my. coming up on our t.v. last night president obama spoke to the american people on why he seeks military intervention in syria but he also stressed that he's willing to seek a diplomatic deal more on what's next and the fate of syria just ahead and today marks twelve years since the world trade center towers fell while we remember those who died that day some of the first responders and volunteers are still struggling with health issues that story coming up also more of the n.s.a.'s inner workings are revealed new documents shed some light on the top secret buys a court and how your phone privacy is being compromised more on these revelations later in the show.

it's wednesday september eleventh four pm in washington d.c. i'm sam sax and you're watching our t.v. and we begin with the united states senate where today the senate was expected to hold a vote authorizing the use of military force in syria but as president obama noted in his primetime speech last night that vote has been delayed at his request while he and secretary of state john kerry confer with russia to see if their diplomatic solution to compel syria to hand over its chemical weapons is indeed viable secretary kerry's expected to meet with his russian counterpart in geneva tomorrow or to go over all of this and the next stage is the united nations where the united states allied with france and the u.k. will try to work with russia and china to pass a u.n. resolution requiring assad to give up his chemical weapons but already there is some discord as russia says can it. and support any u.n.

resolution that threatens military force against syria while also forcing syria to disarm but the united states argues that the only way to get syria to disarm is with the threat of military force and in his speech last night president obama insisted that military force is still very much an option meaning that while he's pursuing this diplomatic solution he also has a gun on the bargaining table i've ordered our military to maintain their current posture to keep the pressure on assad and to be in a position to respond if diplomacy fails for nearly seven decades the united states has been the anchor of global security this is men doing more than forging international agreements it has meant enforcing them but while the president continues his strong embrace of u.s. military ism in syria he tried to make the case that the u.s. is not the world's policeman america's not the world's policeman terrible

things happen across the globe and it is beyond our means to right every wrong. but when with modest effort and risk we can stop children from being gassed to death and thereby make our own children safer over the long run i believe we should act. but to congress and the american people also think the u.s. should act now all of this is going on the senate is working on a new authorization for military force in syria one that hinges on all diplomatic measures being exhausted first before any targeted u.s. military strikes such a resolution may be able to attract more support in congress where lawmakers have received an earful from their constituents urging a no vote and a new c.n.n. poll shows that more than two thirds of americans are confident that a diplomatic solution will ultimately prevent a u.s. bombing campaign in syria. though of course today is september eleventh and it

marks twelve years since the two thousand and one terrorist attacks that killed nearly three thousand people at the world trade center at the pentagon and in shanksville pennsylvania the day has been filled with memorials around the country . trudi. so much your brother they get there and you have a need and a never. mind. maybe. one day.

of course some of the most iconic images from nine eleven are a first responders running toward the chaos toward the danger to save lives and for many losing their own life doing so and first responders today twelve years after nine eleven are still suffering from the consequences of their heroic actions and unfortunately many are not receiving the help they need artie's honest. as more. rebuilding a site of horror and tragedy. a new tower marks the new york skyline. rebuilding the lives of those who were here to help twelve years ago is moving at a glacial pace we have more forty one people this year to nine eleven related illnesses over thirteen hundred workload and not one thousand nine hundred since nine eleven a little more than eleven people have been compensated wasn't needed with only a handful of people so far having received cash from

a fund set up for victims first responders and volunteers tens of thousands are still waiting while struggling with sicknesses from inhaling toxic air after nine eleven people like t.j. gill martin. sheen hasan and ken george it is a big fight. big fight it's like if we were criminals. the way they treat us doctors tell cam he has the lawns of a senior citizen he's only forty nine once a highway worker he is disabled and can't make a living will play with his grandchild or lead any semblance of a life he once had i can't take enough oxygen in and foxes are now so this is with this machine here it helps me breathe gives me the extra oxygen i need forces it into me not only is he attached to a machine can also has to take thirty three pills and almost a bottle of cough syrup every single day this is. the first responders wearing

sunglasses because the steroids he takes to keep his vital organs working give him chronic headaches they've also caused him to have a heart attack and game dozens of pounds can considers himself lucky each year it comes by it is more of my nine eleven brothers and sisters who got sick pass it on you know it is i think a total sixty hundred that passed away already from the illnesses guilt is a major part of ken's life because i did for him everybody alive there you know. jamie hazen had surgery on his stomach and struggles with p.t.s.d. breathing is a daily struggle for him monitoring his health is his new full time job a nine eleven first responder it's like nine eleven every day for you when you're sick or getting sick where there's a believe about fifteen hundred people with cancer right now jimmy says the government has no excuses left and needs to step it up nine eleven that's yesteryear let's not worry about it but the truth is people are sick people are dying people have cancer they're not exactly healing from this and getting better

fifty three year old t.j. gill martin echoes this a former construction worker he also has not been able to work for the last five years because of his disability following nine eleven. and i would be guessing coming out of my throat and i'm choking to death. and i can't breathe we first met t.j. shortly after the zadroga health and compensation act was passed two years ago promising financially to sick nine eleven first responders. since then i had to sell my house and sell whatever i had because the victim's compensation fund has been a. anybody since i saw you where's the nodules in my lungs have grown if they stay where they. will be fine if they grow any more they get it they got below but my one traditionally on the anniversary of nine eleven the world commemorates the lives lost on this historic day but the first responders in our

story and thousands of others are yet to receive the compensation and help they deserve a mind boggling twelve years after the tragedy and the future cannot see the light . and there are still others who were main affected by the events of nine eleven namely muslim americans who've been dealing with ever increasing islamophobia here in the united states as the war on terror has ramped up abroad today many muslim americans took to the nation's capitol here in washington d.c. for what they're calling a rally against fear but they were met with counter protesters archies lose what was there here's what you saw. well was a readily dubbed the million muslim march but it was renamed million american a march against fear and the turnout not as big as dissipated maybe a hundred people shy of the thousands of people that were expected to turn out for this event today on this anniversary of the nine eleven attacks protesters here want to bring attention to the plight of the muslim american community after the

nine eleven attacks people want to try to come together as a human race as human race or whatever your religious views for. their coming together here is the human race to say hey look we don't agree with everything we do in fact they don't even trust the government yes i have been discriminated but i don't believe. according to what. we muslims condemn turns we must little's against violence and hate. and we will slims all just like all americans one still work hard to build the second but perhaps a bigger definitely louder demonstration today is this two million bikers demonstration it's actually a counter protest to the original protest this original protest struck an anger among conservative groups because some of the organizers have ties to the nine eleven true their conspiracy group so they came out on their bikes today to make it

their voice says loud and clear they originally applied for a permit so that they could bypass all traffic signals that permit wasn't approved we caught up with them today here is what they had to say. or for victims you know a lot want to hear. things about nine eleven those who. lost their lives the families our troops who are still fighting for all the families that have lost people that's why we're here. the laborious to be able to. i was. wondering if you. thought. so a lot of different points of view being displaying today signaling that twelve years later some of the decisions and policies nine eleven remain divisive but i did

notice on both sides there is this massive unity here in washington liz wahl our team today also marks one year since the terrorist attacks on the u.s. consulate in benghazi libya which took the lives of four americans including u.s. ambassador to libya christopher stevens marking the anniversary a powerful car bomb was detonated today outside the foreign ministry building in benghazi libya ripping apart the buildings facade luckily there are no reports of casualties so this is just the latest act of violence in a nation that's still trying to find some says stability following nato intervention in the ousting of its president moammar gadhafi in two thousand and eleven. and now on to the latest regarding the national security agency's massive spying program edward snowden's latest leak published today by the guardian shows that the n.s.a. is handing over huge amounts of raw data including data belonging to american citizens to israel where it's then sifted through without any safeguards protecting

the privacy or association rights of american citizens according to an undated n.s.a. memo this intelligence sharing program with israel began in two thousand and nine and while internal documents stressed the need for israeli intelligence analysts to respect the privacy rights of american citizens the reality is israel has access to raw intelligence that has not been filtered by the n.s.a. to remove u.s. citizens communication data or yesterday trying to stay in front of leaks just like this one the director of national intelligence james clapper released hundreds of documents about the n.s.a.'s telephone call surveillance program these releases came in response to a freedom of information act requests from the electronic frontier foundation and the a.c.l.u. and included in them are previously classified pfizer court documents that show concerns from the court over how the n.s.a. is searching through americans phone communications artie's amir david now with more on what can be gleaned from this document dump more than two years ago senator

ron wyden of oregon took us senate floor to boycott a four year extension to one of the most controversial pieces of legislation the u.s. patriot act i've served on the intelligence committee for over a decade and i want to deliver a warning this afternoon when the american people find out how their government has secretly interpreted the patriot act they are going to be stunned and they are going to be angry. now we didn't know it at the time but senator wyden is words would foreshadow just an inkling of the disturbing revelations to emerge regarding americans right to privacy it's because of white and chilling comment that privacy advocates began to ask questions about how the government had been interpreted one very questionable provision of the patriot act known as section two fifteen a section that vastly expanded the government's power to spy on ordinary people

were firm to it as sensitive collection program and now more than two years after a flurry of requests and a subsequent lawsuit from the american civil liberties union and the electronic frontier foundation we finally have the answer just yesterday the office of the director of national intelligence released approximately eighteen hundred pages of documents that shed light on the constitutionality of the n.s.a.'s domestic surveillance program so we now know more details on a program that started back in two thousand and one that allowed for the government to collect our phone records in bulk that's right under this program the n.s.a. received daily transfers of all customer records from the nation's phone companies those records included incoming and outgoing calls along with the calls duration but more specifically the documents reveal that the n.s.a. had been running an automated alert list on the selected phone numbers the spy

agency kept a list of about eighteen thousand suspicious phone numbers but senior intelligence officials now say that of the phone numbers on the alert list more than fifteen thousand of them or eighty eight percent were wrongly include it and according to the documents and i say officials didn't even understand that this activity was a violation of their own internal regulations the washington post quoted one official as saying there was no single person with a complete. sanding of the business records by the system and apparently that lack of understanding led to us hmong lack of communication for three years between two thousand and six and two thousand and nine yes they provided faulty information to the fire support during which time the court continued to approve the bulk surveillance program but in two thousand and nine the court finally came down on the n.s.a. when district judge reggie walton who oversaw a u.s.

spy court wrote a blistering opinion about the n.s.a.'s abuse of power in fact the judge almost shut down the government's domestic surveillance program after he quote lost confidence in the ability of n.s.a. officials to operate it in the right way but instead of shutting down the program walton instead ordered the n.s.a. to conduct an end to end review of its policies and mandated that the organization be subject to closer monitoring this might sound familiar to those of you who are following the fallout of the n.s.a. scandal which the president's major action has been calling for its own review board so there you have it thousands of ordinary americans being searched without meeting the n.s.a. standard of reasonable articulable suspicion and as punishment they're getting review boards in washington david are too you know to dive deeper into these as he documents i'm joined by marcy wheeler investigative reporter at mt will. marcy

thanks for coming on what do these documents these ones that were we released by the d.n.i. clapper yesterday tell us about the oversight mechanisms in place not just at the n.s.a. but also within the pfizer court which we've been told is the ultimate oversight institution. well basically this program when it was put under the price of core operated for two and a half years before a judge came along and started figuring out what was going on the judge who initially approved it was a judge who was in the white house during the nixon ford transition which means he probably knew cheney and when he initially approved it it was it was stunningly bare it basically said oh sure you can do this and then that was march in august of that year the n.s.a. sort of kind of told the fisa court exactly what it was doing although not in very clear sense and it wasn't until two thousand and eight and the timing of this is it

is critically important because it wasn't until december of two thousand and eight that so literally the transition before between the obama administration the bush administration the obama administration that judge reggie walton took a closer look first wrote the opinion that should have been written in two thousand and six laying the groundwork for why this was legal in the first place and then within five weeks six weeks. had come to him and said we've got a problem because we've been doing vastly more than we told you when you approved this last month. so you know there's that two and a half year period it was the second people doing audits of this function themselves as you guys mentioned the. director alexander claimed to walton in a declaration back in two thousand and nine but golly they had no idea there wasn't one person what he actually said was there wasn't one person who knew the

architecture of this entire program but that wasn't what was that issue what was that issue was the legal advice that the n.s.a. his own lawyers had given and when alexander. spoke about that he very carefully always used the it appears to be that nobody knew what they were doing it appears he kept using appears appears appears so his claim that nobody knew it nobody one no one person knew everything first of all is completely irrelevant to the matter at hand because it didn't address whether people understood the legal issue. but then when he talked about the legal issues he very carefully couched his language because he was making a sworn declaration to a court so you know if it is completely unbelievable that they didn't know what they were doing because general alexander in particular had been in charge of cheney's legal program before this went under the court's oversight in two thousand

and six when they were doing this as well as you point out more so i want to move on real quick to this latest leak that the guardian published today. it's doesn't this further show that even with these minimal safeguards have been a say claims are in place protecting u.s. citizens data that they're essentially meaningless as long as foreign governments like israel like the u.k. like germany have free rein to search through u.s. citizens communications and then share that information with our government it's as though the work of spying on your a citizens were simply outsourced. right and and what what's really interesting is that document was from two thousand and nine we've seen the minimisation standers from two thousand and nine which pretty explicitly say foreign governments are only supposed to get the stuff for translation purposes and they're supposed to give it back what in what was in vision by that memorandum of understanding was far broader and it was almost farcical because it said well if you happen to stumble upon a u.s. person's data or god forbid you know an official whether it's you know an executive

branch official or or a congressperson please get rid of it as if any other government would get rid of it so it's those two documents the minimisation procedures which the feis a court has seen and that document which we signed with the israelis are are incompatible and so we'll have to see whether the government can offer an explanation how those two things drip drip drip drip marcy wheeler just a reporter at mt we'll done thank you thanks so much. and we're nearly two years removed from the start of the occupy wall street movement highlighting unpunished crimes on wall street in the problem of wealth inequality in the united states a new study by the economists. as and thomas piketty shows that the occupy movement and its message are still very relevant to today that's because according to this new research the top ten percent of income earners in the united states took home more than half of all the income in the country that's the highest level ever

recorded in the last century but that's not all the top one percent just one percent of americans took home a fifth of all the income earned by all americans that too is one of the highest levels of inequality ever measured in the last one hundred years now this chart clearly shows that since the since the one nine hundred eighty s. it's been good times for the super wealthy in the united states but what's behind this and what effect is this inequality having on our economy as well as our social fabric we're here to answer that is richard usko a senior fellow at the campaign for america's future richard nice to talk with you again good to be yours the last time the income share of the top one percent was close to this high was before the great depression in one thousand nine hundred ninety two before the great recession in two thousand and eight should that be a warning sign and what is it about too much wealth concentrated at the top that drives the economic crisis well there is slow crises and fast crises and when you have too much wealth at the top the slow crisis is that everyone else's income is

stagnating there aren't enough jobs there isn't enough money circulating for people to buy the goods and services that they want need so that it leads to unemployment that's a slow crisis that the connection between this concentration of wealth and the kind of immediate crisis you're talking about whether it's the great depression or the recession is the nature of the wealth that gets concentrated at the top which is wealth from stocks wealth from speculation wealth from highly risky financial investments so usually when you see an enormous concentration of a. wealth at the top it means that we are accumulating that kind of wealth which is very volatile and very risky and that's what we've seen that's what we saw before the great crash we saw a lot of speculation bubbles in in the stock market a lot of gambling we saw a lot of that again after the deregulation of the ninety's in the mortgage securities market in the derivatives market and elsewhere and what this is telling us now and we see the sikkim elation happening again two things one is we didn't

rescue the economy we created a recovery for the rich and a recession for the rest that's number one and number two is because we did it that way because we emphasize that kind of growth in wealth not only are the ninety nine percent suffering but we're going back to a risky market based volatile economy as you point out i mean since the recession a lot of these the top one percent are doing just fine now it's not doing better but with each new job report we hear about the creation of brand new low wage service sector jobs for the rest of us not high paying jobs and it's been remarked that this is the new american economy do you agree and how does that contribute to this growing inequality that we say. well it's the american economy they have in mind for our side it certainly doesn't need to be the new american economy but it's the one that a lot of people and power and a lot of people with influence and money would like to see which is an economy of

enormous wealth accumulation at the top combined with. high unemployment low wage service economy for the rest of us and yet you know it's fascinating sam because if you talk to some of these folks they're also historically savvy enough that if some of them are very frightened because they know that in economy like that is unstable and threaten social unrest and threatens political unrest so they're basically in the mindset of let's grab everything we can out of this what you describe as a new american economy and if it blows up hopefully it will have enough to take our money and perhaps our lives somewhere else this is all happening under you know we're five years into the presidency of barack obama he's slow to be idea of cutting social security raising the retirement age for medicare what does that do to the legacy of a party to this party that has a legacy of working on behalf of working people where do working people turn to now to kind of remedy this in just the last thirty seconds here ok and i always think

of neil young's line about the kinder gentler machine gun hand when i think about the notion that the democrats are the party of more humane administration of a receding economy i think the answer is that people need to press their elected representatives to speak for their interests and people need to get out in the streets if necessary and people need to express their opinions every way they can that this is unacceptable richard usko senior fellow at the campaign for america's future thank you. thank you and that does it for now for more on the stories we covered go to youtube dot com forward slash r.t. america and check out our web site r t v dot com forward slash usa and you can follow me on twitter at sam sachs meantime we'll see you back here at five pm.

well. technology innovation and all the latest developments from around russia. the future covered. more news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. showing corporations rule the day.

stumbling in syria there can be no doubt feel balmy administration would very much like to strike syria and strike a hard problem is if you actually bought into the administration's so-called commonsense reasoning surrounding assad's alleged use of chemical weapons what is the administration's real aim and has it painted itself into a red line for not. one of your. colleagues face. a pleasure to have you with us here on t.v. today i'm sure.

suzy's of a culmination of globalization and. nowhere else in the world a conflict so strongly concentrated as. cities are of the he business. bustling with possibilities yet vulnerable. those wanting to hama society ambushed the city and its daily life. cities a defenseless against this form of terrorism. there are now britain's vulnerable. how do cities respond to this threat. and how does fit change our open lifestyle.