coming up on our t.v. close sun is still out for the u.s. government both sides here in washington are blaming each other on some much needed services across the country remain shut down so who is really to blame we'll dive into that topic ahead and the giant n.s.a. spy center in utah is quite literally melting down meanwhile here in d.c. congressional scrutiny of the n.s.a. is heating up more on that coming up and in miami florida three police officers face extortion charges they're accused of using the state database to steal personal info of florida residents that story later in today's show. it's wednesday october ninth four pm in washington d.c.

i'm sam sachs and you're watching our team and we begin on capitol hill where lawmakers who may be feeling anxious about the pro long shutdown or the possibility of a default in the coming days can take a little steam off they can relax at the house gym yes well government services around the country have been slashed furloughing more than eight hundred thousand federal workers including medical researchers meteorologists food safety inspectors transportation safety officials and so on all deemed non-essential during the shutdown the house gym which boasts a swimming pool a sauna and a basketball court has been deemed essential and it's been up and running throughout the fiasco although it is reported that towel service at the gym has been discontinued so i guess the pain is spreading around meanwhile republicans in the house are pushing forward with more piecemeal funding bills to reopen parts of the government today house republicans passed legislation to provide funding to families of sole. meet families of soldiers who've died in wars overseas since the

shutdown five members of the military were killed in afghanistan over the weekend their normally one hundred thousand dollars is given to the these families within three days to handle funeral costs and other expenses but since the shutdown those checks have been withheld republicans in the house are also attempting to fund flight safety inspectors at the federal aviation administration and democrats are opposed to this piecemeal funding strategy perhaps because as this charge shows it would probably be another ten weeks before republicans got around to fully funding the government if indeed they do intend to fill out the rest of that pie chart maybe that's the point also we're receiving more clarity on what the u.s. government may be facing if the debt limit is not raised in the next week or so essentially the treasure it will not be allowed to borrow any more money meaning it will have to cover the government's daily expenses with whatever tax revenue is coming in that particular dead basically the u.s.

government would be living paycheck to paycheck to pay off creditors retirees and other services and according to the congressional budget office the u.s. government receives on average seven billion dollars a day in revenue some days more some days less so just how far can seven billion dollars get the u.s. government day today well let's look at the calendar not very far because on october twenty third the government will owe social security benefits beneficiaries a payment of twelve billion dollars plus billions and other obligations seven billion won't cover it then on november first huge obligations to medicare doctors social security recipients and members of veterans and our military come due totaling more than fifty eight billion dollars next. there are twelve billion dollars in social security payments come due and on november fifteenth the treasury needs to pay a twenty nine billion dollar interest payment on our debt now that's an important

date since if the u.s. can't meet that obligation then it would have fishley be in default so the republican strategy of prioritizing debt payments to avoid default once we pass the debt limit may work but it will only work until november fifteenth so that what the united states is looking at if no deal is reached here so what should we make out of all of this well for more i'm joined by ben swann founder of ben's on dot com ben welcome the show so sam thanks for having as a as a reporter how do you think the government shutdown should be covered by the media i mean should blame be assigned to both parties in the interest of fair and balanced reporting. or is one side clearly to blame here how do you see it. well i struggle a little bit even with the word balance because balance indicates there's only two sides here right the right side and the left side which media obviously wants us to believe there is it's this whole read left right paradigm obviously there are

a lot more sides to this issue than simply that how does media cover it well one of the problems we run into is media is constantly running this clock if you will trying to determine where the pulse of the american people is to decide are they angry at republicans are they angry at democrats are they angry at washington for the way they're conducting the shutdown and the angry at washington for not allowing vets of the world war two memorial are they mad at congress for having their gym open and so it's this kind of twenty four seven game of trying to gauge where the people are instead of talking about the real issues at hand which of course in this case really come back to the issue of the fact that we have a law that was whether you like the affordable care act or not was legally passed by the congress it was signed into law by the president and whether you like it or not it was upheld by the u.s. supreme court it should be passed into law so i mean just going off the point here i mean there are a lot of similarities between the both parties and you could. both of them on on you know whether how they respond to war surveillance coziness with wall street all

those things you can find problems with republicans and democrats on this issue though this is one of the few issues where there are huge differences between the two parties on this on this obamacare law. and that seems to be a sticking point i guess the other sticking point is this idea of the sequester and in spending cuts which seems to be democrats and republicans aren't on the right page here on that day my wrong in saying that's what's fueling the shutdown and if i'm not wrong on that then doesn't the media have an obligation to point out the fact that republicans are basically acting. you know troublesome in this area. well i think the left and right are much closer on this issue than we give them credit for because even though there is the appearance that they are really you know working opposite each other here look the big issue here that's not being addressed is simply this if congress was truly interested in providing fairness because they keep talking about we're delaying the individual mandate to twenty

fifteen because the employer mandate has been delayed until twenty fifteen that's really what this is this fight back and forth is over then they would talk about the fact that essentially if you want to have a fair law apply equally to everyone and that doesn't just mean for the employer mandate it means for every exemption that's been granted including the fact that members of congress on both sides of the aisle we have an article about as a binns one dot com john boehner and harry reid working together to try to preserve a subsidy for congressional staff members and so where there are more similar than different is that both republicans and democrats have gone along with the idea that certain groups should receive exemptions and they should receive subsidies whereas other segments of the population do not if you want to make it fairer than say if the law should be instituted fairly everyone is going to be subjected to it the same way if we're not going to have it then you release everyone from it the same way but we don't have that argument right now it goes back to the same issue with the debt ceiling when we're talking about that issue the fights going to be over

where the spending cuts need to happen but what neither side is going to talk about is the fact that under the fourteenth amendment the u.s. government must service the debt first it must service outstanding debt after that everything else including entitlement programs come later and so when you gave those those numbers a few minutes ago it was a lot of numbers for folks about two hundred billion dollars a month is what the u.s. brings in in tax revenue you bring in two hundred billion a month that means you have to service debt interest payments first and then everything else comes next well that's where the battle is over it's not going to be in fact over the reality of that the. both sides are going to say the full faith and credit of the united states will be hanging in the balance and that's actually untrue right but a year you said two hundred billion a month on a daily basis that works out to like seven billion dollars a day and the treasury is not going to be able to bank on tax revenue coming in at the end of the month when they're out the first of the month given the way that the borrowing works and how they can't borrow any more so when we get to one of these

debt servicing payments that exceed seven billion dollars on that one day or we flirting with a serious problem here and for members of congress who are saying that this might not be so bad once we go to the delamination it is or a few weeks isn't that being disingenuous. but whether disingenuous when they say it won't be so bad until something that they believe in has to be cut it's doable it's possible to do this and to keep the debt service you know debt being serviced excuse me the problem they're going to run into is when republicans suddenly realize they don't have the money to fund every military program they want to fund or they don't have money to pay veterans the checks that they are deserving then republicans are going to say well wait a minute now this is too far this is a problem on the left it's going to be the same issue with whatever issues that they support so it's social security there to say wait a minute we can't support this and so that's what we really see right now is that it's possible for the government to continue to function by just servicing the debt

through the amount of tax revenue that's coming in what's not possible for every project they support and so all of a sudden there's going to be you know the wailing and gnashing of teeth when their particular project can't get funded and that's where we're going to see the real back and forth over this issue and ultimately that's why when members of congress say it won't be so bad they're being disingenuous because they're saying it won't be so bad if your stuff gets cut not if my stuff gets cut through the media also has been focused on who's going to win this you know they've been saying the longer the democrats will win shutdown goes on democrats will win or looking back to ninety five ninety six republicans lost so that's going to be what happens now but really all of this makes government look bad it makes congress look bad and in the end doesn't that benefit political parties that have belief systems centered on scaling back government maybe libertarians or people who are running on a platform that look government isn't as necessary as we've been led to believe.

well i think that the one group that is right now looking at this whole situation and saying we told you so are libertarians and groups who say for instance you know we see this this incredible crackdown on people being a national parks in case they can't possibly allow someone to go into a national park you know if it's been shut down by the government or parts of the ocean around the florida coast that have been shut down as part of this government shutdown because people can't go fishing and so what we're seeing over and over is that there is an attempt by government in this case to inflict pain on the citizenry in order to make sure that they you know prompt congress to move on this and that makes government look very bad because ultimately it highlights the point that a lot of folks have been making as of late which is that government does not act as a representative of the people it acts as a lord over the people and this is a great example of that in many people's minds. those libertarians who are benefiting is i'm going to be a lot of the people who are taking a hard hard stance here but we're out of time ben swan founder of ben swan dot com

thanks so much sam thanks we'll be on edward snowden's leaks may have caused a meltdown among the n.s.a. his top brass trying to keep secrets you know the n.s.a. has mass spying operations are literally causing meltdowns at its new spy center in utah the wall street journal reports that the enormous two billion dollar n.s.a. data center under construction in bluffdale utah built to store everything the n.s.a. is collecting which we've recently learned includes all of americans phone metadata and at least seventy five percent of all internet communications with in the u.s. is now experiencing major technical problems since august at least ten electrical surges have led to important computers and components to actually melt each meltdown has resulted in one hundred thousand dollars in damages meanwhile. while the wall of all that's going on in utah some of the n.s.a.'s biggest critics have arrived in washington d.c. they came to institute to talk to the institute here and to discuss the legal

economic technological in journalistic consequences of the n.s.a.'s spying habits we've got to hear our g.'s meghan lopez was out that she joins me now to break down what was discussed more than welcome thank you for having me let's start with senator wyden he's been one of the most vocal critics of the n.s.a. he gave the keynote address at this cato conference and the interesting thing about why didn't he's been he's been kind of talking critically about all these n.s.a. secrets for a while and now they've been exposed has did he have anything to say about that he absolutely who want to say about it sammy as you mentioned it's something that he's been talking about for years and for years and he's obviously received a lot of pushback first are a lot of people that didn't agree because he simply didn't have the evidence to prove this and also he's been saving a receiving a lot of pushback from the n.s.a. intelligence community itself one of the things that he says was going to happen that actually did happen today a little bit away from here on a different side of washington was that keith alexander and the n.s.a.

intelligence community were going to use media mischaracterization of government surveillance programs he said it was going to happen sure enough just about an hour ago this article popped up right so i actually there was a senator congressman amash was there as well and he called senator wyden the congressional whistleblower because he was his questions to get the intelligence community to try to say things that he himself is not a lot of say due to non-disclosure forms that he had to fill out and certain intelligence community things that he's just not allowed to share but he did say that he was very liberated to actually be able to have this opportunity to now speak on the record about it and i think we have a clip of that. in america the truth always comes out any government official who thought that there wouldn't be disclosures about a constitutionally flawed you know program just didn't read history and i in fact

outlined that history on the floor of the united states senate does several years ago when ai indicated that americans would be stunned and angry when they learned and b. that history shows that fortunately in our country the truth always comes out. so he also went on to say that he started asking those questions specifically about coming out with the feis of court orders as a way to pull the first thread to on ravel this whole web of in a safe surveillance that he knew about but mr blake couldn't tell the others a very interesting point that he made was that the dragnet surveillance or the bulk collection has not had any real material help with the n.s.a. terrorism programs and trying to find these people and i remember the interview he did with rolling stone a few weeks ago and i asked him because as a member of congress he has a privilege to be able to go on the floor and say anything and he has immunity basically over that and why he never thought about just expose spilling all these secrets before edward snowden on the floor and talked about how he sort of might

have regretted that but pretty interesting position he's been in over the last few years as a result of all this another member of congress who's been very critical of the n.s.a. has actually moved legislation trying to defund the n.s.a. as congressman justin amash from from michigan who's in the house he was at this conference as well what did you have to say about being a member of congress trying to get the information he needs to legislate properly when it comes to the n.s.a. well the first thing that i should say is that the entire theme of this in a say cato institute conference was wording wording is very important because the wording that the n.s.a. uses with the feisty amendment act and things like that determines how they can use the law for instance the word target the way that you and i use target to say it directly affects one person is not how the n.s.a. sees it also when it comes to congress the wording that they use to ask a question will or will not get

a response so he talked about having to go three or four times. and ask questions in very different types of ways in order to get the answer that they were looking for and we actually have a clip from him as well you don't know what questions to ask because you don't know . you don't know what what the baseline is you don't know haven't i any idea what kind of things are going on you have to start just spitting out random questions does the does the government have a moon base does it. have does the government have a talking bear does the government have a cyborg army if if you don't know what kind of things the government might have you just have to guess and it becomes a totally ridiculous game of twenty questions if you ask something in slightly the wrong way they will tell you no they'll say no we don't do that so as you can see

it all comes down to this wording but i was ten and senator wyden went on to say that they are pushing for obviously the amash meant for senator wyden still in the senate and also for wessel there are protections going forward to really find out if the government had a cyborg arm was actually the important to sort of work now that we know or to correspond to making lopez thank you. now last weekend's raids in libya and somalia have many wondering if the white house is moving away from its drone assassination program and back to its rendition program well that remains to be seen but there is rumbling about a shift occurring within the drone strategy a shift toward more autonomy drones as defense reporter joshua falce recently wrote about one way to protect the drones from being hacked is to make sure they don't need human operators they'd be referred to as lethal autonomous robots in some industry officials and military folk believe that automated drones could be the trick to quicker more precise strikes since they'll be able to think for themselves

now of course this is a controversial pro to new drone technology lars are likely a bit of a ways off but there are other drones in development that may be deployed soon that also force us to rethink the role of drones or t. sarah firth breaks breaks down a new batch of drones that could be a new threat to public privacy. is it a bird is it a plane well actually if you guessed only for days you'd be cool east right this is one of the new strains on the market is this company maxim's defense unit x. this behind the creation of this unmanned aerial vehicle o u a v but this is a drone with a difference is being designed to look like a native birds though it's already in operation as a bird strike avoidance system but like how say that they want to expand its uses as a surveillance drone they could also eight firefighters all be used in drug trafficking

operations detroit known as shepherd milk we showcased at this year's international in london the average price is one hundred thousand euros and giving a whole new meaning to bird's eye view the company claim it's so well camouflaged that compared to standard you eat bees the fly about thousand meters and take to destroy can fly just one hundred meters above the enemy with the sea the fact is finished by the sky the beach this is thing as. well as the from the bottom for real time information. to decide what to do or say in the formation. to go. simply to. persist being tested by the spanish military

but expo say that they're already in talks to sell it to several other countries armed forces the drone is currently available for civilian purchase axtell told r.t. that for now he has beats the birds but by the end of the year they hate to sign two important. contacts with a link display it and see two thousand campaign is it can find it it's the yes it's not the development kid make it harder today and throughout the keeping their eyes. on. now we go down to miami for a story about crooked cops through police officers were busted for a series of crimes including extortion and identity theft but all frederick nathaniel dolphin and molinsky brazil will all be facing time in jail for their roles in a crime ring been involved using police computers to search through the state of

florida's computerized license plate databases to collect personal information which was then used to file fraudulent income tax returns to collect hundreds of thousands of dollars despite initially confessing one of the officers molinsky brazil is now pleading not guilty and his trial is under way another officer nathaniel dolphin work with police to uncover the crimes in return for a shorter prison sentence and the last officer but tell frederick was found guilty last week in a miami court and faces as much as twenty two years in prison frederick claims he was forced to go along with the scheme at a fear that his fellow officers may reveal the fact that he was dead for more on this tangled web of public trust betrayal i'm joined from miami by our t's nicholas o'donovan nicholas welcome tell us more about these officers crimes. there sam how you doing while it does look more like a new version over two point zero version of miami vice it has for sure all the

ingredients it has will turn police officers and liars and secrets but the truth is that all three officers have been charged with identity theft and the one we know the most about is the case of twenty eight year old police officer milinski brazil who has now actually been found guilty of identity theft by a florida federal court business method was quite simple actually here he had access obviously to florida's computerized driver's license database where he searched for potential victims mostly women with common last names such as smith or gonzalez and then he used their personal information to fire to file fraudulent income tax returns the truth is that it wasn't the most difficult crime in the world to commit the officer just had to sit at his desk and retrieve the names and other information from the police database then he submitted those false income tax

returns and attain founds he had the rebound loaded on prepaid debit cards and withdrew the money from different a.t.m. within broward and miami dade county although it seemed at the beginning like a quick and easy way of get in an extra bit of money brazil got probably too greedy and images leave well we made more than one hundred forty thousand dollars in two thousand and eleven and two thousand and twelve in a handwritten confession after he was confronted by police while he said that he spent the money on trips and presents for his family therefore the money is gone and he apologized and said that he will pay back any debt with brazil joined the miami police department back in two thousand and eight and then for years he was stealing identities. for at least a thousand people a thousand different people and use in this data to file the fraudulent income tax

returns he's waiting now for sentencing but he faces a maximum of ten years in prison and the for the most serious charges and at least two dition we is in prison for three counts of aggravated identity theft so one hundred thirty hundred forty thousand dollars that's a that's a lot of money how did all this come falling down how is this crime ring busted. it's a lot of money and for sure it's more money that he made as a police officer but how it came down well brazil obviously when he polled the money he took precautions such as where in a hat pulled down or pulled low and he tried to you know hide his face from the security cameras that we all know well i installed in on inside all the a.t.m. but one day probably he got lazy and clearly showed his face for investigators to see brazil was wearing a chicago bulls hat cap actually when investigators then questioned him at his home they found the exact hat and shredded debit cards that is how you actually was

captured but as you mentioned by the time and by that time another officer was involved this officer was nothing fan and he was already working with police and he actually helped them arrest brazil then brazil also acted as an on the cover and helped authorities capture twenty seven year old. frederick actually these two zero and frederick were close friends they were buddies they knew each other from high school then they they both joined the police back in two thousand and eight and one can only question if it was all something they had been planning for years and the only join the police to gain access to this information or was it just a case of plain and simple corruption anyways for sure they friendship well ended no one brazil went undercover and helped or thora tease gather information on frederic to us there you know we're told to take precautions to make sure it

doesn't get stolen unclear we are supposed to do when the cops are stirring it straight from the start of this is but we're out of time here it is nicholas o'donovan from our miami studios thank you. finally we've all likely seen this commercial from geico featuring a camel going on and on about what his favorite day is. mike mike mike mike mike mike. leslie guess what today is it's hump day. well there's one middle school in connecticut that once nothing to do with hump day in fact they've banned the phrase from even being uttered one school in connecticut says the joke a sworn in the sixth grade teacher had word in middle school say that the phrase has become so disrupted the actual banning kids from. so from now on wednesdays are wednesdays at vernon middle school not hump it which makes you wonder what problem the school has with camels after all that's what holidays referring to

right the camel's hump right there. ok i get it home today. does it for now i'm sam sax we'll see you back here at five pm. real funny. it's no good saying it's a lot to you melissa and you can expect some of the toughest writing. of the rest of the film to. see.

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