being said program creator say the system can diagnose depression with a ninety eight percent success rate it is a huge step forward from the allies a software of the one nine hundred sixty s. but don't be expecting this system to hand out prescriptions to patients any time soon for that you still need to go to a real doctor and that does it for now i make a lopez see right back here at five pm.

well. science technology innovation all the least developed from around russia we've got the future covered. more news today in holland says once again flared up. these are the images cobol has been seeing from the streets of canada. giant corporations are the day.

he became a symbol of the nine hundred ninety s. he personified the russian mafia in the kremlin. it was a twentieth century arrest buton. in just a few years he rose from junior was a multi-billion and senior politician. is declining was as rapid as his meteoric rise and ended in exile his death is now as mysterious as his life. better. on r.t. .