that's not a meteor you're watching crash down to the earth that's a drone being shot out of the sky by a u.s. navy laser it's the future of anti drone technology and its first stop is the persian gulf so it is a sign that tensions between the u.s. and iran are about to heat up. one man's art is another man's criminal offense a twenty year old montréal woman was picked up by police officers for posting a picture of anti police graffiti online a look at this sketchy 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 actually be costing the u.s. a lot of business consumer privacy and how it could be costing the u.s. jobs. it's tuesday april ninth eight pm in washington d.c.

i'm meghan lopez and you are watching r t. well science fiction meet military fact the u.s. navy is boasting that it now has a huge technological advance in airborne technology a prototype of a drone deflecting laser is being deployed on a docking ship in the persian gulf this laser is capable of turning into fireballs and rendering enemy patrol boats useless take a look at this laser can perform two main tasks one is burning a hole through an enemy vehicle with ultra hot focused beams the other is a non-lethal burst of energy that will literally dazzle the adversaries computer censors to stop them without actually causing any physical damage so this technology is a game changer folks the congressional research service office itself described this as the biggest navy advantage since the shipboard missiles came into play back in the one nine hundred fifty s. but there are two important issues to address. here now first is the fact that it

was deployed to the persian gulf instead of anywhere else in the world second is the american dominance over the skies to talk more about this i was joined earlier by alexandra toma she's a nuclear nonproliferation expert and a fellow at the truman center i asked her how big of a deal this technology really is. well 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 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 or i mean i think it's a 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. you know play with our ships like they did back in two thousand a year member 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 i'll poke 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 the. multi-functional and that's good it's cheap which which we like of 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 and 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 you know the thing you know you need to have your object that you're targeting insight. and 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 you've done in the past and you know i think 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 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 have by far the most 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 what they slayer's so do we have unprecedented control the skies and if we do is that fair necessarily i mean i think i mean look our 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 again has is another tool in the tool box to be able to do that. you know i don't know that you or i sitting here can know all of that and a lot of the technology obviously is classified and so i'm not sure about whether our adversaries have things that match 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 blood 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 figure this out but we do have another i mean i think maybe we'll be taking a little bit more seriously now by the iranians. 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 after she posted a picture on instagram of some graffiti art she passed while she was walking police showed up at the doorstep of montreal. jennifer pollock with an arrest warrant in hand after she posted this picture this is a depiction of police commander ian left front yea with a bullet in his head he is the head of communications division at the police department now keep in mind jennifer paul i did not actually create this art she just posted a picture of it but as a result of that posting she has an april seventeenth trial date and has been issued a restraining order that forces her to stay away from the commander and the police headquarters until that time also in the news last week nearly three hundred protesters were arrested and fined over six hundred dollars for not providing the police with and i ten are wary of their protest by law p.-six made these fines

possible but now city lawmakers are looking at repealing this measure in its entirety earlier i was joined by criminal defense attorney eric sutton and i asked him if it's possible to post something online without it being a legal just a form of art. 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 if the case goes to trial i'm not convinced the prosecution once they really think about this case will not 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 is to so i. think it's a little thin here because of the picture i took she 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 turban i took the 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 is 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 police and there's a picture of him a groupie with a bullet in his head and blood coming out of his forehead i mean 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 that's 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 had 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 nasa student demonstrations that happened a little bit ago shows rest of that as well because that play into it. well she may have a profile with the police i really don't think her presence a previous demonstration 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 pretty smart many 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 then. 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 of participating in the demonstration so 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 wasn't 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 wearing a man. 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 by law and in reading the police looked very foolish so you know that's debatable the issue of in a train or aries not unheard of there are many major metropolitan areas that insist that the demonstrators are providing a tuner make it 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 police why didn't it generate and if there isn't a good basis for it it's could well violate their constitutional right to peaceful assembly. thank you and if we do 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 law is actually up for debate on april twenty second criminal defense attorney eric sutton thank you for joining us going through every well entrepreneurs be warned american online privacy practices might not be good for business that's because laws like the electronic communications privacy act opened the door for the government to snoop through your client's data and that is making room for competition are to correspondent liz wahl takes a look at how the 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 now 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 where. you're being a little. more secure. 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 today marks the tenth anniversary of the fall. in baghdad now we've all seen the pictures the ones of the statue of saddam hussein being brought to the ground as a symbolic gesture to in the dictator's twenty four year reign marine corporal edwin edwards chin was one of the men who actually helped tear that statue down r t international correspondent maria port and i actually had a chance to sit down with chen this week and reflect on the significance of this

event as well as look forward to 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 news 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 what i want to receive on thank you for speaking with archie's about. 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 that you know that. army what i know about all those nasa ten years longer than expected. they're still

struggling to rebuild their country to have a stable government that statue of saddam hussein and wrap the face of the statue in an american flag looking back on your actions do you think that it was the propre thing to do as as a foreigner coming in invading a country climbing the statue of a man who was the leader of that country and wrapping the face an american flag. maybe you know iraqi civil war. symbol walking. my reasons or the reasons that war readers know it was really. hard not to. be going to rule going to go into a frown was going to was going to fly for so long there was nothing to do just to show you the kind of sense of occupation the country was just one of spur of the moment what you know about us foreign policy now. to know that we're not we're not

going to tell the truth. it's because that's how it's going to harvard. you know you just come out some of the polls will go toward. the control of the oil recovery jon huntsman is going to come out and and how many people are going to sign up to risk their lives actually there's a weird military here we do we're told you know. we hold you know this you know this right says i mean it's really going to wasn't there you know we're going to find but he thinks the war was for i personally think it was for. us to you know get a foothold here it's in the civilized region and i don't believe. you tell me that it was for you to love isn't that mass destruction so war was lives lost is the thing i work to know of so you know you know today there was still no weapons to be found you know it would be worth it it was through. for your country of

a dictator yes but that if there was a reason that there's a lot of dictators in the world that used to be taken out to help that was part of the reason i look for the right reasons and because i how can i not. agree to. resist now we're just. at her chin thank you very much for your time. well the war in iraq might be over but that doesn't mean that the region has achieved stability bombings and violence are still near daily events in the country sectarian squabbles and underprepared iraqi army and the fighting over oil are just a few of the problems that the government continues to struggle with r.t. international correspondent lucy craft off recently visited iraq to find out what the day to day life is like in that country here's her report. the iraq war is supposed to be over but these pictures tell

a different story chaos and confusion the aftermath of yet another deadly blast here in cure kook. this oil rich city has been described as a. symbol for the country's most intractable escalating violence the conflict among ethnic and religious groups and the fight over iraq's resources. getting there was our first challenge a group of kurdish soldiers had agreed to take us in both baghdad and the kurds lay claim to care coop and are sparring over control aside from the danger those entering from the kurdish side need special permission to get past the iraqi checkpoints when have it. roadblocks and concrete barriers to find the new iraq checkpoints like this one are a dominant feature of life and they are everywhere aside from the house they're also frequent target of attacks for us it was a blatant visual reminder of a country still very much at war. inside your kook we drive quickly to avoid danger

we're told to look out for black b.m.w. apparently they've become a favorite for iraq's insurgents who didn't pick the best day to come to roadside bombs exploded here earlier that morning around the same time that baghdad was rocked by a series of deadly blasts but your group has been a flashpoint for years now and in the city center it's clear that life doesn't stop just because of the threats we were expecting empty streets but people continued to go about their business as normal vendors seemed busy families did their shopping beneath the surface there are scars today kirkuk continues to be an incredibly dangerous place. after the city without the help of a military escort residents here say that attacks have happened at any time in any place in fact it's not really safe to stay here for too long so let's get inside. we need car want to his family there kurds who say they're happy that saddam is gone but their fear of political repression has been replaced by fear of the

unknown. we don't know who the enemy is or when the next bomb will go off but it's a daily fears we've gotten used to it i do small things to feel safer like driving with all the car windows down that way if there's a blast at least the glass won't hurt us. such precautions didn't help sixty year old fellow mahmoud who says that a decade of war has ruined iraq he happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time the bomb blast went off injuring his leg for him daily life has become a painful struggle. because what benefit did the war bring democracy only explosions shootings and kidnappings people should feel free to go out and come back safely where is that i can leave but there's no guarantee i'll come back a lot of soldiers you know it's not about the sectarian differences unfortunately it's book the black the oil and behind this oil is the hidden

interests of politicians pawns in a political game playing with their livelihoods and lives for conflicts not of their own making the iraqis we met didn't hate their neighbors or care about who controls the oil just like follow they simply want the peace of mind of knowing they can go out and return to their loved ones alive. r.t. kirkuk iraq. well if you thought the iris are a loan sharks were the worst of your worries when you find yourself in the red financially thank again some areas in the u.s. are now making debt a jailable offense the residents or harvest explains. in

ninety three the u.s. supreme court ruled that putting people in prison because they can't afford to pay court fines is unconstitutional the longer choir's that before jailing someone for unpaid fines the court must hold hearings to determine whether or not the individual is financially able to pay the fine that makes sense because if two people commit the same offense and one walks away free because they can afford to pay a fine but the other one goes to jail because they can't afford the fine that is clearly penalize them someone more just because they're poor that is not a job and that is not how we do things here in america right rob apparently that's just how we do things or at least that's how they do things in ohio the a.c.l.u. released a new report called the outskirts of hope which reveals that courts in seven counties across ohio regularly are is presenting people who can't pay court fees

and not only is what they're doing in ohio unconstitutional it's sucks for most people if they get caught speeding they're going to take it and they pay their fine and they go about their daily lives probably continuing to speed like the impatient jerk they are for ohio poor though they get a ticket they can't pay and then they face contempt of court charges more fees arrest warrants and eventually even jail time the a.c.l.u. report profiles people who have lost their jobs their homes and their health in time with young children because they couldn't afford to take. court imposed by just imagine that imagine getting a parky take it not being able to afford that fine being jailed for that and then losing your job because you couldn't show up on time because you were in jail for not being able to afford a stupid parking ticket that is sad and that is wrong and that is happening in ohio

a lot now clearly they've received a fine for double parking or speeding or committing a similar offense that is minor enough to incur only a fine and they shouldn't have committed that offend and they should face a consequence because in general there should be consequences for bad behavior and then whole heartedly agree with that which brings me to my next point which is you have to be kidding me with this ohio here in the us rich white collar criminals get away with practically everything because they can buy their way out you shouldn't be able to commit crimes and face zero consequences because you're rich but that's exactly what happens here in the us where money reigns supreme so rich people get away with horrible crimes to society because they're rich that's bad enough america but now we're tipping the scales even more by giving poor people wait stronger

consequences than they deserve just because they are whole or to the point where they can't pay your stinking fine rich c.e.o.'s break our entire economy and face the euro consequence poor people commit low level offenses and go to jail while people with money just pay a fine welcome to the american justice system tonight let's talk about that by following me on twitter at the ref it. doesn't for now for more on the stories we covered go to youtube dot com slash our to america and for the latest and greatest information coming out from around the world check out our website r c dot com slash usa follow me on twitter at meghan underscore lopez and have a wonderful night. well .