coming up on r t the obama administration might want to arm syrian rebels but there's a hitch most americans don't want the u.s. to arm the opposition force it will take a look at the divide between the people and the politicians ahead. through a freedom of information act request the miami herald obtained the names of guantanamo bay detainees said to be too dangerous to release so where do we go from here we talked with coming up. with the ongoing n.s.a. surveillance scandal you might be wondering how to avoid being tracked on line will look at ways to avoid leaving behind a digital footprint later in today show. it's

tuesday june eighteenth five pm in washington d.c. i'm meghan lopez and you are watching r t well we begin this afternoon with an update and an in-depth look as well into the latest polls that gauge the american public sentiment about syria in spite of the newest reports estimating that ninety three thousand syrians have died in the civil war despite the obama administration's announcement that it has a nothe evidence to conclude that president bashar all oss software has used chemical weapons numerous times against rebel forces the majority of the american public does not want the u.s. to provide weapons to opposition forces a new pew poll that surveyed some fifteen hundred adults last week showed that seventy percent of the public opposes arming the rebels with only twenty percent a green beyond that sixty eight percent of people say that the u.s. military is already too committed to getting involved in syria and another sixty percent believe the opposition groups may be no better than the current government so. should the u.s.

see getting involved at all well fifty three percent of the people polled believe that it is important for the u.s. to support any groups opposing authoritarian regimes the conversation has now shifted from whether the rebels need america's support to what the u.s. should be doing to help them so the american public might be against the idea of arming the rebels but for the obama administration it's full steam ahead as the government tries to convince opposing nations like russia to jump on board but the question remains who exactly are the rebels political commentator sam sachs takes a closer look at the people behind the opposition. last week just before the white house announced its plans to arm the syrian rebels many of those same rebels raided a town in eastern syria and massacred sixty shiite muslims now this is nothing new the sort of violence is taking place on both sides of the fight suggesting this conflict now older than two years is the less about a popular democratic uprising and more about

a civil war fueled by sectarian violence and that includes sectarian divisions within the syrian opposition itself and yet it's this war that the white house and a group of senators now want to pick a side in to begin providing lethal assistance to now this is where the war stands today the areas in blue represent areas under control of the syrian opposition there is an orange are under control of the pro assad government the areas in green up here to the north are under control of the kurds who have also jumped into the fight to to go up against the pro assad government and the areas in red are still contested in the war now the areas in blue though shouldn't be just one color they shouldn't just be blue it's a common misconception that the rebels are one unified force here was saeed eric katz a bureau chief with the daily newspaper describing them into really and i clicked all kinds of political orientation on this opposition in the biological and the

organization each. for people from time to time people twenty people in a room together so it is not very difficult to really know their identity and that is the problem that they and i think is happening that they tried through so many forms to have a unified body but so far they have failed the opposition is assembled under an umbrella known as the supreme military command and it is the s.m.c. which the white house says is the main fighting force on the ground that it's working with but there's some see is made up of an unknown number of independent factions including the largest of them. the free syrian army it also includes the syrian liberation front the syrian islamic front and roughly nine other major independent brigades it's also estimated that there is many as one thousand various armed militias operating within the opposition with differing ideologies differing goals in different support structures and that doesn't include opposition faction is factions that are radicalized anti-u.s.

forces including the al-qaeda affiliated newsgroup which has been described as the most effective best equipped group of fighters within the syrian opposition but which the us state department has labeled as a terrorist organization and this is one of the biggest challenges facing the white house how can it supply arms to some factions of the opposition that it trusts while making sure those same arms aren't supplied to more radical elements of the opposition working on behalf of al-qaeda it is a very very difficult for them and i think we need to sort through who's on north and who is a ghaith and i won and otherwise the united states will find on the side of that which will be running now looser has been instrumental in a number of fights against pro assad forces they're operating in several opposition held areas including in aleppo a major city and al nusra is in control of the city of where the black flag is now reportedly fly and it's impossible at this point to cleave al nusra from the more

moderate forces within the syrian opposition so then what is the end game here even if the opposition wins the next phase will be a post assad struggle for power within the opposition between more moderate forces and radical forces like al nusra both armed by the united states in other words more violence more death or simply any sort of victory here is far fetched which might explain why only twenty percent of americans at this point support arming the opposition they see what most everyone else who. does it work in the white house in our allies with john mccain in the senate seat and that's that this course of action almost certainly won't end well in washington. r.t. while syria has no doubt dominated the agenda of the g eight summit that wraps up today in northern ireland world leaders from canada france germany italy japan

russia the u.k. and the u.s. have all come together to try to reach an understanding on some of the hot button issues of today now the one idea that all nations seem to be able to agree about peace is an absolute must in syria it's the how of that they are still trying to figure out artie's polly boyko has more this joint statement from all the g. eight leaders is being presented as somewhat of a triumph they managed to come together and issued this statement on syria from everybody one thing about him and putin said in a press conference is that everybody agrees that the only way full. diplomatic and diplomatic resolution to the crisis in syria they want to see all the sides around the negotiating table if they want to see the need for it to. happen as soon as a host of will say whatever it is that is yet and of course. right about the number of. remaining. russians are going to be on the syrian crisis and everybody else is

one of them is chemical weapons. administration reiterated that russia doesn't find the evidence provided by the americans very convincing so the russian government doesn't have any proof that chemical weapons have been used in syria and he also mentioned that a number of other g eight leaders also question the claims that have been made by the u.s. government it wasn't a case of seven against one of the leaders have been questioning that information as well he said that there needs to be a full investigation into the use of chemical weapons in syria and that needs to be in order to. establish the truth and that needs to be presented back to the un and of course the u.s. has already said that because as a result of these claims that bashar al assad has used chemical weapons they are now have pledged to provide military support to the syrian opposition now that reports and speaking just now in a press conference reiterated that he thinks that sending weapons to the syrian

rebels will further escalate and destabilize the bloodshed taking place there already and when questioned about russia's arms sales to the syrian government this is what vladimir putin said in response. we provide supplies in line with a contract to the legitimate government of president assad you know when the possible weapons supplies to syrian rebels by european countries the british people recently witnessed an outrageous tragedy when a soldier was butchered in broad daylight in the streets of london many in the syrian opposition not all of them of course criminals like the ones that conducted that violent killing do europeans want to supply arms to these people what will happen to these weapons. these arms and you could end up back in europe that's why we call in our partners to think twice before they take this extremely dangerous step that was artie's polly boyko reporting. well let's turn now to the newest

information coming out of the n.s.a. surveillance scandal today the house permanent select committee on intelligence called a last minute hearing to get the director general of the n.s.a. keith alexander on the record about exactly what information the n.s.a. is collecting and the guidelines that the agency sets for itself here's what we've learned today they are saying now claims that it has thwarted fifty terror plots in twenty countries including ten that were homeland based threats today two more of those foiled attacks were disclosed to the public beyond the attempted bombings of the new york stock exchange and the new york subway system take a look. also david headley u.s. citizen living in chicago the f.b.i. received intelligence regarding his possible involvement in the two thousand and eight mumbai attacks responsible for the killing of over one hundred sixty people lastly the f.b.i.

had opened an investigation shortly after nine eleven we did not have enough information nor did we find links to terrorism so we shortly thereafter closed the investigation however the n.s.a. using the business record pfizer tipped us off that this individual had indirect contacts with a known terrorist overseas we were able to reopen this investigation identify additional individuals legal processes in were able to disrupt this terrorist activity now as you heard deputy f.b.i. director sean joyce say the government was able to discover these plots using the seven o two authority and by going through the files the courts and i say officials have also promised to disclose more information about several of the other terror plots to lawmakers in a close election on wednesday this was just the latest push by the n.s.a. and the government to clear up some of the misconceptions the public has about this program however senate intelligence chairwoman dianne feinstein said this week that

her committee will wait for more information to come out from the emma n.s.a. before holding a hearing of her own and just today google has asked the fisa court to ease a gag order time to data requests made of the company by the secretive court they argue the company has a right to disclose the information under the first amendment will keep you updated with the latest on this story as it develops. well it's day eight of wiki leaks or bradley manning's trial in fort meade maryland the court was in session for a short time today and has now recessed for the week now today the court was focusing on three pieces of evidence that came out from an internet archive known as the wayback machine and two messages that wiki leaks sent out via twitter for the latest on the trial are to correspondent liz wahl was at the hearing today and she joins me now in the studio hi there was so what was the latest information coming out today and can you break down some of this as of evidence i just talked about the importance of it sure well today there was

a good amount of time spent on these tweets as you mentioned tweets allegedly sent by wiki leaks back in two thousand and nine and now there was some debate over whether or not these tweets could be admitted as evidence i want to bring them up here these tweets and question the first one there we would like a list of as many dot mil e-mail addresses as possible please contact the e-mail address editor at wiki leaks dot org so essentially this is asking for a list of military e-mail addresses and the other tweet today. have encrypted videos of u.s. bombs strikes on civilians wiki leaks reportedly or allegedly tweeting that they have this top secret video now the prosecution was going back and forth debating if these these tweets could be admissible as evidence the prosecution said that these tweets kind of serve as evidence of a plan that bradley manning must have seen these tweets and was working with the to get this secret information to him and the prosecution say that this forensic

evidence from a forensic analysis earlier on in the trial where he testified that there was proof evidence of communication between manning and julian assange julian assange on juicing. aliases believed to belong to julian us on the press association and then you know frank are the names now the defense fired back and said you know what. it's impossible to verify the authenticity of these tweets we don't know that the present day form of it was exactly the way it was tweeted back in two thousand and nine if it was manipulated since then and they also said that there is no proof that bradley manning actually saw these tweets there was no proof there was no evidence on the computer of bradley manning's twitter and that he didn't fact see these tweets another interesting argument argument that the defense made is that you know what even if these tweets are authentic even if julian assange did tweet these tweets out it doesn't matter in this case in the case of bradley manning

because whatever the intent of wiki leaks does not mean that there's not draw delectably link with it with bradley manning they essentially said you know what the state of mind of wiki leaks has nothing to do with manning so it's unclear now whether or not the judge judge lynn colonel lynn will will accept these pieces of evidence as. evidence of it the evidence and we only have about a minute left but as i understand that the court is in recess until next week why did they wrap up so early and is there any indication of what can happen next week well what we've seen so far in this case is a lot of the testimony in the form of stipulations essentially that's over in testimony so the judge said that there are seventeen stipulations that they need to work out so that offends in the prosecution need to work out whether or not they agree on tuesday there's going to be this status conference where they will decide

the judge will just kind of make sure everything is back on track and wednesday we're going to be back on hearing more evidence and hearing some more testimony so far we've already heard about fifty of the one hundred forty witnesses that are slated to testify and so it is moving along fairly quickly so i will be back there next next wednesday to keep everybody updated artie's liz wahl working hard for us from fort meade maryland thank you so much things. well it's been over a decade since the doors of the one tunnel bay detention facility first opened up and only now we are learning the names of some of its most notorious residents the miami herald newspaper submitted a freedom of information act request last december and asking for the names as a detainees who are continuing to be held under the law these are the men who fall into the third category of the detainees that president obama described in his foreign policy speech back in may the men have been declared too dangerous to transfer but also cannot be tried in the rule in the court of law because of

a lack of evidence or because the evidence was tainted now for the first time ever forty eight so-called indefinite detainees have been named according to the list the men designated for a definite detention are twenty six yemenis twelve afghans three saudis two kuwaitis two libyans a kenyan a moroccan and a somali for more on this new revelation i was joined earlier by attorney thomas wilner i started off by asking him why this information was revealed only now. i don't know why now i think people realize that the information is all not all that significant and there was no reason to have a classified all this time may i say something about it there was nothing in this the media keep saying these are people who were designated for indefinite detention and they're too dangerous to release but the evidence against them is painted there is no indication of that in any of the information released by the government i mean there are three categories or thirty three people who they designated for

prosecution the general down there has said that probably twelve and most will be prosecutor now other people have said that they're being held in accordance with the principles of the laws of war there is none of this characterization these are dangerous bad people need to be held and they have been insist they need i think most of the evidence here if you hold somebody in accordance with the laws of war when they conflict and say should be released and afghanistan conference is about that and now meanwhile all this is going on amnesty international's the johnson said that the fact that this list exists at all is fundamentally flawed and that it's a violation of international human rights laws because you're either supposed to charge try and convict someone or release them on a lack of evidence so the question is where do we go from here. well there are lots of things in that interview because the wonderful guy and i'm glad i got the list so i'm not going to say that violates anything actually under the laws of war you can hold somebody during a conflict even if you don't charge him with a crime once

a conflict and so under our law and under the constitution you can only hold somebody to detain somebody if you're going to try them prosecute them and try them and if they're if you're not going to do that you need to release them and if they were acquitted you need to release them so once the war ends you can't hold people like prisoners of war there's no reason to do so it's hard to say when that that so-called war is going to end though with the war on terror the so many wars that are part of the war on terror is not a traditional war that's really a criminal enterprise anyone who goes out as a terrorist is a criminal or the war in afghanistan is about that and we're saying that the president said in the speech this is not a never ending more this war will don't want it ends people need to be released and i think we're going to prosecute them cried them interesting it's a very interesting argument and as you said a war on terror is not a traditional war so if the question becomes should we be treating people like a traditional prisoners of war as if we are treating them like prisoners of war

let's move beyond this what do these documents actually say you say that they show very little information that can actually down the u.s. government so what do they show they really showed the reasons. what they show is when these documents were done there were two hundred seventy three people at guantanamo seventy one of those people have been released since there are now one hundred sixty six people at guantanamo what these documents show that is that more than half of them eighty six of them have been designated as people who can be transferred released from guantanamo there were eighty others of those about thirty will be prosecuted the others are being held in accordance with the authorization use of military force in accordance with the laws of war so i say it shows. is it doesn't say any of this stuff that these people are too dangerous to release that we should hold people indefinitely it shows that people are being held within accordance with the laws of war and others are supposed to be prosecuted let's see

what happens and finally is the fact that the obama administration released this list at all proof of that we're stepping forward and rethinking our tactics when it comes to guantanamo bay and indefinite detention or is it just a caviar i was bound to happen well the obama administration there have been some positive signs recently said the bomb is appointing a new sort of bizarre to close guantanamo he's made a speech saying we need to close it but he's made speeches and he's appointed people before what we need to see is whether they have the guts in the white house to get people out of guantanamo eighty six of these people have been cleared he's got the authority to move them out right now he should really use his existing authority to get people out of there but see if he acts. we'll have to see i know david remes one of the gun turning for a bunch of the guantanamo bay detainees has said that even if the doors of guantanamo bay itself closes the theoretical i want title they will never close with a definite detentions you don't think he's wrong it's got to close in reims should

stop saying that it's we should close guantanamo and it should be done promptly it hurts the united states every day it remains open. that was attorney thomas wilner . well don't mess with texas more specifically the e-mails of the people living in the lone star state governor rick perry just signed a bill making texas the first ever state to require state and local law enforcement to obtain a warrant for email searches the text of h.r. two to six eight reads quote an application made under the subsection must demonstrate probable cause for the issuance of the warrant and must be supported by the oath or affirmation of the authorized peace officer a search warrant may not be issued under this section unless the sworn affidavit required by article ten point eight one be sets forth sufficient and substantial facts to establish probable cause but the bill does not and cannot prevent the federal government from snooping on online communications for more i'm joined by the man who actually author of the bill's an email amendment texas state

representative jonathan stickler and mr stickler thank you so much for joining us so first of all let's start off by asking why is this amendment so important to you what does it realistically do for the people. well we actually filed a bill a separate bill that don't just directly was h.b. thirty one sixty four after that building and get anywhere through the process we found another vehicle which ended up being twenty two sixty eight and we tacked our bill onto it we were we know is this kind of a loophole but the biggest thing we want to do is show people that this is a problem like you said this is a national problem as well and now texas is the first one to address it i don't think that most of my constituents and citizens in texas sort of this country at any idea that they did not need a warrant to go through your old e-mails so we really sought out to stop them from happening but also trying to educate the public that this is a problem that they need to be aware of now was there any indication before of how

many e-mail communication state local law enforcement officers were collecting without a warrant we do not know because in many cases folks when you been notified when this was happening sure now you are in an interesting position because you are a republican with the n.s.a. surveillance scandal one republican lawmaker after another has come out in defense of both the obama administration and the n.s.a. snooping so are you going against party lines here. i think what i'm doing is fighting back against a big government the proper role of government i believe is when the government steps in and protects the rights and liberties of its citizens and that includes the right to privacy so if this is a republican issue our guest that i am against party wants on this one now at the same time as all of this as i had mentioned before this law says superseded by the federal laws that allow for government snooping so is this law more all bark than

bite. well it's a bark right now but we hope that it. has a ripple effect throughout the nation i will tell you that we've gotten quite a bit of press about this in the last couple of days we've heard been contacted by three different state representatives from different states outside of texas and like i said this is this is an educational mission as much as it is protecting people's emails we need people to know what is happening so that they can then rally against it if there's enough public outcry hopefully will be able to change that the national level as well now do you think that some of those other state representatives and those states are going to follow in the suit that texas is actually setting i hope so and then what i told these folks when they called was. you know some some of the hardcore party establishment types might be against this but i have yet to talk to a constituent back in my district that did not agree with this position and we're not concerned with the direction we're heading when we started working on this

legislation this was about eight or nine months ago before any of the scandals were happening that has just amplified. the situation and i think folks are pretty upset about it and finally the state police often work hand in hand with federal agencies like the f.b.i. and the n.s.a. so can it be argued that just because the state and local law enforcement agencies can't get their hands on it themselves that they could potentially go to these federal our forces and ask them to get their hands on texans e-mails and i i think there might be some loopholes in that i will tell you that we're absolutely dedicated to trying to stop that from happening you know texas has been waiting a long time to start talking about states' rights and texas state representative jonathan stick when thank you so much for joining us thank you. well in the wake of the n.s.a.'s internet and telephone surveillance programs many americans are left wondering if there's anything they can do to protect their privacy the simple

answer is yes but it might mean giving up some modern high tech luxuries arche correspondent margaret howell shows us how we can live off the grid what tricks to hackers have up their sleeves that could get you off the grid with the bombshell revelation that the national security agency was reading e-mail keeping track of metta data not to mention phone records staying anonymous seems like an uphill battle so i decided to go in the office and i set out to find an expert who could teach me a few things for protecting my own privacy in a racing my tracks the most difficult challenges that people face is when they don't want to go through the steps that it takes to go anonymous they're not going to be everything is designed to say who are you keeping that in mind with those devices asking for my personal information i look for a different option so unfortunately you do have to swap that smartphone for a disposable burner phone just like this one don't forget to pay in cash also with

this one it doesn't have that location tracking that other phones have but we know now that mathematically it takes two pieces of location data within twenty four hours teen you can identify between seventy and eighty percent of the population paying in cash using your prepaid cell and avoiding credit cards goes a long way encrypt ing your data however is one of the single most effective ways to amp up your online privacy get ready to give up some convenience and those free e-mail accounts along with it so one of the easiest ways to make yourself more anonymous online is to use a piece of software called for the types in that a data that we're all worried about the n.s.a. copying. when and how you send a message that some type of meditator the torah can help protect. to protect sort of where the message came from and where it's going to well you may have heard by now that your information may not be saved what you may not have known is about to

or did you know that whistleblower edward snowden allegedly used tor to communicate sensitive information to journalist glenn greenwald the tour pros are look with surveillance dragnet in the face and stops it in its tracks unfortunately for now you have to be corresponding with someone else who's using tor for it to be effective lying under the radar doesn't require a little bit of a learning and if you want to avoid the u.s. government tracking world wide russian and are willing to give up knowledge for the sake of a private thing in washington margaret i will be all right and that's going to do it for now for more on the stories we cover and go to youtube dot com slash r t america and for the latest and greatest information coming out from around your world check our web site r c dot com slash usa and don't forget to follow me on twitter at meghan underscore lopez i'm always looking for comments stories suggestions and feedback but stay tuned coming up at the top of the hour breaking the set with host abby martin and i'll see you right back here at eight pm.

i am max keiser this is the kaiser report so the central planners are here the activists are here i am of course belfast northern ireland a little.