coming up on r t the drums of war for syria grow louder as america moves warships closer to their shores while more u.s. politicians consider the idea of military intervention a large part of the u.s. public remains unpersuaded the latest updates just ahead. and a u.s. colombian free trade deal signed back in two thousand and eleven is now causing colombian farmers huge problems the farmers have been protesting for more than a week leading to clashes with palumbi and authorities more on this story coming out. and an n.y.p.d. officer was indicted on charges of lying about the arrest of a new york times photographer the officer claimed that the photographer was using a bright flash to interfere with another arrest but the camera didn't even have a flash more on this case later on in today's show.

hello there it's tuesday august twenty seventh five pm here in washington d.c. i'm aaron aid and you're watching our two. we start our newscast today with the latest from syria u.s. officials have laid the groundwork for a possible military attack here's u.s. defense secretary chuck hagel speaking to the b.b.c. about the department of defense's preparedness the feistiness say the options are there the united states department of defense is ready to carry out those options. if that would occur that it would occur also in coordination with our international partners. these latest developments are in response to a chemical weapons attack that occurred outside of damascus on august twenty first the united states and its international allies say it is undeniable that syrian president bashar al assad and his regime launched those attacks now speaking from

damascus today syrian foreign minister walid moallem said that he rejects quote utterly and completely that syrian armed forces have used chemical weapons u.s. navy destroyers have already been moved closer to the shores of syria since those chemical attacks however according to a reuters poll intervention in the sovereign country is quite unpopular with americans around forty two percent of americans do not think that we should intervene twenty eight believe we should and almost thirty say they don't know. now despite these numbers n.b.c. news is reporting the military strikes on syria could begin as early as thursday. and now to colombia where agricultural workers are taking to the streets to protest the government's farming policies what started as a peasant uprising nine days ago has quickly spread throughout the country at least two hundred thousand people have launched demonstrations and blocked roads all in

opposition to the u.s. colombia free trade agreement now protesters there are being met with intense hostility from the colombian police tear gas shooting torture and even sexual assaults have all been reported colombia's defense minister juan carlos in zone has claimed that the strikers that the striking workers are being controlled by what he calls terrorists from the revolutionary armed forces of colombia better known as far as you know yesterday colombian president juan manuel santos said that his government will enter into negotiations with the agricultural workers but only if the roadblocks are lifted and after meeting with protest leaders from the three worst affected provinces such as said he is quote determined to confront the problems and work hand in hand with the farmers to see how we can get out of this situation a situation that many believe was created by the u.s. colombian free trade agreement and agreement which was supposed to eliminate things like tariffs and other barriers on traded goods and services between the u.s. and colombia however in practice it has increased the cost of items like fertilizer

and fuel while simultaneously flooding the colombian market with cheap imports to discuss the current unrest in colombia and shed light on to how this free trade deal is playing out i was joined earlier by neil martin executive director apostle internacional a colombian based labor solidarity organization i first asked him about the situation on the ground and what the protests look like. protests are principally taken for blockades. by potato and onion farmer coffee growers in the dairy sector. roadblocks to prevent normal circulation throughout the country this is also been supported and added to by workshop which is organized by truck drivers who aren't blocking but who are refusing to transport produce and other products. has been built and build lots throughout colombia. ten department i think apparently.

we are luckily intended partner and this is been off bill supported by indigenous communities unions student movements and. reaction part of the colombian armed forces have been and what human rights organizations refer to as an excessive use of force. we've seen military personnel being protesters there going for the sexual soul stealing supplies and the protesters are using to maintain a cannons. and it was carried out in private residence and private business is a huge amount of unwarranted arrests and and. rightly hedonist credit fire or fire and protestors and we have reports that some people been killed

at result of that kind of activity the the ocean with warnings phenomena is the best protest leaders. it's happened to other country and because particularly sentient to the rest of humor status who is a prominent. so a lot of the members of gotten good team team for the organization that were stricken he was arrested yesterday. and that for. for reasons you know alleged involvement with it's ok now now now to tell me how long have the protests been going on. there more than a week old now started last monday and they've been growing sort of steadily throughout the sneak and peek and actually they were new blockades set up in

unison tallies very close the ball and so the effect of the wrist is congress is starting to be felt and very extremely. and the current situation is one of sort of tense calm because the government has entered into negotiations with leaders of the protests in various regions right now what are the agricultural workers what are their ultimate goal is would they like to see that the u.s. colombia free trade agreement be abolished. that is one of their demand they're starting to feel the effects of free trade agreement very sharply it's been in effect for a leader now and the cost of producing things like potatoes in coffee and milk in colombia simply can't compete with the prices of imported products that are coming in from other countries and. one of the other demands of the hat is that.

our cultural territories be protected by mental sainthood. and the truck drivers in particular are asking for a reduction in the cost of gasoline when we have one of the has prices in the world and it's one of the largest producer of oil and some see this is a contradiction and something that the colombian government remedy now is it realistic or even possible to abolish this free trade agreement. well that's a very good question it's a question that a lot of people are are asking and i don't think it's very likely the. administration will go back on a different story with i think more likely is. that the same thing will happen when sharon is in the coffee shop if you want to build a. large. in which the government agreed to raise the subsidies their top farmers receive and sort of you know the situation down for the time being in terms

of real long term. agreement between the government and rural agricultural sector i think it's going to be a lot more complicated because you really see that these farmers are sitting. in it without overturning a free trade agreement we don't want to be a real possibility for a long from dialogue between. now who is benefiting in colombia from this free trade agreement. well along in land owners are benefiting from three share in the canadian unfasten general but in addition to that not a national corporations are benefiting hugely from the free trade agreement we at ages will talk about economic policies a little bit more broadly as well in terms of. what is different is neoliberal economic expansion in colombia which includes not only free trade but in practice nation public services including incursion of huge amounts of foreign capital and investment coming in which takes the form of mining oil extraction and agribusiness

so these are the sectors that are that are benefiting from free trade agreement and frankly the coal in farmers have. reason to be concerned about the situation given that five million people have been internally this i think on the a nine eleven in the last ten years and i think people are very you know afraid that this could end up being a fate as well right now what do you personally believe is the best solution for both the farmers and the country of colombia. well i think. you know a. comprehensive agricultural policy that you know takes into account small farmers as both massive agribusiness would be would be the best solution and i think things like the cost of gasoline are also italy would be really rarely. worth what little is when you start to look at the end of the union they're

involved in the strike now as well of who had almost a demand and many of which are fascinated with. opposition to the privatization of public services three levels of health care union be ordered in lucile and student organizations emerge the student organizations and the biggest teachers' union for call it all asking for you know the pride of place in education to be reversed so these are. more difficult. to address now i have one last question that i really want to get to you can you talk about the relationship between the farmers and fark and it's important to know that fark is an organization considered as a terrorist group by the colombian government can you speak to to their relationship right there and it's a very important question because because one being in a state tends to use its rhetoric to not only to deal with it in my eyes grassroots protest movements in and this kind of mobilization that we're seeing currently uses it as an excuse to use this association as an excuse for

you know repression of these movements and and in the public eye justifying even a lot of repression against protesters i think the current spec is a very good example of of the lack of substance to this as its argument because among other reasons that the reason in which this process the strongest explosion is not a region which is you know it's not a region which is which had armed conflicts not a region which has a very strong support for any of the syrian groups and again there has been no evidence provided as to the links between the guerrilla groups and protest movement ok thank you very much now that was neil martin the executive director of pasar engine off out of. and in new york city a bronx district attorney announced yesterday that and y.p. the officer was indicted on three felony counts and five misdemeanors after lying

about the circumstances that led to the officers arrest of a new york times photographer officer michael ackerman has been accused of fabricating his reasons for arresting photographer robert still art now ackerman claims that while trying to arrest a teenage girl last year so large interfered by distracting the officer with the flush on his camera the bronx d.a.'s office has dispelled ackerman's accounts however after photographic evidence determine that the photographer did not use a flash and didn't even have one on his camera at the time now if convicted on the top charges ackerman would lose his job and could face up to seven years in prison to talk about the case against ackerman and to discuss the best policies for civilian officer interaction i was joined earlier by steve silverman executive director of lecture rights and i started off by asking him how they discovered that ackerman was fabricating the police report. this ackerman case was interesting because they simply found a discrepancy with the photograph apparently the officer claimed that. that they're

pretty used flash photography in fact they were quickly able to look and see that this was not true so the officer was clearly lying and the days where police officers can get away with with this sorts of abuse and straight up lying those days are simply over because cameras are now everywhere now is this case unusual in the sense that the officer was called out on his report and for his lie it is unusual and a positive thing that the officer is being held to account for his actions all too often people will see video of police doing agree just things in the officer simply gets to be away on leave and ultimately retains his or her job in this case this is setting a very strong message and it's up to police leadership to send this message that whatever police officers violate the law that they will be held accountable as far as the law will allow now how often do we see officers exaggerating on their police

reports or even outright line very regularly and so it's increasingly so where you simply police naturally it's not surprising that they are intimidated one when people are recorded they're sort of not used to feeling like celebrities and have been pop or see taking a picture recording all the time so i can understand identify with that so they can they don't want to have another account of what happened they would rather it be exactly what they remember and what they say whether it's fabricated or not but with the recording it's impossible for a police officer to a lie about what happened the fact is when police are being recorded and when citizens are being recorded there's a new program in california where police have little cameras the number of police incidents and complaints it just drops you know like eighty percent because the citizens are going to be on their best behavior of course police are going to act in with a. according to the law and are able to do their jobs just fine while remaining within the law now as an average civilian what can we do to make sure that the

police are held accountable to the reports that they do and basically the truthfulness into their interactions with us the most i think technology in this is my camera right here and so imagine if i walk into somewhere there's a police encounter happening maybe i see a traffic in sin or something like that and i want to record it i'm putting in my past code very important to have a pass code to protect your phone. number and do so have actually when you know when you're in that position you're going to if you want to train yourself to do this because you're going to be shaking a little bit i'm having my kick it's called q i k it's a great out and i'm recording this right now you want to turn your phone this was you know in the vertical video and this is recording right now so if you're a police officer and you don't like the fact that i was recording you right now you might want to snatch this out of my hand but if i'm getting a feeling about to do that i just turn the phone off i don't turn it off i should put it to sleep and this is that automatically is uploading it's my own i set my account to private and so you could take this you could smash it and i'm going to

have that recording to show to my lawyer wow now do you think that high quality recording devices that they've made officers more accountable obviously they have to be if they're being recorded but just in general the idea that these are more prevalent today is world that they've made officers more accountable for their actions when they're doing police work i think i salute lynn and i want to get into . rules for recording police you can find it through the flex your rights or web site to really lay out exactly how you want to present yourself and exactly what you can do how to use your technology in order to successfully record the police while reducing the likelihood of a bad incident happening that is the seven hundred thirty seven is a let's hear it only in the first thing that everyone needs to understand first is that you always have the right to openly record on duty police officers no matter what about these bad laws and in illinois and massachusetts the. courts there have ruled them unconstitutional so first things first you need to understand you always

have the right to record on duty police officer because the top three we got a just a sound bite. you always want to flex your rights too so police are asking for your id officer my friend you go i don't need to show you my id and my under arrest ok officer i don't consent to any searches more tips like this. or you know i wish we could hear more we're going to have to have you back to have you back to fill us in on all seven but that was the silver men executive director of rights thank you steve thank you. montana state representative daniel zone macof is one of the youngest legislators in the country he is also one of the most effective when it comes to protecting the privacy is of his constituents archie web producer andrew blake tells us why is only a cough is worth making note of when it comes to privacy. the piece of technology we consider are vital to the conduct of our everyday person on professional life although smartphones happens to be a combination phone by listening device location tracker and

hidden camera we already know that the government is collecting sensitive information from the e-mails to your mom to the texts and calls to a significant other it's not that easy to escape the eyes and ears of the federal government on the local level however some people are looking to change that and you're one of the youngest elected lawmakers in america i'm doing a phone call from the center of the montana republican daniels on the cough has made it his mission to keep government intrusion at bay or at least that's his ultimate goal only twenty six he's already proposed a number of initiatives focusing on montana residents right to privacy earlier this year he drafted legislation that requires the police to obtain search warrants and prove probable cause before obtaining a location data from cell phone service providers and even those on the cough is a new comer in elected politics he's already making a difference any time your cell phone is on it transmits a signal to a local tower that can coordinate your precise location often within inches

throughout most of the u.s. law enforcement doesn't need a warrant to get this info thanks to the only cough montana was the first state to require probable cause to believe that the. fourth law of course is a search warrant to get help on the christian nation we're talking about policy and privacy where the two meet the road that sounds simple enough but the fourth only costs legislation any entity with the right paperwork could go to a telecom provider like verizon eighteen t. or any other cell phone carrier and request location data off and they'd receive it without ever needing to show probable cause once that info is collected it can be used to do a lot more than just pinpoint a location in two thousand and ten a federal appeals court ruled a person who knows all of another's travels can deduce whether he is a weekly church goer a heavy drinker a regular at the gym a unfaithful husband. and an lp receiving medical treatment an associate of particular individuals or political groups and not just one such fact about a person but all such facts as only cough found out though that information is

relatively easy to collect now that montana has become the first state in the nation mandating that police prove probable cause he hopes his message of privacy spreads and it's important for us the country because i mean to get past everywhere else i wrote that every state usually doesn't start with new legislation they see so most do it and copy the states of maine and new jersey have passed nearly identical pieces of legislation following montana's lead in according to zona cough there are much bigger issues at stake so we're not always right you've seen no gains in security or is the balance we say we give up all rights of all security that we have no right to actually live our lives so what do we just want to be sacrificed that's the real question and that's the biggest concern i think we have we cannot keep giving up rights seeing that we don't even know what security is in place when we give up our rights there's no transparency that should be the biggest concern of everybody not a safety but where is it going how is it being used and can it one day be used incorrectly i'll tell you what intent in government is always great but it tends to

always be misled and used the wrong way in recent weeks the fifth circuit court of appeals ruled that federal agents the not apply for third force on the local level that doesn't hold true question now is will more states continue this trial reporting from washington and replace r t v. and in austin texas police are now investigating a report of a bleach filled balloon being thrown at an african-american student on campus at the university of texas college junior brian davis was walking to his friend's apartment when he was unexpectedly interrupted by a so-called bleach bomb take a look. i kind of just you know i heard something kind of like it was exploding in me and i feel like a light sting on my leg people might look at it as a prank but you know to be a minority in such a large school or even friends like this it doesn't come off the way you think it might you know when you're going you know for me it's it was kind of humiliating

and embarrassing and there are some claim that the balloon hit a minority students by chance davis believes he was targeted because he's african-american and it seems there were others as well last october austin police launched an investigation into four similar attacks on you two students all of which targeted asian and african-american students so to talk about the motivation behind the attacks and the implications this could have on minorities and higher education i'm joined now by michael dunn's al smith blogger at the nation dot com a nobbler fellow at the nation institute michael what are you good good now i want to first of all start off by talking we're talking about bleach here what is the intention of using such a powerful chemical and what type of harm could this cause to someone you know that i mean using bleach i mean this is a very dangerous chemical that we're dealing with and this is cause great harm to someone if they were to ingest it it was getting to their eyes and i think what you're seeing is if students of color are being targeted with bleach bombs which

you're seeing is something very very insidious about you know the type of you know value that is placed on you know black and brown students and essentially saying that you know we should we should whitewash not just you know our our textbooks our history but the actual people that join this campus and i think that's simply just a disgusting act and i think to try to write it off as simply a prank is you know one of those of one of those things about this trying to. for the colorblind society in which we don't take race into a consideration as a factor in anything if it means that we don't look at the root causes of this and we don't look at how to solve this problem now some people are saying that these bleach bombs they're not targeting minorities specifically and rather that these are just attacks that are happening at random to whoever is walking by when the perpetrator decides to throw a bleach bomb is it clear to you if this is racially motivated. if you're

investigating and you find a pattern where each of the people that have been attacked are indeed black and brown students black and asian students with it what else am i to believe them i suppose to believe that even if they're simply just random on the campus that is jordi white that they happen to be the the random attacks happen to be on these black and asian students i simply can't just write that off as a coincidence now michael are you surprised to see something of this nature taking place at the university of texas and institution credited with having one of the most diverse student bodies around i'm not surprised to see it happen anywhere i think that we have to understand is that we are not so far gone from our our history of racism in this country that we're not still dealing with the vestiges of it and that we don't that people don't still harbor racist attitudes and that people are still acting on races impulses or even even in some ways not just

necessarily acting on race impulses but simply harboring races ideas without even knowing it so i mean it doesn't surprise me that's going to happen anywhere but particularly when we all internalized the sort of anti blackness or anti people of color attitude in this country now michael i know that you frequently write about race issues is something like this unprecedented or are there are similar incidents of this taking place across the country that that you've seen or heard of. i mean to attack people physically this way and to use this chemical is not something that i'm aware of happening you know widespread but i mean this is also indicative of the culture of college campuses where people are dressing up in blackface and holding racist parties where they're you know dressing up in. traditional asian garb white students that are you know appropriating all of these different cultures and writing it off as a prank and again seeing it not in the context of the history of racism in this

country but trying to essentially minimize the experience of black and brown people in this country what do you think the implications of this are and not just for the specific student but also for future generations of minority students seeking higher education i think this is this is to me means that we have so much more work to do is far as this project of integration and it's not on black and brown students to be to you know open up the hearts of their their their white compatriots and say you know except me on students of white students white america. you know not just except in but you can teach anti racism and to be more accommodating and to be to make sure that these institutions that were being asked to integrate into are welcoming and that they openly hostile the

students of color and now of course michel tomorrow is the fiftieth anniversary of the march on washington marking the nation's fight to end segregation altogether and racial discrimination now looking at this incident at u.t. what do you think it says about the work that's still left to be done. it's you know just like i feel every single day that we have so much more work to do we have so much more to fight for it's a radical project that we have to undertake and it's not simply going to happen overnight it's going to it's not going to happen with one single rally is not going to happen with one march is going to take us working every single day together to fix this problem thank you michael that was michael dunn's all smith a contributor for the nation and a nobbler fellow at the nation institute. elsewhere in an effort to provide more information about government requests for user data facebook has followed google's lead and released its first ever transparency report and for many it probably comes as no surprise to learn that the u.s.

makes dramatically more requests for data than any other country now in the first six months of two thousand and thirteen the u.s. made between eleven and twelve thousand requests for user data india came in second with three thousand two hundred forty five requests followed by the u.k. with one thousand nine hundred seventy five requests the united states was also in the lead in the number of users account of user accounts requested all together now the requests cover everything from basic subscriber information to ip address logons or actual content is on the facebook now facebook provided additional data on the different types of accounts the requests targeted and it looks like the united states sure likes facebook that does it for now for more on the stories we cover and you can go to youtube dot com slash r t america and check out our website r.t. dot com slash usa you can also follow me on twitter at aaron a c of accurate eight o'clock.

you know how sometimes you see a story so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize that everything is are. welcome to the big picture. and the mission and free the critic a should be free. for a judge is free to arrangement free. three. free. zone free blog plug in video for your media projects and free media. tom.