see another's face. olympic torch relay. on our team. coming up on our t.v. on the verge of a self-inflicted economic disaster it appears washington has finally decided to act the senate has reached a deal that will reopen the government and avoid a default of u.s. debt but will the house act updates from capitol hill ahead. and inside good mo we'll take you inside the detention facility for a look at what conditions are like there it's a series of special reports that begin today here on our tape. and later more revelations about the growing surveillance state here in the u.s. according to say leaker edward snowden the agency is collecting and storing americans personal e-mail address books and instant messaging buddy lists more details later in the show.

it's wednesday october sixteenth four pm in washington d.c. i'm sam sachs and you're watching r.t. and we begin on capitol hill where there could be a deal in the works to reopen the government and they avoid a debt default that deal emerged from the senate after a night of negotiations and after the credit rating agency fitch put u.s. treasury bonds on rating watch negative a move that usually precedes a credit downgrade artie's liz wall is on capitol hill and she has the latest. looks like a deal has finally been reached here on capitol hill it comes after the partial government shutdown carries on into its third week and the announcement came early this afternoon it was negotiated by senate majority leader harry reid and senate minority leader mitch mcconnell now the deal comes just hours after the debt ceiling deadline is set to be breached this debt ceiling if it is breached it could have it could be even more countess trough it than this current government shutdown

and that's because that is when the government would run out of money to pay its bills but it looks like at least for now that crisis has been averted it's important to note that even though a deal has been reached it's just temporary here is what it would do it would fund the government until january fifteenth it would raise the debt ceiling until february seventh it would set up a long term budget negotiations hopefully leading to more permanent solutions and it would mandate income verification for recipients of obamacare subsidies so as you can see not much of a win for republicans at the heart of this deadlock is obamacare the affordable care act president obama's signature piece of legislation republicans have been trying to strip away at funding for this law doesn't look like that is going to happen at all we've seen this bitter dispute inside even inside of the republican

party itself but members of the tea party not giving in at all on this obamacare issue frustrating many republicans that. have been a little bit more flexible on this issue. as we had mentioned this is just a temporary deal so it's likely we're going to see more partisan bickering in just a few months but at least for now for a load of government employees can look forward to getting back to work soon here at the capitol is wall. so assuming everything goes according to plan the house gets in line passes the senate still and then the white house signs it then the government will reopen and we'll have to wonder what exactly did forcing it to shut down for two weeks more than two weeks really accomplish because ultimately by voting on a relatively clean spending bill and debt limit increase speaker boehner is doing what democrats have been asking him to do all long since even before the shutdown we could have had this deal two weeks ago but instead we went through furloughing hundreds of thousands of workers first denying cancer trials to sit kids and

distributing food around the country without proper inspections only now after all of that are we right back to where we started a similar deal to reopen the government in avoid a default sort of people watching washington from afar this looks absolutely insane and here's the thing it might actually be insane joining me now is dr douglas fields pitch d. in neuroscience is an author of the book the other brain dr fields welcome to the show thank you so let's try to get away from the politics for a second in the economics for a second try to put our finger on some what might be driving this from a neurological standpoint. what's your take on the psychology on capitol hill right now and what sort of fueled this dysfunction that we've seen over the last few weeks on this issue neurologically i think what we're seeing play out on the national stage is hurting behavior human her hurting behavior which is very important unconscious behavior that allows us to form complex societies and i think

that can provide some perspective on what's going on so when you say hurting behavior that means people acting in a group in losing their kind of own agency to make right and wrong decisions of exactly group behavior is adopting a modeling the behavior of the group that you're in and an individual develop emotions and feelings thoughts and behavior according to the group around them and one of the important things about herding behavior that psychologists know is that it reduces the threshold for deviant behavior. for. conducting yourself in ways that would be otherwise considered cruel and you would never do as an individual so hurt a reduces the likelihood of your say exactly but in this case it seems to be promoting that sort of behavior because i mean you could say that the actions that have been coming out of congress over the last few weeks have been extremely harmful to the country that's correct and reduces the threshold for participating in the so you're exactly right no congressman would stand in front of

a mother taking her sick child with with cancer stand in front that woman to prevent her from taking her child into the end for treatment on an individual level that would be cruel no member of congress would would prevent their neighbor from going to work in the morning and earning a living and contributing to society in their own way now that would also be unacceptable. and many of these things that we see going on and we accept only because of a psychosis hurting behavior so that could explain away why a republican is in moscow might have gotten together to kind of force this shutdown to exact these demands which have led to this shutdown how do you explain behavior of individuals leading misheard maybe senator ted cruz or certain members of the house you know individually they will lead a movement they they state they put their self on the line to do all these things that denied any cancer treatments or it led to hundreds of thousands of people

being furloughed i mean can we right there just decisions off based on this herd mentality as well well hurting behavior describes the behavior where people adopt behaviors and attitudes and beliefs according to the individuals around them whether you like an i phone or a gucci bag depends it's not a rational decision and it's not behavior this dictated so while we have leaders in groups they're not really dictating necessarily the behaviors and thoughts of the other members of their their herd they are. participating so it's a natural process it's essential for humans to form social structures to coalesce around others in their group so there are leaders but they're not dictating behavior but one of all the individuals in the group but once you become part of this group you adopt unconsciously those same those same beliefs and behaviors so as ted cruz a psychopath this is not psychopathic behavior in the sense that it's normal behavior there would be no human society if we didn't have this propensity and

neural circuits which are unique to humans that allow us to mimic and adopt other people's behaviors but what is what is in a sense psychotic about it is that. an individual would not behave this way towards other individuals except for the anonymity and the reduced compassion and apathy that develops in herds and we see this in mob violence and. why is this her herd mentality. because so much more prevalent it seems in the last two and a half years in congress than we've seen before i mean the debt limit had been raised you know so and so the government shut has shut down in the past not for this long it was usually over spending issues not over issues like obamacare but we've seen this sort of every few months dysfunction dysfunction dysfunction what do you make of this uptick in recent years i've wondered about that myself i don't have the answer to that but i think the flip side of that is that the solution from

a rural scientific point of view is to realize that that these tendencies to form herds and take actions that are really. destructive and cruel are a result of this deeply ingrained behavior in human beings and that their way out of this is to perceive that we're all part of a larger group or that we're all the same group of americans and that dividing into these factions. and becoming aligned with a faction within a group leads to this kind of problem of. behavior but a lot of people are blaming washington d.c. the actual location washington d.c. for christmas sort of empathy between what's actually the problems americans are facing today and the problems that congress is focused on is there's something in the air in washington d.c. that inhibits our empathy we're receptors. no it's just that this is where it happens this is where the groups coalesced and they have these interactions. but i

think that what will happen is that either members of congress will realize that we're all part of a bigger group and have to come together or the larger group that is america the citizens are going to remind them through their votes that that you know this is this is not an acceptable behavior to sabotage the normal operation of government and i think by and large people don't accept that this is something that actually psychopathic about choosing to be a politician and choosing to go to appeal to people you know ask for votes all the time i mean there's been studies one percent of the population is believed to be psychopathic something like four percent of corporate america fifteen percent in prisons where you think the rate is on congress you know i think that members of congress are all well meaning most of them quite devoted individuals and you know by and large i don't most of us are composed of them yes not all. names some of them certainly requires a unique set of skills and

a lot of in arrogance or fortitude that a lot of people don't have dr douglas fields neuroscientist and author of the other brain thanks so much thank you very much. now for more on the action on capitol hill i spoke earlier with democratic congressman rush holt of new jersey and i started by asking him about his first impressions of the deal that came out of the senate this morning. well that it comes at the end of several wasted weeks there are several ingredients as i understand now no one has seen anything in writing yet none of the democrats have anyway but we think the ingredients of this agreement are that there will be an extension of the debt ceiling into february early february that there will be a continuing resolution to keep the government operating into january. that there is an agreement that there will be budget discussions undertaken between now and

december. all of this is to say that after shutting down the government threatening our good our good record our good financial record. neither side has gained anything here we could have passed the debt ceiling weeks ago we could have kept the government operating all this time the democrats have been saying for months that they wanted to go to conference on the budget committee on the budget resolutions the difference between the house and the senate . as for health care which is essentially nowhere in this agreement there's a minor point evidently they want more income verification before people get assistance from the federal government in paying their premiums but that's it's a minor point certainly nothing worth threatening to shut down the the entire

economy over. and why why that's what i'm left with why would people hold the country hostage why would these arsonists and hostage takers carry on as they did. you know they're they have nothing to show for it. the republican caucus has. i think one thing that is going to come out of this badly damaged because they can't hold together the democrats have held together in this senate is said you don't negotiate on some of these fundamental points about how this government works and if i could just i want to just jump in here on this you're on something you're kind of me you're kind of we have to go on areas i want a long time ago right but i mean clearly it's hard to find someone who wins or loses out of this deal as you sort of mentioned there was the pain of a two weeks of a shutdown a national embarrassment that all this caused but i mean at the end of the day you've prevented republicans from using the delaminate to exact more cuts to

obamacare but democrats are going to all line up to support a spending number that's more in line with republican demands that's more in line with austerity in this clean senate spending resolution what should democrats like yourself make of that. well of course that's the number that was was in play because of the sequester and you know if this if this crisis had been avoided if we had dealt with this weeks or months ago as we could have we could have turned our attention to. increased revenue. i've asli austerity and spending cuts are not the way to go but we could have we could have dealt with that we could have gotten the sequester fixed now we're going to turn attention to it and i think fix the sequester another words. remove some of these deep. cuts. the i think

that's going to be the result of these budget negotiations and. i do think that you know if you talk about winning and losing the democrats come out of this feeling unified. the democrats stuck to their principles stuck to our principles in this and said you we won't negotiate with hostage takers the republicans come out of this fractured because they've demonstrated as recently as today they can't hold together they can't agree they couldn't even agree why they were holding the country hostage was it about the affordable care act was it about a demand for austerity was it about you know some something to do with social insurance and and medicare. they could say one more one more question congress they come out of it politically weakened i think one more question here before

where the time is the debt limit and the idea of a shutdown a flaw in our government i mean the debt limit itself is an unusual concept in all other countries the budget isn't agreed to the same funding levels are just kept the government doesn't shut down so should we consider making fundamental reforms to our budgeting process and to payments to avoid this sort of mess in the future. you know going all the way back to james madison in the framers of our constitution you know they put in checks and balances in divided powers. they made it clear however that a self-governing country depends on the goodwill of the of the people and the governmental mechanism a self-governing country works only if you believe it does and i'd certainly hope that there are no fun there's no fundamental damage to the willingness of people to govern themselves that there's no fundamental damage to the american

cherished belief that we can govern ourselves there's no regulations or rules or parliamentary procedure that can guarantee it certainly our constitution provides some very good checks and balances against unbridled power and concentrated power. but it but it has the framers said that's not an airtight guarantee and certainly let's hope we can get back to a time of goodwill and the last few weeks have been sort of trying all there's a sufficient congressman rush holt from new jersey thank you so much for joining us thank you well a u.s. government default may be averted after all it's a porter remember that this is a short term deal and the possibility of a default a few months from now has still not been taken off the table which is why you might be important to learn lessons about previous nations that have defaulted artie's period boring to just that which he set out with the former finance minister of

cyprus a country that went through a messy default earlier this year and had to be rescued by central banks in europe . the u.s. has been on the brink of a crisis the entire month of october and given your experience of governing during a crisis how do we solve this reasonable people can have a difference about the role of government is that too big too small should be borrowing too much should it be solving social security and health this way or about twenty eight but the way to solve these problems is not on a cliff hunger on a crisis and on the kind of keeping things pressure on that you have blackmailing do you think that the u.s. has lived beyond its means well i think the u.s. has been fortunate in the sense that it's like a bank it prints the money that other people except so you can live beyond your means so it an extended period of time without being punished by the markets but

clearly we have seen enough people out of no seriously concern about that and. both domestically and internationally so yes the answer is yes well do you have any advice for lawmakers here in the u.s. what do you think we should do or should we raise the debt ceiling should we start prioritizing payments austerity measures i mean what advice would you have i think taking a more. responsible to do you know forget whether you have a safe seat and therefore you don't have to warre that. even though majority of the american people will be against continuing these crazy situation take a more sort of national goal but if you're not excessively sponsibility and see this problem too it doesn't really help to be polarized and one has to really decide what are the priorities and you cannot to pay for everything that really

is very true you know that about yourself myself. it is the companies we work with the countries we have served you cannot do that over the next and that period of time you really have to make choices some of them are not pleasant and you cannot police all the people all of the time you've got to make those cuts and hopefully you're doing it in a way that it does not affect the prospects of future growth it doesn't really affect those of those citizens that meet the government most there are many who get benefits we don't really need them and those who need them who don't really get them so some kind of redistribution also would be helpful to have old soul and sustained upward social but it going forward there's archies perry and boring reporting they want to the u.s. detention facility at guantanamo bay where our t.v.

recently sent reporter anastasiya churkin up to cover the latest coming out of the prison that's now been indefinitely detaining terror suspects for more than a decade here's her first report. after a few months of people work to get cleared to visit the base the trip to get mobile . from the big apple to fort lauderdale in florida and from there a short hour and a half flight one largely kept under wraps with no indications of it on departure boards. the minute we landed were greeted by escorts who stay with us every step of our trip the special guantanamo joint task force media team. one of them sergeant rebecca wood far from the stereotypical face you might imagine working at a place like this controversial military base as we soon learned the first of many surprises this is a really big break for me in my career from my military resume the people i work with every day they they share the same idea like they're all very proud to be here

she joined the u.s. military a decade ago with no money for college a twenty eight one ton a most her second deployment you've heard about it like several movies but you don't really and this is a place that people forget about only they don't ever think about it getting to the main part of the base is a slow pace trip we have to wait for a ferry to take us across the bay and are taken to visit a beach first one of a handful of scenic locations you wouldn't really expect here we're headed to the lodging area now it's about a twenty minute ferry ride one side of the bay area where the airport is. several revisers but the main part of the people and the detention camp are over there are having given its reputation guantanamo isn't quite what we anticipated as we approach the meeting area it's interesting to note that to be unsuspecting this place looks just like another tropical island with an american flag would never be that good since the place housing one of the united states for us presidents the

lodging area were taken to is like any typical hotel with palm trees and a marina right out the window first impressions this can't be the place that has been casting a long shot. in america's human rights image for over a decade where torture allegations hunger strikes and force feeding have been making headlines i remember when i moved here i thought i would just see like people in orange jumpsuits and fences everywhere but i mean the families all stay on one side and the rest kind of happens on another the other side as where total of seven hundred seventy nine detainees of america's war on terror have been kept since two thousand and two a total of one hundred sixty four now remaining at a whopping eight hundred thousand taxpayer dollars per detainee per year there was a tease on a saucer churkin reporting a cigarette for the five pm show she'll join us to talk to us more about her assignment. this week we learned of another bulk data collection program being run out of the national security agency the n.s.a. based on documents provided by n.s.a.

leaker edward snowden the n.s.a. is collecting and storing millions of personal e-mail address books and instant messaging buddy lists including those belonging to americans basically the way it works is as someone logs into their yahoo or g. mail or facebook account those company's servers which are often located overseas transmit the user's address book and buddy list to them across the internet and what's in that transit data links house overseas that the n.s.a. steps in and scoops out that information and since this collection is happening overseas instance it doesn't exclusively target americans then the n.s.a. doesn't need to legally justify this collection to anyone outside the n.s.a. or the executive branch as far as collection numbers go and they're enormous as one document showed in just a single day in two thousand and twelve the n.s.a. collected more than four hundred forty four thousand e-mail address books from yahoo another hundred five thousand plus from hotmail more than eighty two thousand

from facebook and nearly thirty four thousand from g. mail plus more than twenty two thousand other address books from other providers just as a typical day that works out to roughly two hundred fifty million address books collected every year by the n.s.a. there's e-mail and chat companies cited in these documents deny any involvement in handing over their customer's contact lists to senior u.s. intelligence officials told the washington post that yes americans address books are swept into their databases as well perhaps even millions of them now unlike another bulk program run out of the n.s.a. the telephony metadata program that scoops up data belonging to american citizens as well this program that captures address books and buddy list give the n.s.a. a lot more information to work with as they create social maps and look for connections to foreign. gets telephone metadata reveals only phone numbers and time in length of call but address books usually include emails addresses business

information and other personal information internal documents at the n.s.a. also acknowledge the problem of over collection noting that n.s.a. databases have been overwhelmed by mass collection of contactless loaded with spam and defensive bulk programs like this the n.s.a. chief keith alexander has said that they are critical of counterterrorism tools and that ultimately quote you need the haystack to find the needle. speaking of the n.s.a. leaks the man who first wrote about them for the guardian glenn greenwald announced on tuesday that he's leaving the guardian for a new independent journalism project a statement posted on his website greenwald wrote my partnership with the guardian has been extremely fruitful and fulfilling the decision to leave was not an easy one but i was presented with a once in a career dream journalistic opportunity that no journalist could possibly decline this new project is reportedly funded by billionaire e.-bay founder pierre omidyar who himself has been very critical of the n.s.a.

based on the leaks provided to greenwald it's rumored that journalists and filmmakers laura poitras and jeremy scahill will also be a part of this new journalism project. and finally stick around after this newscast in just a minute for the world premiere of a brand new financial here on our team america it's called boom bust now the boom bust cycle is as old as western banking but how does it affect your wallet host aaron eight and producer bob english will help you navigate the ups and downs of the economy and break through the jargon to get at the truth behind the numbers again that's a boom bust prevaricating next here on r t. and that does it for now for more on the stories we covered go to youtube dot com forward slash r.t. america check out our website r t dot com forward slash usa you can follow me on twitter at sam sachs boom bust is next.

real damage and complexity of this oil spill was not something you can grasp just by looking at dirty birds we have between four to five million people in this directly affected area of the coast and it's pretty clear why it's not being reported because b.p. can't afford to have a reported all along the gulf coast are clean they are safe and they're open for business if b.p. is the single largest oil contributor to the pentagon the us war machine is heavily reliant upon b.p. and their oil this is a huge step backwards for the marker sea it's a step forward for oligarchy carex it is toxic is a look a lot like spraying and. it was it was not a picture that either the government or b.p. really wanted to have out there i don't want dispersants to be the agent. of

this bill's. must have a new alert and a patient's scare me a little bit. there is breaking news tonight and they are continuing to follow the breaking news. alexander's family cry hears a noise and a great thing rather that had read dark and a court of law around i'm glad there's a story made for the movies playing out in real life.

there i marinate and this is boom bust here are some of the stories we're tracking for you today. welcome to the final octave masterpiece of political theater well congress acts as the fiscal brinkmanship is a form of off groupie the markets have taken notice and we cut through the hype and hyper partisan bickering and tell you all about the fallout from weeks of political headedness and greece no stranger to true austerity measures is in the news yet again now for now because another piece of the bailout fund placed them on the table and thankfully the deputy prime minister of greece sat down with off and provided fascinating insight into among other things greece is a lot.