coming up on our t.v. a new layer to the n.s.a. surveillance was revealed today the spy agency was able to infiltrate the links for yahoo and google data centers giving them access to hundreds of millions of users data as well european lawmakers are also demanding answers from the u.s. on the world on spying on world leaders latest on that just ahead. and a briefing on capitol hill was in a pakistani family that witness one of their loved ones killed by a u.s. drone attack coming up we'll speak with congressman alan grayson the man who organized the hearing and why he said the issue is so important. and the secretary of u.s. health and human services faces a grilling before congress over obamacare lawmakers are furious over americans facing health care sign up issues and some even losing their insurance coverage the

latest from today's hearing later in the show. it's wednesday october thirtieth four pm in washington d.c. i'm sam sax and you're watching our t.v. and we begin with another edward snowden revelation this one provided to the washington post which reported today that the n.s.a. has infiltrated the links to yahoo and google data centers worldwide and what this means is the n.s.a. can tap right into data streams carrying information belonging to hundreds of millions of yahoo and google users worldwide including americans and then siphon off whatever they want to their enormous data bases for example google runs data centers all around the world several in the united states plus several in europe several in asian one in chile the links between these data centers are what the n.s.a. is targeting and these links are not encrypted google announced in september they

are working to encrypt their legs or to do internal. it's a documents the agency collects millions of records every day from these links and in a period of thirty days at the end of two thousand and twelve one of the n.s.a.'s data warehouses in fort meade had processed more than one hundred eighty million records including not just metadata but also the actual content of internet communications this program is run jointly by both the n.s.a. and the ukase intelligence service g c h q and it's important to note that this program is different from the previously disclosed prism program which we learned gathers data from internet companies through court orders instead here the n.s.a. is directly targeting tech companies including american tech companies without their knowledge in collecting data about their users with google and yahoo say they were unaware of this program and are concerned by it the n.s.a.'s chief general keith alexander said that to his knowledge this program doesn't exist now this

latest revelation comes just as european union lawmakers wrap up days of meeting with u.s. intelligence officials here in washington d.c. to discuss n.s.a. overreaches regarding recent reports of mass collection of data in france and in spain as well as reports that the n.s.a. spied on thirty five world leaders including german chancellor on the merkel e.u. officials held a press conference today in r.t. caught up with one of them elmar brok the chairman of the european parliament committee on foreign affairs who's from germany here's what he had to say you don't just talk about i'm going to talk about citizens. it is a same you know and certainly so no it's been a national friends. he and other e.u. officials went on to say they don't accept the n.s.a. explanations on spying and they won't be satisfied until it all stops but just how genuine the e.u. is in their outrage over spying is questionable considering reports that show many

governments in europe working with the n.s.a. when it comes to data collection on their citizens. now we go to capitol hill where yesterday lawmakers heard from survivors of a drone attack in pakistan the briefing organized by florida congressman alan grayson different voice to those who are most affected by the united states' drone war program on hand was the family sixty seven year old mummy to a baby who last year was targeted by a drone in a remote village in pakistan and was thrown twenty feet and killed instantly as she was gathering and if the old with her two grandchildren who were injured in the strike to her family has received no explanation from the u.s. government as to why this happened unfortunately only five members of congress showed up to the briefing with congressman alan grayson include rush holt of new jersey jan schakowsky of illinois john conyers of michigan and rick nolan of minnesota but despite the low turnout this was a rare event on capitol hill in which members of the u.s. government officially acknowledge that these strikes are actually happening and

they are destroying lives something the current and previous administrations in the white house have been reluctant to do earlier i sat down with congressman alan grayson and i asked him what impact he hopes his briefing will have. i think that over time it's going to have a great impact one of the laws of war the use of military force in general is that we try to spare civilians we try to spare the innocent and the case of drones there have been documented reports of roughly a thousand innocent people who've been killed by these attacks virtually every observer says that the chance of killing an innocent is roughly one in five every time we launch one of these attacks one in five of the victims turns out to be entirely innocent and there are publicly available lists of the most two hundred children who have been killed by these attacks people have to start to wonder why are we so willing to do this when there's so much collateral damage that's evident here well why do you think it is that the administration has refused to do what you

did yesterday which is acknowledge that this is happening explain these strikes and perhaps compensate the victims well i think that to some extent and when you say the administration i'll make it clear that this is been a longstanding policy of the u.s. government and not limited to the obama astray should but the some extent the military industrial complex has a policy of denying obscuring attacking and to some degree turning the victims into the suppose that oppressors i think that we have made position taken positions with regard to actual threats to this country that turn out to be somewhat overstated to say the least and we avoid other ways of dealing with these problems that are maybe a little more low tech maybe a little more difficult in acquiring diplomacy but much more effective it seems to me that if we're talking about people whom we regard as their enemies operating on pakistani territory the obvious solution is to have the pakistanis clean up their

own mess rather than trying to send an error. death machines over to the other side of the world and do it for the two reports last week alleged drone strikes specifically the one that your briefing highlighted yesterday amounts to unlawful killings do you agree with that claim that these are unlawful killings and should members of the command chain authorizing these strikes all the way to the top be held accountable well what you're referring to is the issue of whether these kind of war crimes typically in recent years when you're talking about war crimes whether in serbia or in parts of west africa or otherwise what that generally has been noted recently is the intentional killing of civilians i don't think we've seen the intentional killing of innocents but we've seen actions that seem to inevitably lead to the killing of innocents whether intentional or not and raise a grave danger on each occasion yesterday or hearing we talked about the death of

a woman in her sixty's a woman who had never been in political never been involved in any sort of insurgent activity probably couldn't even name the president the united states or even find america on a map and she was killed while doing her gardening. and her grandchildren who were with her that they were both wounded. obviously a terrible mistake mistakes like this do happen but they happen with alarming frequency during this drone program i think that expecting that american looking at a screen somewhere in the continental united states and deciding on the basis of what he sees on the screen through telemetry who lives and who dies at locations eight or nine thousand miles away is just too hard to do and two are through accurately frankly it seems like hubris i want to shift gears here quick to something that happened on the house intelligence committee yesterday during

a hearing when there was this exchange between chairman mike rogers and congressman adam schiff over whether or not the committee was informed of the entered. says' program which spied on world leaders here's just a quick clip of the exchange. be interested to know stream and we would be happy i suppose down to the committee and spend a couple of hours going through mounds of product that would allow a member to be as informed as a member wishes to be on sources and methods and all activities of the intelligence community under the national intelligence framework i would just say and i just think this we need to be careful about what i've tried about i but i don't you wish to use the classification and i think would be disingenuous mr chairman if you're suggesting we have information if we don't have it you allege that chairman rogers intelligence committee has withheld intelligence documents from you in the past and here we see an argument a public argument between two members of the committee over what they knew and when they knew about an n.s.a. program what sort of faith should the american people have in the congressional

intelligence committees to provide oversight and little or none in fact what we see from the conventional of from these congressional oversight committees regarding our so-called intelligence community is not the they're performing oversight rather overlooking and systematically doing so i think that they become apologists for the spying industrial complex and i have literally never seen them do anything other than rationalize these in some cases gross abuses and constitutional violations particularly with regard to domestic surveillance when it comes to these issues of drones and domestic surveillance these issues typically transcend party lines and you find progressive democrats like yourself working with the libertarian republicans like some in the tea party as someone who's leveled quite a bit of criticism at the tea party what do you make of these new political coalitions that have formed in recent months and in light of these revelations both about drones and surveillance well i think that the real division you see these

days is not between liberals and conservatives on these issues or for that matter between democrats or a public. and i think the differences between members who are principled and members who are scared the members who are principled understand that we have a constitution that requires probable cause and particularity those are the explicit terms of the fourth amendment you can't get together you can't get information about people's private affairs unless you can demonstrate that either they are involved in criminal activity or there's reason to believe that they have information about other peeing people being involved in criminal activity that's the standard what's happening instead is a dragnet approach where the government collects everything and then purports to sift through it to try to find evidence of wrongdoing which is directly contrary to our privacy our dignity as human beings and our rights under the constitution those of us who are principled understand that and stand against it those of us who are

fearful feel that every time the word the phrase nine eleven gets repeated they have to forget everything they know about the u.s. constitution and the oath they swore to uphold it u.s. representative alan grayson from florida thank you now for the past few weeks we've been bringing you dispatches from guantanamo bay united states infamous prison now archies honest asa charkha brings us her latest report from gitmo on the stark realities of the detention center. every morning at eight am the u.s. national anthem erupts across the beast that holds america's most scandalous prison no one likes to be spit on no one wants to have their own torture hunger strikes and suicides have marred this place since two thousand and two and they're human beings after all they're there's no reason to expect that they enjoy being here you know we pretend otherwise prisoners held indefinitely in the name of the never ending war on terror whether they're innocent or guilty is not our job right now we

have the court system determined that in just over a decade a total of seven hundred seventy nine prisoners the majority released without charges today one hundred sixty four remain over half of them cleared for release but still kept locked up. on the other side of the barbed wire. life is a blast. there's water and ice. about here just like any common american town scared to come here but i mean it's absolutely beautiful place when you get around other stuff getting around the other stuff is not hard a lot of what goes on here is kept under a thick veil of denial and secrecy delta house is a hospital and library and this is also a place where patients are force fed and even though the hunger strike is largely and officially said to be over we know that at least fifteen people are continually being force fed here today the tube is passed down through

a person's nostril and pushed all the way down to their stomach before it's passed down the nose we lubricate it and we give the patient a choice that they want to have. which is the agent. area or if they want. the tube. most of our patients have been using all of the will. in fact some of our patients are so used to this they will. described which nostril they want this while major world medical bodies are in agreement that force feeding is not ethical and should not be practiced the force feeding them i've got my clients of experience to guantanamo they've certainly described the storage or the restraint chair that they're strapped into they actually call the torture chair and force feeding takes up to forty five minutes and is performed twice a day the pieces of had the civilian world of it feel strange i've never heard of.

i have not heard that good more fish oils are beyond nonchalant about the highly criticized practice you might feel differently from the way i might feel uncomfortable has been the most of it i have heard but they don't even believe in what they're saying anyway because they know it sounds stupid i volunteer that the procedure be demonstrated on me requested the prisoners who've not met one another and speak different languages keep saying the same thing that we were told. to the chair legs to the ground they. struck across and they forced in a tube into our noses never in thirteen years have detainees been allowed to speak directly to a journalist while remaining at get most only leaking statements through lawyers they would love nothing more than to sit down with journalists and just tell them you know about their lives but communicating seems to only occur here if someone was a point where maybe they had been verbalizing a lot of hopelessness we were immediately intervening and trying to

assist that person to make sure that there wasn't any thoughts of maybe wanting to harm themselves or in their lives with charts like these often used to pinpoint patients despair you asked them how do you feel right now and they'll be able to point to it we have not had a patient in this area. thank you meanwhile six suicides and dozens of suicide attempts have taken place at the detention facility we have. the u.s. government hasn't released any formal reports or findings we're now outside two active camps at guantanamo camp five single cells where the so-called compliant detainees are held camp number six is filled with communal cells when officials. there will be boarded by being allowed to live in groups while detainees are kept away from us what we witness are clean empty prison cells with cosy pajamas colgate toothpaste and maximum security shampoos paraded in front of journalists as proof

everything is so much better here than any silly horror stories we all have heard. cuba. well beyond today health and human services secretary kathleen sebelius faced off with a rock this house energy and commerce committee she took tough questions from criticisms from republican lawmakers over the disastrous website problems in rollout of the affordable care act better known as obamacare and there are new allegations that the obamacare website went live without proper tests to make sure it can secure users' personal information the website troubles are just one of the many problems the obama administration is dealing with during the implementation of its signature health reform law another focus is on the administration's credibility when it promised americans that they like their current health insurance plans they can keep it well turns out a lot of americans are getting dropped from their current plans as health insurance companies make changes to those plans to comply with new standards laid out in the

affordable care act all of these troubles have people in the left and the right shaking their head on the left you have people arguing that this is why a single payer system would be better it doesn't have individual plans it doesn't have a complex website it just provides health care and on the right you have people who've always been skeptical skeptical of obamacare saying i told you so earlier i spoke with one of those on the right congressman leonard lance of new jersey and i first asked him what he made the last few weeks of the obamacare rollout. i believe that the web site has been a debacle that was the word used by the secretary of health and human services today and i think it has to be repaired as quickly as possible well with regard to this website you know this really wasn't the work of the government per se it was the work of private contractors and this is increasingly a problem throughout government you could say it's a systemic problem of private contractors not fulfilling an obligation and bilking

the government out of a lot of money this happens in the department of defense to the tune of billions of dollars so why is there so much attention directed at obamacare in this private contractor issue but less attention directed to these other issues of private contractors i think we should examine all times we have contracts in the private sector sometimes they work and sometimes they do not and of course c.m.s. was in control of the private contractors and a very poor job was done the president as he was touting this law for the last few years often said if you like your health insurance plan you can keep it we now have reports that a lot of americans are losing their health insurance plans you think the white house was misleading there. certainly the statement was inaccurate in the washington post today gave it for. and i do not believe that that is an accurate statement and i'm sorry the president made in more than half of all

bankruptcies in america are result of medical bankruptcies people who get sick and can't afford their medical bills and all of those people about three quarters of them have health insurance which suggests that there's a major problem with many current health insurance plans that are offered out there and these insufficient health plans end up costing the owner their livelihood and taxpayers enormous amounts of money and that's what the laws seem to be trying to go after so when people lose these plans it's because. they don't meet the new requirements of what health insurance plan should be should we be trying to protect these insufficient health care plans. no i think that there are some portions of the law that are good but other portions of the law are bad for example i don't think there needs to be maternity coverage for a young man coming into the health care market and so i think it depends on the situation where you said that you know you agree with

a lot of provisions of the law both parties agree on a number of obamacare provisions ones that protect people with preexisting conditions ones that get rid of lifetime caps allow younger people to stay on their plans. republicans have said they want to keep these provisions in place but my question is how do you implement these favorable policies without the stuff that makes them economically possible like the exchanges like the individual mandate and so on the stuff that republicans want to get rid of. i believe you can do that in a variety of ways in what i have suggested and i've been a co-sponsor of purchase of policies across state lines health savings accounts and also tort reform and there is no tort reform in the president's law according to crystal budget office tort reform. would really affect one half of one percent of total medical costs in the country is that of a real legitimate solution. i think it's part of

a larger solution and i think that we should make sure that the good apportions of the law continue into effect but i don't like the fact that many people are losing their policies and will have to pay more than they had anticipated but they will get subsidies for that more and they are paying for a much better plan but i see the argument you're making which leads to people saying well why not just get rid of health care dot gov get rid of individual health insurance plans adopt a single payer system which is in use all around the world and studies show offer less expensive care. more people with better health results seniors love medicare which is a form of single payer system is it unfair that seniors can enjoy this but young people can i do not favor a single payer system i think that when the democratic party controlled both houses of congress with president obama in the white house they were not the votes to pass a single payer system traditionally our health coverage is through our employment in this country and i want to build on that system because congressman one last

question which i think underpins this whole debate and members when on different sides of this issue do you think that health care should be a basic human right i certainly think we should move in the direction of making sure that everyone is covered and that should be the goal toward which we should be moving unfortunately not everybody is covered under the president's law because the medicaid expansion is a matter of requiring states to do that has been ruled as unconstitutional by the supreme court and so i think we have to work together in a bipartisan capacity to insure as many americans as possible what is a private health insurance system which prophetesses health care and you actually get more profits by denying health care the system to bring about this universal health care for all americans goal that you have. i have a goal of it as much coverage as possible for as many americans as possible and i

hope moving forward we can work in a bipartisan capacity congressman leonard lance from new jersey thanks so much for coming on. so we've all heard of too big to fail that affliction on wall street of major banks dominating the market and extracting costly bailouts from taxpayers but you know this problem transcends wall street and searches into other sectors of our economy too as companies merge with each other into behemoths this is evident in the heavily consolidated telecom industry artie's period boring explores too big to talk you remember the term too big to fail it's been used since the two thousand and eight financial collapse to explain how the biggest banks are so large that the economy would collapse if they did and their two thousand and thirteen and the biggest financial firms are even bigger than they were in two thousand and eight and it's not just the banks the wireless telecommunications industry is seeing a new wave of consolidation coupled with price hikes is it possible mobile carriers

are starting a new era of too big to talk so much so that a monopoly is starting to form we have seen or telecommunications. companies get bigger and bigger and we've seen their return returns get bigger according to c.t. i am a wireless telecommunications trade association ten years ago the top four wireless carriers controlled at sixty three percent of the market as of july twenty third teen the top four players arrive in eighteen to sprint and t. mobile control ninety three percent of the market these companies are getting more powerful and looking to gain even more influence variety than just agreed to buy out their u.k. corporate partner vodafone for one hundred thirty billion dollars this would be one of the biggest deals and all corporate history paul bar bag leo a bloomberg b.n.a. has more they see the future as wireless and they do not want to share the profits they will be getting with vodafone anymore and the rise and profits are growing

there of four point four percent from last year but so are their prices the average verizon wireless bill jumped a seven point one percent since march of this year at the same time the income gap in the u.s. has grown to the highest recorded level and over a century ken mole is the c.e.o. of moses and company one of the world's leading mergers and acquisitions firm says consolidation is part and parcel of the economy the benefits of being a large are your power in the market power to distribute your power to command price a t.n.t. once and on the action they just announce a stock buyback and deal to buy international competitor leap wireless but a large firms don't grow without their own challenges very difficult for a very large company to maintain the level of innovation and creativity some do it very well but it's difficult let's face it he also said the telecommunications industry is

a pretty dynamic environment and the competition is healthy despite being heavily regulated so what implications does consolidation have for the consumer. rise and then one thousand to have found in rolling out four g. l.t.e. the faster speed broadband services is that this is an expensive proposition as they put up towers and as they as they deploy the spectrum they are finding enormous cost and they have to recoup that somewhere the trend of increased monthly bills is unfortunately a reality generally monopolies will increase their profits by producing fewer goods and charging higher prices between the number one and number two cell phone carriers arrived in an eighteen service over two hundred five million accounts and we see much more consolidation in this space customers voice says may not be big enough to here in washington d.c. area and boring r.t. and that does it for now for more of the stories we covered go to youtube dot com

for exposure to america and check out our web site r t v dot com ford slash usa and follow me on twitter sam sax stay to boom bust is next. it sucks but. did you know the price is the only industry specifically mentioned in the constitution and. that's because a free and open press 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 a hydrogen lying handful of transnational corporations that will profit by destroying what our founding fathers what once was all just i'm sorry mark and on this show we reveal the big picture of what's actually going on in the world we go beyond identifying the problem try rational debate in

a real discussion critical issues facing america if i ever feel ready to join the movement then walk a little bit there. will be. science technology innovation all the least a mellow mintz from around russia we've gone through huge earth covered. that's been my dream for soda. but he couldn't hold on to the research thing as i was growing up a teacher and now she runs her own i was in fact training with a screw down a challenge to me that there's no alcohol or smoking and even coffee is forbidden they worship the sun.

will he ever be able to win a. man versus woman on r.t. . there i marinate and this is boom bust here are some of the stories are tracking for you today. first up could j.p. morgan settlement be a bust worth is things may be going south for the very very big bank meanwhile sac capital stevie cohen could also be looking to settle and we'll tell you about the possible price it could cost them and it's a pretty big process as that and just how valuable was that internship you had way way way back in college some are challenging the ones on paid gigs you know pay its dues we sit down with eric glad he's been in the middle of it all and finally the corporation behind some of the world's most expensive accessories was one of the main mc so is l b m.