coming up on our team you know before you drone you would think that that was the case whenever the cia carries out its strikes but classified documents reveal that the agency doesn't always know who it's targeting before it kills them more on this shocking revelation straight ahead. and horizon customers be where are the n.s.a. has been tracking your phone records the top security court order actually allows the government to collect the made of data of millions and some lawmakers say it's perfectly legal and that's not the only thing the n.s.a. is tracking ahead the details about nine internet companies who essentially gave the government an all access pass. in school is out for average that becomes the reality for some major u.s. cities chicago and new york are are among those with massive school shuttering is

to save money but is there a link between the schools being closed and the race of the children most affected more on this story later in the show. it's thursday june sixth eight pm in washington d.c. i'm meghan lopez and you are watching r.t. well in his foreign policy speech last month president obama laid out strict guidelines for drone strikes on america's enemies but those forces wouldn't strikes are only as exact as the people calling for those attacks the new investigation has revealed that the cia doesn't always know who it is targeting before it authorizes those strikes and b c news reviewed classified documents about drone deaths in pakistan over a fourteen month period and it discovered that one of every four people was that was killed in those drone strikes actually classified as a quote militant meaning that the cia could not determine whether or not that

individual was part of a terror network or which one they were potentially a part of political commentator sam sachs reports much of the criticism. both here at home and abroad understandably centers on reports of civilian casualties. there's a wide gap between u.s. assessments of such casualties and non governmental reports that was president obama and his national security speech in men defending his administration's controversial targeted killing program now many of those non-governmental organizations that the president was referring to has put the civilian casualty as a result of these drones into the hundreds if not thousands the white house is reluctant to admit any of those casualties and they insist that they use the highest standards possible when pursuing targets but newly revealed classified documents suggest that the white house itself might not even know who it's targeting with these robots n.b.c. news obtained these documents revealing the details of more than one hundred drone

strikes in pakistan carried out by the cia over a fourteen month period beginning in september of two thousand and ten of those strikes roughly a quarter of those killed were classified as other militants meaning the cia couldn't determine if they were al qaeda or any other associated force not only that the documents reveal that the death tolls from each shrike were uncertain in some cases only estimates were given yet the administration was certain that civilians weren't included in the deaths of the six hundred drone strike deaths outlined in these documents only one was listed as a civilian and this report comes just as members of congress are growing more and more skeptical of these killer robots congressman keith ellison this trial program needs our attention because fifty two countries in this world have thrown technology the genie is out of the bottle how long will it be before we are you know reaping the whirlwind because of some of the things that we have been done and

i name on tuesday house republicans included in their version of the national defense authorization act for two thousand and fourteen a proposal by congressman mack thornberry to give congress more oversight of the white house's targeted killing program this provision sets up a framework where the administration's got to tell us before right after an. then quarterly about the sensitive operation but the white house already does briefed congress on these strikes presumably including the strikes revealed in this new n.b.c. news report also congressman thornberry proposal only applies to strikes carried out by our armed forces not our cia which was the agency responsible for these particular strikes and while there were reports the president might use his national security speech to announce a realignment in the drone program moving all kill operations out of the cia and into the pentagon where there's more oversight such an announcement has not been officially made now over the next few weeks says the national defense authorization

act is debated in congress members about the house and the senate will have opportunities to add more congressional oversight to the white house's drone program as well as the authorization for use of military force that underpins the drone program this was an issue i recently talked about with congressman keith ellison congress is going to be taking up the new defense authorization act is that the place to fight this battle when it comes to cutting drones and trying to rework the u.n. mouth that is that that is a good vehicle to raise these issues and we plan on you know developing some vehicles to really push back on this on this endless war program meanwhile if the white house wants some credibility on this issue than it needs to get its numbers straight simply if the cia doesn't know who it's targeting with these drones as these classified memos suggest that how can it be so sure that civilians are among the casualties and furthermore how could it be so sure that these strikes are against ongoing and continuing threats these are questions that need answers and

it's going to be up to the people working in the building behind me to demand those answers in washington sam sachs r t well the u.s. might not always know who it strong's are heading but those strikes continue to happen on a narrow weekly basis however newly sworn. in pakistani prime minister nawaz sharif says enough is enough during his speech to parliament he said we respect the sovereignty of others but others don't respect our sovereignty these daily drone attacks must stop now according to the bureau of investigative journalism there have been thirteen strikes in pakistan this year alone in each of those strikes up to twenty people were killed leaving behind their families to cope with the losses are to correspondent lucy catherine off travel to pakistan and introduced us to the other side of the story the people living under the constant threat of those drone strikes vocals call it in the skies pakistan's northwest tribal region and american

drone as seen from the ground it's become the weapon of choice in the u.s. war on terror and this is the damage you can wreak under president obama more than three hundred such strikes in pakistani soil against alleged al qaeda and taliban suspects. but ordinary civilians are also paying a price to see this man is one of them i mean who was on his way to work at a mine you're his village in a drone strike the area he lost his leg in the attack three other miners who were with them lost their lives we live in constant fear of another strike we are simple villagers we're stuck in a war that we didn't ask what religion it's a hopeless feeling we want to be as good as above our heads all the time. although the attack took place three years ago i mean a lot says the pain is still severe the sight of his injuries about at its core children meanwhile depression anxiety and lingering fear pushed in i think up a tranquilizer pill i'm

a good medical i didn't the same arrogance should be able to tell an ordinary person from a taliban leader what i really should know who they're killing what did we do to deserve this. my ex and on arctic ice it's a question echoed by next boss at our last part of his hearing a short term memory and nearly had. a longer than what i thought hour the drone shockwave was still in the hands through a side far from the place where we were sleeping after several minutes there was another strike and it killed many more people attorneys out of bar has to both the u.s. and pakistan on behalf of the civilian victims he says there is a voiceless people of a theorist on isolated by geography and politics simply call it a concentration camp that you build a wall of military and militants and behind that wall you are keeping more than eight hundred thousand people who are not allowed to come out and no one from the rest of the country is allowed to go in and that's the kind of liberal tree which u.s. is using to use and its drone program in many ways the epicenter of the cia's

highly classified drone program is a black hole on the map a region of pakistan off limits to outsiders especially westerners now evidence of the drone strikes is almost impossible to get but these were smuggled to islam abroad from the tribal areas there are believed to be fragments of actual help far missiles were treated in the war zone most americans never get to see examining the fragments collected by nor best drama a local journalist who spent years documenting the civilian toll of drone specially on children just dripping images of the living and the dead for your personal. whenever my three year old daughter years of playing by she runs inside and won't sleep that night to deal with the children here have been traumatized by the room the sound of the doorbell is enough you can hear find them all. and that fear can turn to anger a new generation radicalized by the war by drone strikes killing innocent people

who were not part of the think you were just why didn't the conflict you're giving the reason to people who were not part of the conflict to become part of the conflict was in one go inside of course this is make me hate the american we are angry and want revenge they've destroyed our lives my parents my wife my children we all see america as our worst enemy now while promising to rein in their use the white house says drones are both legal and effective at. all. when translated i defend that's cold comfort for the victims you see captain r.t. pakistan. now as if we haven't heard enough about the government spying on the people and the press as of late get ready for the latest case of encroachment the

washington post just discovered that the n.s.a. along with the f.b.i. has been tapping directly into central servers of nine u.s. internet companies and taking their data this time of massive surveillance falls under a program code named prism that was established back in two thousand and seven over the past six years the program has expanded exponentially so much so in fact that it is the leading source of raw material collected by intelligence agencies accounting for nearly one in seven intel reports and it has reportedly become the most prolific contributor to the president's daily briefing now here are the nine tech companies that are participating process in this. some program all of which are knowingly taking part in this operation according to the washington post they include microsoft yahoo google facebook talk a well skype you tube and apple government officials boast that the cloud store

service dropbox could soon be the next name on that list so let's take a look at what the n.s.a. can collect according to an intel presentation on the operation meant for senior analysts in the n.s.a.'s signal intelligence directorate the content includes e-mails videos and voice chats along with photos stored data and much much more essentially the n.s.a. is capable capable of accessing any data that it once but under the current rules the agency does not attempt to collect it all possibly because the n.s.a. doesn't have the storage capacity for it all now for the record analysts who use the system say it is not supposed to target americans however the analysts collecting that data only need to have a fifty one percent confidence rating that the target is not so-called foreign it that just because the n.s.a. isn't collecting targets on these american citizens it doesn't necessarily mean that it isn't collecting americans data if they are in contact with

a foreigner it very much could be the case now this program has never come to light the public in public before even now and the only reason we are discovering any of this is because a whistleblower revealed the program to the post over his or her feelings of its capabilities that was of lower told the post quote they quite literally can watch your ideas form as you type them this is just another shocking example of what the government is collecting from you in the supposed quest to protect you. know if your computer isn't safe what about your cell phone well chances are the answer is another big fat no that's because the n.s.a. has also been collecting millions upon millions of. own records from for rights of users without their knowledge and the best part is that all of this seems to be legal the guardian newspaper was able to obtain a top secret court order about was issued back in april allowing the n.s.a. to access information to all telephone calls and for

a rise in system both within the u.s. and outside and that goes all the way until july nineteenth of this year are you scared yet artie's chan boyle took us to the streets of d.c. to see if americans are really ok with this type of blanket surveillance. how do you feel about the recent news that was released today that the n.s.a. has been taking the phone records of horizon users as they're not listening to my calls i figure they're probably going to do what they're going to do so i'm not too worried about it but i think it's a bit sketchy and scary for like has them of age of my privacy if i were me i would be really upset with horizon do you feel in a way though it's the government playing big brother or do you feel like they are trying to keep it safe. they're playing big brother to help keep us safe there's probably no need for them to go in i understand they're just arguing that they were just getting data and not content but where do you draw the line with that i mean not really into the whole big brother situation but as i don't have anything to hide i'm not very surprised that the government is taking her information and if

you make a personal phone call to someone you shouldn't be tracked back or mass you're a pedophile or something like that give anything to hide now now i mean there they're going to see a lot of calls my mom and to the babysitter but that's about it whether you're on verizon sprint or eighteen it seems the consensus among cell phone users is that the government collecting our phone records is an invasion of privacy in washington i'm chad boyle r.t. now if you're wondering what these records give the n.s.a. access to the agency can figure out who you are calling how long you spoke for and the agency might even be able to determine where you made those phone calls from ginger mccall is a director of the open government program that epic and she joined me earlier to discuss this report and i asked her whether or not she thought the government's actions are lawful. no on multiple levels at some lawful first there's the question of whether or not the foreign intelligence surveillance court really ought to be in the business of allowing for surveillance of purely domestic communications and if

you look at the order this is for not only foreign communications but also wholly domestic communications there's also the question of whether or not this is allowed under the patriot act and we've seen one of the architects of the patriot act come out and say that it is likely not allowed under the patriot act and then there's the fourth amendment or it's permissible under the fourth amendment which we believe it's not looking at this it seems on its face to be in unreasonable search because it is such a dragnet search so this court order refer specifically to verizon wireless but it's possible the risin is not alone and is can you explain that a little bit further it's likely that for us it is not alone in these in fact i've seen news reports that have indicated exactly that the news reports have indicated that eighteen t. and other major cell phone companies have similar orders now is there any way to be able to be protected is there any phone service that will protect you at all from these kind of searches and seizures or are we really at the whim of the government

at this point at the whim of the government we certainly don't know of any phone service that would be protected we're also not sure if this extends to e-mails and other communications as well ok now i want to bring up something that the horizon executive vice president and general counsel randy e-mail sent out to his employees today kind of talking about this it's a brief statement but in it it says that the company has no comment but also noted that the alleged court order that the guardian publish on its website contains language that compels for eyes and to respond forbids the company from revealing the orders existence and excludes the production of content of any communication or the name address or financial information of a subscriber or a customer what should we make of this note is this for a rise in mic. excuses for itself or is this just the facts well i've looked at the order and those are specifically the facts of the order however it's a bit misleading they aren't giving names or addresses or financial information of

customers but it's easily identified there are several identifying characteristics within these records that could be used to trace back to a given person now this is a similar kind of collection of information is what we saw with the a.p. the associated press when it's attacked the d.o.j. for going after a bunch of its reporters phone records now as a response to the a.p. the o.j. scandal there was a lot of outcry both from lawmakers and also from media outlets and the media has very specific protections when it comes to what the government can and cannot obtain but the public doesn't write oh well the public still has protections against what the government can and cannot obtain the fourth amendment the patriot act the electronic communications privacy act all of these statutes in the constitution protect the public against unreasonable searches by the government so all of all of this information that is coming out and it's very slim still there still a lot of things that we don't know what are the most pressing issues that you want

to know about. who watches the watchman here it seems like congress was asleep at the wheel there's a committee on congress that's supposed to be overseeing the n.s.a. the foreign intelligence surveillance court is supposed to oversee the n.s.a. they're supposed to ensure that the agency isn't participating in exactly this kind of wholesale collection and retention of information and instead what we see is the senate on both sides of the aisle making excuses for the agency and we see the foreign intelligence surveillance court signing off on surveillance of communications that aren't in any way foreign are in fact wholly domestic and finally is there any kind of end for information who has this data for instance or want exactly they were looking for we know that this came just a few days after the boston bombings is there any indication what this information is for you. this may have come a few days after the boston bombing but what we heard from senator feinstein is that this has been going on for seven years i think that she meant for that to be a comfort to the american people but they shouldn't certainly be comforted by the

fact that this program is ongoing and has always been since probably two thousand and six there's no telling looking at the order what exactly it was that they were looking for and that's particularly problematic because if they're going to be participating in this sort of search there should be some particular thing that they're looking for a particular arised investigation a particular person that they're interested in instead of just dragnet surveillance that allows them to pull in all of this information and retain it forever and what we do know is that these documents that were obtained gave us a very exclusive sneak peek into what we were not supposed to know and what i have horizon and other wireless companies are not supposed to be telling us and this information isn't even supposed to be declassified until twenty thirty eight so i hear mccall director of the open government program ethic thank you so much for your insight while president bush promised that no child would be left behind when it comes to education president obama said that he's going to make sure everyone gets a fair shot but neither president specified where that education would take place

over the past few years american families have watched one supposedly ineffective neighborhood school after another close all of this as a way to redistribute student staff and resources to more successful schools this consolidation of education is something we've covered here at r.t. time and again take a look. students in chicago are getting a firsthand lesson in civil disobedience and it's. the third largest city in america plans to shut down fifty four public schools by autumn this year makes us feel like we are not important to anybody so. a total of sixty one school buildings including this one are targeted. district is now. shutting down schools because of. the drop in roll has been a. big. number because there and we've had homes

in the last twelve years. who educational outcomes for children. who goes into a. prosperous country. very very well the basic social services are being. ninety percent of the schools are in african-american communities where is our kids going to go to school where the school year just wrapping up students in dozens of schools in pennsylvania i walked the halls for the very last time that's because the state run score reform commission voted in march to close twenty three public schools to cut back on costs the problem is that almost all of these schools are in low income neighborhoods where the vast majority of the students affected are black and latino students are to correspondent was war tells us about the color of school closures. well cities across the country are struggling to close budget

deficits and oftentimes public schools are on the chopping block and beyond programs are supplies we're talking about entire schools shutting down right here in d.c. fifteen schools are set to close in chicago fifty four closing its doors in new york city twenty six and in philadelphia twenty three schools will be close to students and philadelphia that means at least three thousand teachers counselors and school administrators would be laid off as a result class sizes would get bigger and existing schools more crowded all of this city officials say is being done to shrink a budget deficit of over three million dollars now tough times call for a tough measures but one project in the works and the cash strapped city is raising eyebrows lawmakers have announced that four hundred million dollars is being funneled toward building a brand new prison in philadelphia independent journalist run your college noted it would be the second most costly prison in the state when finished with two thousand

and fifteen in two thousand and fifteen the new cell blocks classrooms and supports space surrounded by twenty forty foot fences and a lead certified earth be able will replace the old prison and its reinforced concrete walls of homes of four thousand offenders including seven hundred serving life sentences that's according to the philadelphia inquirer and we've reported extensively on the school closings in chicago where dozens of schools are shutting down mayor rahm emanuel insists it's a last ditch effort to address what he calls a budget crisis this as a city announced plans to build a one hundred million dollars basketball arena at the paul university the timing is stirring outrage according to the nation quote these are not the actions of a mayor or the actions of a mad can also unsettling for affected human communities is that most of the school closings. affect people of color in chicago eighty percent of the affected students

are black ten percent are latino and a whopping ninety four percent are considered low income we saw teachers parents and students voice their anger over the city's decisions including this nine year old chicago student. was the was ok was the was a was a he was. the if these if. these communities feel as though education is not on the top of the agenda for their elected leaders and oftentimes you just need to follow the money to find out where the true priorities really are in washington liz wall r.t. well so much of our technology to the day that we use was originally funded and

developed by the government spending on research that's going to close things like radar or even how computers and cell phones work now drones are on the cusp of making the transition from being well known for military strikes to doing things that are closer to home for more in the future of drones the residents lori harf honest. are they part of the new pizza down in those conducted a publicity stunt recently they released a video on you tube of one of their pizzas jean delivered by drone you know one of those i demand flying vehicles that the u.s.

military loves to use to kill people all over the world without having to actually send troops anywhere drone things in our culture today we equate them with the u.s. government using them to murder a husband the villian meet a pretty bad beat for themselves but this stunt by domino's pizza is actually indicative of what our future relationships with the drone technology will probably be there are just too many applications for what essentially amounts to a pair of eyes on a flying computer that you can pilot remotely to find out what's going on someplace out of do not have drones will deliver pizza and if out loud find people lost in natural disasters or collapsed buildings tech was at the door watch the kids on the playground or as they walked to school he was a line of like applebee you get the idea that many companies are already hard at work refining these applications of drone technology the like it or not this future

it will probably be packed with drones and then we will all forget their bloody legacy that this is nothing new that's how it is with a lot of new technology the government gets a hold of it first off i'm playing a hand in developing us and you. that for terrible acts of war is vengefully the technology start swimming itself into our every day and ultimately we end up accepting it as a part of life often times we end up loving it and relying on it heavily you know that g.p.s. system you love so much it was developed for military intel purposes in the one nine hundred sixty s. your cell phone german tanks pioneered that technology in world war two that war also spawned your microwave oven which started out as military radar transmitters drones will be no different we view them with malice now but the fact

of the matter is the technology itself is not horrible and it will continue to advance unlike the real horrible truth that drones illustrate which has not advanced and will always be the same and that is the fact that warmongers and greed driven tyrants with blood and tears on their hands always get to use all the coolest toys first and i like to talk about that by following me on twitter at the red carpet. all right and that's going to do it for me for tonight but 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 your world go to our website r.t. dot com slash usa don't forget to follow me on twitter at meghan underscore lopez send me your thoughts comments and stories suggestions i'm always listening but for

now have a great night. i would rather ask questions to people in positions of power instead of speaking on their behalf and that's why you can find my show larry king now right here on r.t. question more.