coming up on r.t.e. a great midwestern city royalty in controversy the city of chicago has been dealing with major gun violence and now local and state officials are debating new mandatory minimum prison sentences for anyone using the gun during a crime will have an in-depth r t exclusive coming up and he's the man with the plan we're now learning just how edward snowden was able to uncover and leaked details about the n.s.a. vast surveillance program the details on that coming up. and how do you ever want to visit space turns out space tourism is becoming the next big business find out how to take a trip to the stars later in the show. it's

friday november eighth five pm in washington d.c. and i'm lynn neary david and you're watching our t.v. . we begin today with an in-depth look at how the obama administration is handling some very controversial legislation involving mandatory minimum sentencing attorney general eric holder has been at the forefront of the issue ordering changes to a justice system that has resulted in severe overcrowding of jails and prisons across the country but while mandatory sentences are being scrutinized on the national level one state is looking to expand the controversial law that's the state of illinois of course the crux of the debate that's playing out and one major city chicago the city has been no stranger to a whole host of gun and gang violence that seemingly growing more graham by the day artie's liz wahl was on the streets of chicago and brings us the story it's known as the windy city well beyond the skyscrapers in downtown glitz chicago is known

for something else crime some of these streets are described as a war zone where violence is part of day to day life here she joke. goldberg. the f.b.i. estimates there were five hundred murders here in chicago in two thousand and twelve alone more than any other city in the united states that figure has given chicago the reputation as being america's murder capital most of the deaths are a result of gun violence around here it's no secret if you want to gun you can get one by me being a game you know like the other a street no you didn't you know no question that the city of chicago is trying to change that by imposing a mandatory minimum law for gun offenses under the law anyone caught with illegally possessing a gun would get a minimum three year sentence they would have to serve eighty five percent of that no exceptions violent record or armed old lady it's called

a grainy gun it's you know and it's something that it will carry his neighbor. because they're scared because they they feel as if the city of chicago is not it cannot adequately protect them the proposed law is designed to get tough on crime but experts say mandatory minimum sentences simply don't work there is no reliable evidence that mandatory sentences will deter crime they're reliable evidence on that critics of mandatory minimum sentences point to similar measures in the war on drugs and mandatory minimum policies were enacted in the one nine hundred eighty s. america's prison population twelve dramatically chicago's cook county jail is a prime example of there are over ten thousand inmates in the cook county jail making at the largest in the united states population reached its highest in six years and it keeps on growing our prison system is one of most crowded under-resourced systems in all the country we've got about forty nine thousand

people in a system built for thirty two thousand with gals in prisons across the country filling up top level political leaders are reexamining mandatory minimum laws because they oftentimes generate really long sentences the disrespect for the system so there is a national trend we were away from and her main reason is because people are starting to look at the research perhaps that's why the mandatory minimum proposal is facing tough scrutiny from state lawmakers in illinois if the law passes it's expected to add four thousand inmates over a decade when already crowded system what we see and chicago unfortunately with a lot of our gun violence is a legacy of an incarceration policy we have entire neighborhoods where people have grown up without hope the blue legals when i got the northwestern school of law so the better alternatives include boosting police presence and in acting programs that help troubled youth some of the alternatives that we've seen to work here in

chicago that are promising intervene with younger p. . well under twenty five who are most of the gun defendants in any gun court in america the goal would be to keep people out of these jail cells instead of packing more inmates in in chicago liz will r t so to discuss this topic a little bit more i'm joined by our correspondent liz wahl in the flashback from chicago thank you so much for coming on was first of all talk about what the minimum sense is the sentencing law is right now as it stands show as it stands right now for gun offenses you can face a mandatory minimum of one year behind bars this law would expand that time to three years so any going to fence you would be facing three years that is the mandatory minimum now this is being pushed by the chicago mayor rahm emanuel the police commissioner and several victims of gun violence in chicago as we saw gun violence is

a huge problem there it's known as the murder capital of the united states five hundred murders in just one year people are sick of it politicians want lawmakers they want to act like they are getting tough on crime doing something to address this gun issue but we're seeing a lot of resistance over there in chicago i'm told that this is one of the most contentious issues that they have ever seen because as we saw in that story that the chicago jails are already flooded the system is already flooded supposed to add four thousand people one billion dollars over the span of a decade and people there are saying you know what maybe prison is not the best alternative maybe we need to look elsewhere in order to solve this problem this gun epidemic in our society sure and you mention that guns are easy to get in chicago i want to take a look at something briefly there's a new technology in which you can actually create your own gun using a three d. printer it sounds kind of ludicrous but apparently this is we're not far from from

seeing this become a little bit more commonplace of course this brings up issues of regulation can pretty much anyone can get. gun at this point well guess that's what we're seeing on the streets of chicago i mean i didn't have to venture too far out to the outside of the receive part of the downtown chicago and these rough neighborhoods and i've heard from people firsthand if i don't want to gun i know where to go i can get pretty much any kind i want i know who to talk to it's pretty ingrained it people know that if they want a gun they can get one so the question is whether or not i think yes regulation needs to happen but is throwing people in prison and locking away the key going to address this problem i can tell you from being out there in the community that it's you. in a place where crime is so ingrained. and you're just so part of the of this atmosphere the communities that they grow up in the most infamous you know the drug cartels the. gang violence that is

a big problem there's factions within factions these people are not going to be the ones that are going to say ok i'm going to follow this law they're going to drop drop their guns and be like laws in place i'm going to get rid of my guns the worry is that this is going to actually sweep up a larger group of people people that live in these rough neighborhoods that are carrying a gun they might not be authorized to have it but they're carrying one because they want to feel safe in a very dangerous community and the fear is that the jails are going to be flooded with people like that people that are not that's the thing about mandatory mandatory minimum laws is that it doesn't discriminate and whether you're a first time offender or a more hardened criminal you are going to face this mandatory minimum sentence all right well great reporting live thank you so much artie correspondent with wall. and new details are emerging about how former government contractor edward snowden gained access to the troves of n.s.a. documents he would later leaked to the press according to new information obtained

by reuters snowden may have engaged in some very low tech methods to gather the classified documents those methods include persuading between twenty and twenty five of his colleagues to give him their long ins and passwords and he apparently did so by telling them that those passwords were needed in order to conduct his job as a computer systems administrators the leaks that would ensue represent the worst breach of classified data and all sixty one years of the n.s.a.'s existence but this revelation is just the latest look at the inadequate security measures that were employed at the time last month reuters also reported that the n.s.a. had failed to install the most up to date anti leaks software at the hawaii site where edward snowden had been working meanwhile more news gathering mean news regarding glenn greenwald that's the journalist who broke this whole entire story we're now learning rep alan grayson who has been one of the most vocal and say critics sent

a letter to attorney general eric holder last month seeking assurance that if greenwald were to come back to the u.s. for a meeting with greyson he could do so without being arrested he wrote quote bearing in mind that mr greenwald is a citizen of the us please let me know whether the department of the justice of justice intends to bring charges against mr greenwald and whether the department of justice the department of homeland security or any other office the federal government intends to detain question arrest or prosecute mr greenwald back in july greenwald was set to testify before congress via video link from brazil where he currently lives but that hearing was later canceled if greenwald enters the united states it would be the first time since the n.s.a. documents were first leaked june. and since those revelations leaks customers have become more and more wary of big tech companies like arisan or eighteen t. because it's been revealed that they have forked over americans metadata to u.s.

spy agencies but there's one small internet service provider resisting pressure to all of that it's called x. mission and it's an independent company based in utah that unlike the tech giants has refused to turn over customer data without a warrant artie's maria port reports. so i did open a data center and here we're taking an exclusive tour through one of the few data companies standing up to the u.s. government in the name of privacy i think we do residential are very well pete ashdown is the owner of the x. mission an independent internet service provider based in salt lake city this hour here handles most of our e. unlike most power players in silicon valley x. mission refuses to give the n.s.a. backdoor access to its networks since one thousand nine hundred ninety eight mission has rejected the u.s. government for more information stored on private servers like these we don't

share our information about our customers if you don't have a war the majority of law enforcement requests ashtown says he's received and refused have been subpoenaed lacking accountability and necessary by a judge this is actually an amiga since launching his company in one thousand nine hundred three ashdown says he's filled no more than two customer data requests from the federal government was more like where we bring in customers with a small team of forty employees x. mission caters to thirty thousand customers who pay for a foundation services like internet connectivity server colocation and web or email hosting your. live. search plans the

current climate of america's unrestrained surveillance matrix has been facilitated in part by verizon facebook and other giant corporations who have spent years secretly working with the n.s.a. regulation government contracts and. monetary. compensation are in my opinion the three reason. why they're cooperating ironically utah is probably the most unlikely home for a privacy champion roughly twenty seven miles away from x. mission. is the n.s.a.'s newly constructed one point five billion dollar data center i think it's a strain on the tech industry of utah all the n.s.a. activities are a stain on american internet businesses because people don't trust to put their information stateside anymore ashdown has vowed to face jail time if that's what's needed to protect his customers from being monitored what surprises this fourth amendment advocate is that big data companies like google won't promise to do the

same marina port r.t. . and today freedom of information advocates from all over the world will be gathering in sixteen different cities to participate in a weekend hackathon all in the memory of internet activist aaron swartz they will be working on projects he started or contributed to but never got to finish today nov eighth would have been swartz's twenty seventh birthday swartz was an internet entrepreneur he was heavily involved in the development of the web feed format r.s.s. the web site framework web dot pie and the social news site reddit however he was also known as an outspoken at activist for public transparency and it's his work in that arena that ultimately led him to be charged with the computer fraud and abuse act or the c s a it's a piece of legislation many advocates are now calling outdated take a look at what peter hagans of the electronic frontier foundation had to say about

that and a bipartisan bill named after aaron that would reform the c.f.a. he spoke to r t at the los angeles def con back in august this year it was written in the mid eighty's in response to threats that were you know shown in movies and so you can imagine that the language there doesn't really reflect the way that people use computers today so erin's law goes through and it tightens up a few sections of the c.f.a. to make it better reflect the intent of the legislators and make it less of a tool that can be used by prosecutors. as sort of a dragnet of course after two years of struggling with federal prosecutors over his case swartz tragically took his life in the wake of his death internet advocacy organizations have dedicated themselves both to reforming this legislation and to the causes that were most important to him and that's exactly what's playing out this weekend in an effort of global activism. and as we've heard this week toronto

mayor rob ford officially admitted to smoking crack cocaine at a press conference ford said. i know i am barest everyone in the city and i will be forever sorry there is only one person to blame for this and that person is myself unexpectedly however for did not resign in the wake of this incident but perhaps he won't have to after all his constituents seem to be sticking by him while giving their stamp of approval artie's sam sachs reports. i think. so this is toronto mayor rob ford threatening to murder someone this video was obtained by the toronto star and it's actually rob ford's the least incriminating video there's another video long rumored to have existed showing the mayor smoking crack toronto police have that video and mayor ford was forced to do what no mayor ever really wants to do and that's admit that he smoked

crack. yes i have smoked crack cocaine. and all do i am i an addict no whenever i tried it. probably in one of my drunken stupors probably approximately about a year ago so to recap here the mayor of the fourth largest city in north america smoke crack and apparently wants to murder someone now the interesting part his approval ratings are going up as they turn to star reports since the crack revelations the mayor's approval rating has ticked up going from thirty nine percent to forty four percent meanwhile during the same time president obama's approval rating has dropped to thirty nine percent last week his lowest ever and his choom gang days are long behind him so what exactly is going on here well it's fairly easy to explain the president's failing numbers there's the botched obamacare rollout the n.s.a. revelations a pretty crummy economy a perception that the wealthy are being catered while the working class is being

left behind all that stuff conspires pretty well together to sink some poll numbers meanwhile things like smoking crack and embarrassing caught on camera moments as much as the media likes to harp on them and they don't really affect voters' perceptions you remember marion barry when he got sick caught smoking crack while he was mayor of right here in the nation's capital washington d.c. back in one thousand nine hundred even went to jail for it but how did the voters react well. they elected him mayor again a few years later because people like seeing humanity from their leaders people like flaws voters can relate to people flawed like them and let's face it rob ford looks like a wacky uncle we all have who sometimes drinks too much at family gatherings but he tells killer jokes and wrestles with all the cousins which in a way makes some kind of trustworthy kind of likeable even if his only accomplishment in office so far is privatizing part of the city's garbage collection that doesn't excuse smoking crack but it explains why voters may give

him cover for smoking crack this was the best thing former president george w. bush also very flawed had going for him and that's the point that dennis pylon a political scientist from new york university in toronto made recently in the washington post he wrote part of rob ford's appeal is that he does make a lot of mistakes he does he can properly when his critics attack him that just reinforces the support among alienated populists who also feel that they don't always speak properly that they make mistakes in the u.s. there was a somewhat similar dynamic that was often attributed to george w. bush the more the new york times criticized him for misspeaking or whatnot that bolstered his support and then there's new jersey governor chris christie who has a knack for connecting with voters to maybe it's because of his homely appearance or penchant for whatever it is voters like him to as this week's elections proved

the more he does the atypical thing like yelling at voters rather than kissing babies his numbers go up so i wouldn't suggest jumping to using hard drugs any time soon the point is the stereotypical politician whether cool intellectual like barack obama or a chisel prep like mitt romney doesn't have as much slack with voters anymore because these guys have become the faces of what's wrong with politics not just in the u.s. but in canada too. meanwhile the unconventional the rob boards the chris christie's people who look like they're below disenchanted average joe americans and canadians they are gaining popularity no matter what skeletons or crack pipes they may have in their closet in washington d.c. same sex party. and it seems like more and more companies are offering us a way to get off this earth and get into outer space it's all about merging old technologies with new ones in

a burgeoning industry of space tourism while most companies will soon offer you a ride to the stars the a rocket one company is taking it back to the basics lifting people to the stars and none other than a balloon of course i was a bit intrigued by this so i went to go find out just how all of this works take a look. it's a voyage of voyages a journey that harkens back to the movie classic around the world in eighty days starting in two thousand and sixteen one company will send passengers ninety miles high right to the edge of space and it will offer this service not on a rocket but rather on a helium filled balloon the arizona based company called worldview enterprises has plans to attach a balloon to a pressurized capsule that can hold up to six passengers in two crew members after lifting off the balloon would take approximately an hour and a half to reach a height of one hundred thousand feet and that's just high enough to see the

curvature of earth. so how is it possible to take a balloon like this all the way up to space flight came down to nasa and ballooning laboratory and wallops island virginia to find out this is where the magic happened nasa is one and only ballooning workshop it's home to a number of engineers and researchers whose sole focus is to make discoveries by sending scientific instruments up to the edge of space and bag blue flies are actually sold a form of white and the physics are actually very simple. you have buoyancy in the balloon that lifts you up to a particular altitude and then your quads believe it or not the concept is just that simple on the ground the balloon is filled with a very small amount of helium and as a balloon ascends into the atmosphere the helium expands to volumes of up to forty million cubic feet and while they are sturdy enough to carry up to eight thousand pounds nasa has no intention of taking balloon manned missions any time soon. but

that hasn't stopped private companies from chartering their own manned missions just last year red bull sponsored daredevil felix baumgartner who jumped to earth from a helium balloon setting the record for a parachute jump from. highest altitude and outside of balloon flights companies like virgin galactic and space x. will soon be offering commercial trips to outer space by rocket these private escapades are all part of a flourishing industry that's taken root in the last decade called space tourism and fact in the next ten years the f.a.a. says this industry will be worth one billion dollars. that's a large growth considering it was just in two thousand and one the dennis tito an american engineer and multimillionaire became the very first space tourist it seemed very kind of cavalier at the time and i think you know how a track record has proven that even the wildest craziest ideas can become

a reality that's tom shelley the president of the company responsible for making that on president admission happen we arrange for very successful very wealthy individuals to be to fly into space and we will look to continue to do that but we're very much looking forward to a lower priced experience being available but lower prices in the industry don't exactly translate to a low price overall take a ride via rocket and you're looking at a price tag of two hundred fifty thousand dollars while a balloon ride is a bit more cost effective at seventy five thousand while it might not seem like a competitive market just yet the choices for private space flight are growing by the day more and more companies are beginning to privatized some of the oldest technologies creating an opportunity for ordinary people to pay their way up to space in washington on your david our team so here to discuss this along with some other space issues making headlines i'm joined by jeff manber space entrepreneur

and author of the book selling peace jess thanks for being with me every day to so like i mentioned in the piece it's still kind of pricey you have these trips ranging from what seventy five thousand to two hundred fifty thousand i think a lot of people still can't really afford that. well traveling to space to be accessible to the general population and any time soon you can afford. to go to real space the international space station runs about thirty million and that's on the russian rocket so and that's what dennis tito you know right and and so this is this is lowering the price and we're all excited about this so i mean if there's a lot of net worth individuals they can afford certainly for itself. of course i mean maybe they'll sell a share maybe they'll be a scholarship one day but it's going to be a long long time before it comes down below that but even at these prices virgin galactic has some six hundred fifty people who have reservations is another smaller

company called x. core they have several hundred people so we're really seeing the frontier finally opening up are you excited by it i am excited i mean i was involved with dennis tito in everyone thought we were crazy in doing that he wasn't the world's first space tourist there were two before him and so it's happening step by step by step and so it's just great because they come back and they talk about and what do you think the potential is i mean do you think we could one day have this be a functional form of transportation the way you use airplanes it has to be i mean it can't just be for space it's there are a lot of people or groups or richard branson with virgin galactic he talks about wanting it to be a point to point you go from san francisco to bangkok in forty five minutes so you don't only have space goals with this technology those are more emotional it's getting the whole society to experience the beauty of space but also i think the not the next generation but two generations of aviation will be point to point these planes that go into space and then land on the other side of the globe under

an hour later absolutely well earlier this year we saw a company called orbital successfully send its first rocket filled with supplies to the international space station that's just one private company who are the major players in the private space market right now and is there really a lot of competition that exists between them will. depends if we have competition and that's new orbital center payloads to the space station they're funded by nasa but it's commercial because if they don't succeed then they don't get paid their competition is the space x. and he's the same in the same situation he has to succeed that's going to the space station and then below that your version galactic doing suborbital x. core doing suborbital ilan wants to take manned missions to mars. my company man or x. we had cargo both on space x. and orbital and for us there was no nasa no government funded with real customers and so it's it is a new marketplace it is and going off of that you know with nasa is funding really

sort of started to dwindle private industries are picking up the slack what are the implications you think of really privatizing this industry i mean is that a good thing of that thing well i think it's a good thing you're only right but i'll tell you why i think it's a good thing and that is government should not be involved in low earth orbit we call it it's fairly routine we don't want the government doing things unless it's cutting edge the government's not involved in aviation boeing and airbus you know makes the planes it's doesn't design the cars government doesn't design our computers why should they design a launch vehicles now so for us it's very exciting let nasa go to mars let nasa do asteroid things and cutting edge science and let the private sector do what we do best which is operations so it's a good thing what i want to turn to one more thing that's making headlines because not only do people have the ability to visit space but apparently space can visit us as we said this happened this past february and russia had that you here entered twelve hundred people you know researched this we came out saying this is actually

going to be happening ten times more than scientists originally thought how should people really sort of ingest that new should we be scared or what we should be scared i mean for us in the business one of the fundamental reasons i was space program was to prevent the earth from getting wiped out as the ultimate. environmental program and for us the fact that people ignore this is like the person who won't go to the doctor so i mean we should focus on this we should try and come up with a means to prevent what will be an inevitable city one day being wiped out absolutely why do pre-show you come in and break you know all down for us jeff manber space entrepreneur thank you and that does it for now for more on the stories we covered go to youtube dot com slash r t america check out our website r t dot com slash usa you can also follow me on twitter at amir and david.

thanks for. the reply. did you know the price is the only industry specifically mention in the constitution and. that's because a free and open press is critical to our democracy albus. in fact the single biggest threat facing our nation today is the corporate takeover of our government and our press. we've been a hydrogen handful of transnational corporations that will profit by destroying what our founding fathers once built just mark it on this show we reveal the big picture of what's actually going on in the world we go beyond identify the. rational debate real discussion critical issues facing. you know ready to join the movement then welcome there.