coming up on our t.v. n.s.a. has joined the game of drones according to the new leaked info the agency is playing a big role in the u.s. drone program more details just ahead and it's the real life get out of jail free card the u.s. supreme court tells the state of california to release thousands of prisoners we'll take a look at the ruling and head. and it's the war over water southern states are now battling over water rights we'll take a deeper look at the fight that's been hit pitting neighboring states against each other for more than two decades. it's thursday october seventeenth four pm in washington d.c. i'm near a david and you're watching our team. we begin today with the latest sentence

a revelation leaked by former government contractor edward snowden the documents which were obtained by the washington post outline the extent to which the n.s.a. has been involved in the cia's counterterrorism activities the documents specifically detailed the agency's engagement in the u.s. drone campaign which involves using armed unmanned vehicles to scope out an attack those thought to be affiliated with terrorism in the past the program has been presented as an exclusive initiative of the cia but now we're learning that u.s. drone wars depend heavily on the n.s.a.'s ability to collect information from e-mails telephone calls and from a myriad of other sources according to the washington post the n.s.a. has even created a secret unit called the counterterrorism mission aligned cell or c t.-mac which allowed the agency to focus large amounts of resources on hard to find individuals in response to this latest release the n.s.a. has said quote our activities are directed against valid foreign intelligence

targets in response to requirements from u.s. leaders in order to protect the nation and its interest from threats such as terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction however this kind of involvement from the n.s.a. has attracted intense criticism from americans who argue that the n.s.a. surveillance program has grossly overstepped its boundaries edward snowden the former government contractor who reached the revealing n.s.a. documents to the media remains in russia where he was granted a one year asylum his father juan snowden visited him this week and arrived back in the u.s. yesterday take a listen to the advice he's given to his son. to stay. to stay and what do you plan to get some advice that you got this story what may settled you. can't be he's happy that he was easy to committing to what he's dead. zone and says his son still has more secrets to share and of course we will continue following this story. well

believe it or not at the eleventh hour the united states congress found a resolution to reopen the government and avoid defaulting on its debt and it only took sixteen days just one day short of the october seventeenth deadline set by the u.s. treasury secretary yesterday senate leaders announced that the final deal would end a partial government shutdown and after passing in the senate the bill was brought to the house floor late last night where it was cleared with two hundred eighty five congressmen voting for the bill and one hundred forty four against it let's take a quick look at what this bill actually entails the deal will fund the government until january fifteenth if both sides haven't agreed on a long term solution by that point we could see another government shutdown under the plan they also agreed to lift the debt limit through february seventh but perhaps the most interesting aspect of the bill is the earmark spending that made its way in two point two billion dollars has been authorized for a project that involves

a dam that flows through the home state of senate minority leader mitch mcconnell and that's of course on top of the seven hundred seventy five million dollars that's already been allocated to the project the president signed that bill early this morning and later at a news conference obama called out the republican party for their involvement in the country's near default you don't like a particular policy or a particular president then argue for your position go out there and win an election push to change it but don't break it don't break what our predecessors spent over two centuries building. that's. being faithful to what this country is about with the bill signed sealed and delivered hundreds of thousands of federal employees were finally able

to return to work today for the first time in over two weeks but before breathing a sigh of relief remember that this is not the last time we'll be hearing about the ominous debt ceiling and if you want more on that make sure to tune in to our tease us financial show boom bust now begins at four thirty. well this week the u.s. supreme court declined to take up a long running dispute regarding the overcrowding of california's prison system california governor jerry brown had asked the court to overturn a two thousand and eleven judicial order that require at the state to reduce the prison population by nearly one hundred forty percent california prisons have been in the national spotlight over the course of the past year as the state grappled with the severe overcrowding leading to concerns about prison the prisons health conditions one particular concern for prison advocates has been the state's employment of a long term solitary confinement policy a controversy which led to a major hunger strike by california prisoners earlier this year now of the roughly

one hundred twenty thousand inmates in california prisons the court has ordered that the state free about nine thousand six hundred additional inmates by the end of the year california has already cut its prison population by about twenty five thousand inmates in the past two years so does discuss this and the mass incarceration that seems to define this country i'm joined by eugene puryear author of shackled and chained mass incarceration in capitalist america thank you so much you know you me america so happy to have you on when it comes to california can you talk about the conditions that these prison inmates have been living under and why the court ordered the release of so many of them well you know it's an absolutely terrible situation i mean we saw that around with when the first court ruling came through the supreme court almost one hundred eighty percent overcapacity california prisons where if you look at the pretty pictures of it it's people stacked up on bunks in gymnasium stuck anywhere and everywhere and many of these people are

nonviolent offenders in prison for things like simple possession and we also see in states like california as you mentioned in your opening the very harsh use of solitary confinement in two thousand and eleven the council of europe said that anything more than fifteen days in solitary confinement should be considered injurious in pelican bay state prison. where the hunger strike first started there's over five hundred people who spent over ten years in solitary confinement and not to mention california at the beginning part of this decade was only spending about two dollars a day on food for prisoners than the average person in america so about eight dollars a day per food so they were overcrowded kept in isolation cells and large amount and really in just overall terrible conditions it's tragic well what do you make of the argument being made by municipalities and of course by governor jerry brown that the influx of these inmates that being released is going to be very burdensome it's going to be dangerous i think it's really just an observation of the issue i mean i think we know that the court order and many people know that the court order order that only low level nonviolent offenders be released so it's not as of

murders or rapists are just being thrown out onto the street and i think california which is the state when if you disaggregated from the united states as a whole is about the fifth largest economy in the world it has a tremendous amount of resources and other things so really instead of complaining about all the problems this is going to create i think this creates a great new opportunity for politicians instead to talk about how do we reinvest in our cities particularly the so-called inner cities invest in education and infrastructure and job training in a rich wealthy state like california that's a possibility but instead the politicians are pandering to those who push these mass incarceration policies like the prison guard unions perhaps even private prison industry is and all those other people who look to only throwing more people in prison to solve the social problems of our country not attacking them at their root sure and you know the idea that these prisoners are just being free is this is not necessarily the case i know that there are plans to move some of these prisoners to you know state prisons local prisons private prisons and so in

in a way is this perhaps not solving the problem but just shifting it i think to a certain degree of significantly shifting and i mean it's really only dealing principally with the issue of overcrowding not the sort of underlying principles of why these people were in prison in the first place and thankfully pete the people of california recently in september state bill six. forty nine past seventy five percent of people in california support some of the reforms that this bill is pushing forward which will allow for lesser sentences for people who are convicted of low level nonviolent offenses and that's what's really driving this and i think ultimately shifting people to local jails and certainly to private prisons is only really dating the issue and not really getting to the point of why are we putting so many people in prison and is there another way to deal with these issues that afflict our community absolutely a very very important question to be asking well earlier this year there was a mass hunger strike as a and mention in the california prison system was on our sponsor the condition conditions that spurred basically all of these lawsuits and do you know if any of

those conditions were met certainly it was in response to the conditions that are out there obviously the prison officials who are be supremely self interested rich and say well this is just a way for criminals to recast their image but the reality is i mean like i said five hundred people in pelican bay in solitary confinement for over ten years i mean the food the overcrowding all these things that took place are extremely devastating and really if you look at what was happening in this prison hunger strike prisoners uniting across racial ethnic religious lines something that's almost unprecedented in american prisons it's something that has to be driven by by by entry by the self-interest of them to improve their own condition unfortunately many of these things have not been changed because of the brutal response of prison authorities the hunger strike had to take a quick step back but i know prisoners are continuing to organize and continue to fight for them regularly and one of the other grievances that came up through these multiple lawsuits is that the corrections system. is incredibly expensive and can you talk about some of the resources that are really being poured into this complex

system of course there's hundreds of millions of dollars billions of dollars that are being poured into the system want to daily basis and it's not to educate people or to give them job training but simply just to build these prisons to hold them in there and to find different ways to control people even further and that's at the same time that we're seeing funding towards things. education going down and so on and so forth and in many states really we see that more money is spent on prison than it's been on higher education and other things of that nature so it's a tremendous strain on resources and really even the from the human level to the financial level and it's something that is taking a huge toll on our country and there's a lot of ground to cover on this issue unfortunately ran out of time but everyone should definitely check out your book which is called shackled and chained to mass incarceration in catalyst america thank you so much that you so much for having me . it didn't get much media attention at the time but in the days following the boston marathon bombing a florida chechen immigrant named. was shot and killed by the f.b.i. law enforcement officers had been interrogating for his alleged relationship with

boston bombing suspect tamerlan. f.b.i. authorities claim that the da should turn violent and was killed by officers in an act of self-defense but the family has long claimed that it was cold murder a man shot dead despite being completely unarmed but the pursuit and interrogation has seemed to extend past just as involvement his family is now accusing u.s. authorities of mounting a campaign of quote intimidation and harassment against associates to break down the very latest i've joined by artie's on the stasi enough who has been following the story very closely on a stasi what do we know about the friends of who are allegedly being intimidated here well i mean are the two the first person we're talking about is touchy on the groups devoted twenty year old who's been games roommates lover and girlfriend the way she describes their relationship we do know that she had attended one of the voluntary interviews with the f.b.i.

prior to his killing she was deported from the united states this weekend and is now back home in moldova after spending several weeks at an immigration detention center in florida now prior to that this summer she has also spent several months behind bars for having been staying in the u.s. after her u.s. visa these are to the u.s. expired and the reason that she's been talked about as a person being intimidated and harassed is largely said to be because she had given an interview about it because she spoke to the media about him describing him as a good person and she were self has said that she believes that this is why she's being harassed this is also an opinion shared by bing's family including his father and also the council of american islamic on a merican islamic relations who. has been closely following this case and has providing has been providing a lot of legal assistance to the family the second person is. a twenty year old who we have actually met when we interviewed the father verbruggen he has been in jail

since september eighteenth after being charged with tampering with a witness battery case involving to dosh of he is however not linked at all to the boston bombings or the f.b.i. so both of these people twenty year olds friends of irregular they both were refused lawyers and the young man in one case is detained on a federal detainer meaning he won't be released until a federal agency decides this might be the case and how involves have these friends been in the investigation into the circumstances of to dosh. well love obviously they were close with him in terms of the death we do know in terms of the investigation we do know of course like i said that the girlfriend had attended interviews with him and had a close relationship with him the young man we met him when. father of two like he was in florida trying to push for an investigation in terms of what kind of reasoning was behind the brutal murder of his son the young man was helping the

father who doesn't speak english driving him around it's likely to say that they were kind of living together and the father was staying with him so they were certainly very close but in terms of how how far they went into the investigation is unclear because we have course do know that the f.b.i. keeps any results if they have any under wraps as well as care the organization that has been helping the family are waiting for official results to be announced in order to go ahead and kind of talk more and bring more light and launch any potential civil legal action in this case and i'm assessing i know that you had the chance a while back to speak to father and he is convinced that his son was murdered by the f.b.i. what exactly does he think happened well a i mean he basically says that what happened to his son was a cold blooded murder he has these gruesome photos of his dead son with the bullets in his chest and we do know that he was also shot in his head and certainly he's just completely flabbergasted by what happened certainly in tahrir in terms of this latest what they call intimidation and harassment of the friends he is not

surprised really after what happened to his son because when we saw him in august he was in florida to try to get answers and it's been months and still he has not heard any kind of official reasoning although he has been saying that officials did promise to keep him in the loop he has now returned to chechnya to his hometown grozny and has been waiting for more results but nothing has really been coming out and this heartbroken father including the rest of the family are just waiting for the officials to say something. and how is the f.b.i. responding to all of this well you know i mean it's curious that the f.b.i. has not commented on the deporting of the roommate or the girlfriend tatiana they have also not commented on these allegations of intimidation and harassment they keep saying that an investigation is ongoing that they're working on bringing more light on this case but organizations such as care following the story closely believe that the f.b.i. is very unlikely to obviously police themselves and they're not really expecting

many results it is worth mentioning that two other separate investigation in this case are going on the department of justice is carrying out one and also the state attorney for the orlando area so likely that some more light will be shot even though many have lots of doubts considering how murky this case has been since the killing over brigham took place on may twenty second well certainly very mysterious we're going to continue to follow it thank you so much for all of your great reporting that was our t. correspondent honest. and still ahead here on our t.v. the fight for water is hitting three states here in the u.s. against each other but look at the battle for each well next. time the president and i say a society that gets to work for free trying to. do. with the bankers. all the money and i was actually particular politicians

write the laws and regulations to protect regions of the banks well they're. just plugged into these. talks about that. fall guy so always never. right. surplus deficit. or. bust. we're not psyched to have active camps have

a long time to know where patients are forced that the moment in terms of their strike never turned the world's attention to the places that some jobs gulag of our times. water water everywhere but not a drop to drink most of us know it isn't all that it for people throughout the united states is saying has turned into an unfortunate reality as more and more states begin to run out of clean drinking water and fact this lack of resources is now playing out at the judicial level a state secret resolution in court most recently the state of florida filed suit against georgia blaming its care city of water on a burgeoning population and atlanta artie's liz wahl has more. for over two decades three states have been in a bitter battle over water now the fight has reached a boiling point there's certainly an issue about whether there's enough water for everybody georgia alabama and florida all have

a stake in the apalachicola chattahoochee flynn's river system it's the source of drinking water fishing business and recreation or i'm standing right now i am and georgia just on the other side of this river that's alabama now the water is flowing down south into the state of florida and with all three states having a stake in this river it's leading to a war over water early october florida filed a lawsuit against georgia and the supreme court the sunshine state charged its northern neighbor with using too much water florida says georgia's water consumption is drying out business for oyster farmers oysters need a healthy mix of fresh and salt water to thrive so who is sucking up the most water many blame out lana. the city is growing and so is its third for water over. is population growth this come this climate change is coming we're starting to

stretch our water resources particularly periods of drought but outside florida experts keeping an eye on the water level of the chattahoochee river say it's not all atlantis fault i think there's all a lot of climate change strands we see less rainfall in new york the last ten years and that certainly affects the flow into happel educated and there's a lot of other variables that effect or shooters other than just various warders the neighboring states have been fighting over their rivers resources for over twenty years one lawsuit after another there's been no solution that quenches everyone's thirst it's not very often that they come to. a consensus around something that both people have some give and taking and they you're either win or lose usually in court you think of the cost of twenty three years of litigation. and these and then the federal agencies that are involved it's

for the most part the river is regulated by the army corps of engineers if florida gets its way the corps would force sent lana to cut back on its water consumption and divvy up the water among the three states but some that have a stake in the river still hold out hope that the dispute can be settled outside the courts i would hope that within the next five years the three can get to the table and bring rosa lucia in columbus georgia liz wall r t. so to break down the latest in these water wars i'm joined by our liz wahl who just recently came back from reporting on the story in georgia let's thanks for coming on break this down for us why is this issue paying state against state here will we see these states pitted against each other because we see that each state has a competing interest in the state of georgia as we saw in my story there drinking water is a huge that's where they get a lot of their drinking water and with that land of the population they're booming

the demand for water is also booming in alabama we see that the river is a big source of revenue for industry for business power generation fishing agriculture all of these industries depend on this river and in the state of florida that's where it's kind of heating up right now because in the northern part of florida there where the river kind of empties off is a huge fishing industry particularly oysters and the fishermen there depend on the oysters for their livelihood and the oysters are unique in that they need this delicate balance of fresh water and salt water and able to thrive and now they're saying that they're not getting the fresh water that they need because atlanta is slipping up all that water so they're in their view it's affecting their industry which is a very very much part of their livelihood so we see all three states depend on this . river in different ways and it's causing some tension to say the least

a very important resource to be vying over when you mentioned in your report that this lawsuit is just the latest of many that has happened over the last twenty years when it's been the outcome of these other lawsuits and have they changed how water has been used in the region over twenty years now with lawsuits on the local level federal level different federal agencies getting involved and we've seen not really a solution that has made everybody happy and now it's escalated kind of to this whole nother level with florida filing this lawsuit with the supreme court. what we've seen in lawsuits so far is that they're kind of reinforcing the army corps of engineers who regulates most a lot of the river kind of reassert their power so right now the corps of engineers is in the middle of reevaluating the contingency plans in the event of a drought and trying to do some more in-depth study is to try to in hopes of coming to a resolution if florida does get their way with this with this latest court with this

latest lawsuit where they would essentially force georgia atlanta looks like most specifically to cut back on their water comes consumption and enable more of the water to flow down south into florida so it makes its way into florida and hopefully restore the balance of salt water and fresh water to enable the oysters down there in the oyster industry to jumpstart to thrive once again and four days before it is blaming georgia but the folks that i slowed down there and spoke to down there in georgia say you know what we don't really think it's all that lana's fault there's other factors that come into play here climate change they say. someone flat out said that it's a regulation problem that florida has mismanaged their water resources and now they're trying to pin the blame on georgia so. so we'll we'll see it's being the hope is that it can be it can be settled outside of court but it's been two decades

now not sure if that can happen and you ventured out of the region yourself what has been the sentiment like over there and what role did the river play in that community you know will i went to the border columbus georgia there and it was interesting because on one side of the river jordan you're on georgian territory but literally on the other side of the river it's alabama and you could see the rivalry between the two states just there i thought alabama kind of built this theater and i was like wow that's a nice theater over there on the other side of the river and they're like you know that's just they just did that because the response to our river was that you could see the rivalry very some of it kind of friendly competition but you could also see that it was a big part of their life there was a part there where it was very rapid so it's a huge recreational destination for the locals there's a go white water rafting when we were there we saw

a lot of tents camped out there so recreation but of course perhaps more importantly the drinking water that is a huge source of water for atlanta but that's just where i ventured to but i know that in the apalachicola part of florida that it's also a huge part of their their culture their and their livelihood it's a whole way of life oyster fishing so you can see really impacts people in different ways from all these different states absolutely well it seems you definitely got these down in there i got to talk to a lot of locals very informative and i don't much care for their lives somewhere appreciate it and i does it for now for the stories we covered today go to youtube dot com board slash r t america and check out our web site r t dot com forward slash usa can also follow me on twitter and i mean our david boom bust is next.

did you know the price is the only industry specifically mentioned in the constitution and. that's because a free and open process is critical to our democracy which albus. in fact the single biggest threat facing our nation today is the corporate takeover of our government and across a cynical we've been hijacked lying handful of transnational corporations that will profit by destroying what our founding fathers once built up my job market and on this show we reveal the big picture of what's actually going on in the world we go beyond identifying the problem the truck rational debate and a real discussion critical issues facing america to find a job ready to join the movement then welcome to the big picture.

you will. find some technology innovation called the least a medal means from around russia we've gone to the future or covered. the problem is that. everyone can only the god in. as us decides to commit economic suicide it's like they've strapped on a suicide vest as a globe as an economy they're suicide bankers yeah i've been saying that for years your suicide bankers their their banking shoddiness they stumble in the bolas they pull the plug and a blow up the world for their ideology of market fundamentals of the terrorist attack with terrorism i think is real and now it's nearly two people dead of people trying to say wait a minute we've invested in financial terms to wall street well i swim back.

there i marinate and this is boom bust here are some of the stories we're tracking for you today. yes the shutdown is over news for those of you who might have been hiding under a rock in one of the newly reopened national parks yet the u.s. bond market is now saved for a whopping one two three three months yeah q thank god for we do without that but in case you were just itching to crack open the bottle on the way you might want to hold off for a bit we have some surprising in say for you and just seen undersell now joins us live from capitol hill to highlight the fourteen morsels tell lawmakers dropped into this last minute deal and bob talks with casey about the long term risks of the government.