i'm. going to. go up on our t.v. the california police officers face charges of the death of a local homeless man video shows kelly thomas being beaten in tasered by the officers before his death an update on this case and a look at police brutality here in the u.s. ahead. and at the air force academy in colorado cadets take a pledge to never lie but investigative journalist says he's uncovered information that some recruits are asked to not only lie but also spy on classmates professors and commanders will speak to that journalist coming up. and the u.s. veterans return from war and to a new field of battle there's been an increase in drug prescriptions for veterans with a sizable amount dying of overdose or another cause will take

a look at the health of nations vets later in the show. it's wednesday december fourth four pm in washington d.c. i'm sam sax and you're watching r.t. and we begin with a developing story today as yet another n.s.a. bulk data collection program has been revealed based on interviews and documents obtained from edward snowden the washington post reports that the n.s.a. is tracking cell phone locations all around the world collecting nearly five billion records every single day that information is stored in a vast database that is able to track the location of hundreds of millions of devices and the people who use those devices and develop complex relationship maps of who's interacting with who and where they're interacting based on this data agency officials say that this program by design does. not target americans but as

we've learned with other n.s.a. bulk collection programs americans data is often incidentally swept up into these databases as are the locations of tens of millions of americans who travel abroad every year and use their cell phones now in recent months senators like ron wyden have pressed the n.s.a. on whether or not they are conducting a program using cell site location data within the united states and the n.s.a. has denied that such a program currently exists the operative word there currently but this latest league exposes such a program existing on a global scale with enormous capabilities where an analyst can locate any cell phone in the world and retrace the movements of that device and its owner tracking him or her as they move about to work or to their private home or to a private meeting according to n.s.a. documents the amount of data flowing into their databases as a result of this program is outpacing the agency's ability to ingest process and

store it and as for the implications of this latest leak it shows that efforts to keep phone communications a secret or using disposable phones or leaving them turned off don't work given the n.s.a.'s capabilities in fact this newly revealed program is designed to specifically sniff out devices that appear to be trying to remain hidden. now moving on to california where the trial continues for two police officers facing charges for the two thousand and eleven beating death of kelly thomas this man seen here thomas mentally ill and homeless was confronted by police officers on the night of july fifth two thousand and eleven he was not guilty of any sort of crime officers responding to a call about a man jiggling car door handles in a bus depot parking lot what followed was a brutal beating at the hands of six fullerton police officers that beating was largely captured. on video there it is throughout it you can hear thomas calling

out to his father calling out for help saying the officers are killing him thomas died five days later in a hospital after he was taken off life support and this video the one you're seeing here is now the primary evidence a new say against two former officers who are now facing charges from this beating death and well ramos is charged with second degree murder in involuntary manslaughter and former corporal jay kitchen ellie is facing one count of involuntary manslaughter and one count of use of excessive force a third officer joseph wolf is charged with involuntary manslaughter he'll be tried in a separate trial. now the trial here is expected to last weeks and it's a trial of particular importance because we've seen some troubling reports of police brutality emerge all around the country recently there is to paris williams a twenty year old in san francisco who was stopped by police for riding his bike on the sidewalk on november fifteenth delta cation quickly turned violent as this

video shows williams and three others were arrested there williams and his supporters say that it was the police who made the situation hostile williams went from the hospital to jail for three days but charges against williams were later dropped the san francisco police maintain they have the right to defend themselves and no officers have been charged with wrongdoing or look at lucinda white a woman in springfield illinois who was tasered by police while eight months pregnant this april and it was white who called the police in the first place after a fender bender springfield police stand by their actions and there's been no charges against the officers in this case either. and you might remember this video of dwight harris the man in the wheelchair getting forcefully tackled by two washington d.c. metro policeman in the spring of two thousand and eleven police said harris was drinking in public though those charges against terrorist were dropped shortly after this video was released while harris alleges that police use excessive force

and he required stitches on his head the police were not charged and they kept their jobs. unfortunately these examples can go on and on and on but on like in any of those cases just mentioned in the case of kelly thomas the officers are actually facing some charges police brutality is receiving one of those rare days in court and we should all pays close we should all pay close attention to this case. ok now staying on this issue of police officers are increasingly being outfitted with tiny cameras known as lipstick cameras that record everything the officer sees in deals with during his or her shift some say this technology offers unprecedented accountability on the part of police by making sure everything they do is recorded but this also has privacy advocates raising concerns artie's amir david as more.

for every officer in laurel maryland police department the day starts and ends right here we each grab a camera and as you can see here it clips on the side of my glasses or headband or there's different mounts that way it's commonly referred to as the lipstick camera with its shape and size resembling that of the women's popular make up of the gadget is far from just this that it pleasure it's the latest technology being implemented into police departments across the country allowing for officers to record interactions from a rare vantage point it just gives a completely unbiased view of the situation it doesn't mean it can't be slanted one way or the other. more you should have the records everything they see every single police to citizen interaction from traffic stops like this one to simple bystander asking for directions so the question is where

does all the recorded footage go while at laurel's police department officers show me just how it's done it all runs through a secure online server that officers can then access through an app on their smartphone but the main server for the thousands of police interactions that happen daily is right here on a storage website called evidence dot com this is where officers can log in and view their captured footage and even though they can see the video the police department says officers cannot tamper with it they cannot alter they cannot delete they cannot change they cannot they they have no it's a view only for them at one hundred eighty one days tazer notifies us as administrator said they're going to ready to purge the system one hundred eighty days that's the policy for how long video can be stored on the server before it's automatically purged but while police officers seem to be playing by the rules privacy advocates of the a.c.l.u. say that the implementation of these cameras has presented conflicting viewpoints

on the one hand. they are cameras there are more cameras in our public spaces which is a trend that we've been generally fighting and there are cameras run by the police on the other hand we've seen a lot of situations in which these cameras on the bodies of police act as a very effective check and balance against police abuses check and balance indeed in reality how california police conducted a randomized controlled study after cameras were introduced in february of two thousand and twelve public complaints against officers plunged eighty eight percent compared with the previous twelve months and as for the officers use of force that fell by sixty percent but the a.c.l.u. and other privacy advocates are still concerned over the power police officers have to turn their camera on and off perhaps then failing to capture behavior that they don't want tate is to are going to have an incentive to be dishonest about certain things and the cameras help keep them honest but they could design

a system where the number was privacy advocates are demanding that police departments implement airtight policies so that people don't have to depend on the honesty of police officers it's only then they say that this could be a force for good allowing citizens to make sure their law enforcement is following the law in washington david our team. right now joining me for more on this is our teaser married a bit welcome so. we see that these cameras these lipstick cameras that are outfitted on police are being used by more and more police departments around the country what do you think's behind this kind of explosion in their use they certainly are exploding they're everywhere now where there are number of reasons they're very beneficial to the police officers you have to remember that this footage that's recorded on these cameras is basically hard evidence that means that if someone were to file a complaint against a police officer say they're saying the police acted aggressively or the police abuse them and they would have you know they would have video they could.

automatically refute that complaint so they could take that footage put it on a cd easily take it over to the court show the judge and say here it is right here it's didn't happen so it makes court testifying much easier it's also proven to deescalate a lot of situations now either that's because you know the people see the officer wearing the camera and then they decide to calm down a little bit and maybe sort of back off from the situation or it's because a police officer knows that they're being recorded and so they sort of decide not to resort to you know using force or even lethal force one of them in our letter. and they're exactly so there you have it. you know we sold during the occupy movement or we've seen in the last few years everybody has a phone with a camera on it now and during the occupy movement we saw lots of people using their phone to record cops and we've seen since then more and more cases where people are reporting a record of the cops do you think that's influenced the police decision to use these cameras so that there's not only one side recording them that the footage

could be of to make a cup look bad so the cop now has his footage too to record what he's doing while the police department says of course it's not a direct response to that but it's kind of apparent that that's what's going on the police chief says that that has definitely become an issue and i think that's the reason why they like the idea of being able to give their perspective i spoke to the chief of police and this is what he had to say about it. we're constantly under video surveillance we're being recorded on a regular basis whether it's cell phones whether it's personal well cams whatever the technology is there in the community this is a benefit for oss because as opposed to twenty second clip being broadcast by the media we now have the an incident in the entirety in its entirety thereby we can rebut any of the negative spins are placed on the video that's released by the media let's talk about the privacy concerns here because we have officers walking around doing their job with this camera on them and they're just recording everything they see people could just interact with

a police officer but not want to be recorded with racer and i mean there are a lot of people that just by hearing it alone they're sort of up in arms about it but you know what legally speaking the recording is totally fair game where i was in the state of maryland it's actually all party consent states and means all parties have to be onboard with the recording even if one person wants to record however the loophole to that is public space so any time you are you know you at a traffic stop asking for directions anything anywhere you are on public property that's all fair game but once of course they go into a private business or residence they have to ask for a consent from the people recording and then they have the right to refuse it interestingly the a.c.l.u. is behind this because that it adds accountability to the police officers but there's also this wrinkle that the officers can talk all when the camera goes on and off meaning they could turn it off if they were turned off and do something bad assumingly you what does that mean you just said it on the head i mean just to be

clear they cannot do post editing so they can't cut parts out they can't believe anything but it is up to them it's on their discretion of course police departments will tell them you need to put it on any time you have a citizen police interaction but you know you could have incident where the police officer knows that he or she is not going to be doing something that would be deemed appropriate by the public might decide not to put it on and then say either i forgot to. or i didn't have time to or it didn't work so that's a real concern and that's why a.c.l.u. the a.c.l.u. and privacy advocates say there need to be real good policies in place interesting stuff artie's amir david thank you thank you court proceedings at the nation's largest federal court of appeals are about to significantly change the ninth circuit u.s. court of appeals headquartered in san francisco covers district courts in california alaska arizona several other states out west and this week the court announced that it will be live streaming some of its hearings over the internet so this will be the first time ever that video

a federal appellate court hearings will be broadcasted live the court has picked five cases between december ninth and december eleventh that will be the first to be live streamed the first is a case concerning a california law that requires police to collect the d.n.a. of any adult arrested for a felony the chief justice of the ninth circuit alex kozinski said about the decision video streaming is a way to open the courts doors even wider so that more people can see and hear what transpires in the courtroom particularly in regard to some of our most important cases so stay tuned for some must see legal t.v. coming out of the west coast. and now to a story of spying and deception emerging from the u.s. air force academy according to information obtained by the colorado springs gazette the air force is an office of special investigations of the o.s.i. was running a secret program in which could debts were forced to spy on their classmates to catch suspected drug users and sex offenders the cadets who acted as informants

were encouraged to deceive classmates professors and commanders while taking photos wearing recording devices and filing secret reports and according to the guys that this is something many cadets were bullied into doing it says that their records show as uses f.b.i. style tactics to create informants agents interrogate cadets for hours without offering access to a lawyer threaten them with prosecution then coerce them into helping o.-s. . side and exchange for promises of leniency they don't always keep one of those cadets was eric thomas who claims he was recruited into the program in two thousand and ten where he essentially became a spy for the u.s. i secured several convictions drug and sexual assault convictions against his fellow cadets eventually thomas himself was kicked out of the program when o.s.i. determined he quote no longer had access to targets and documents obtained via a freedom of information act request to confirm thomas's story and given thomas' history of dealing with infractions as a spy for the us side he himself had racked up enough the merits to be kicked out

of the air force two and he was in two thousand and twelve just six months before graduating he thought the u.s. i would defend him at this hearing but it said he was left hanging in the air force at the nih had such a program existed but earlier i spoke with the investigative reporter at the colorado springs gazette who broke this story dave phillips and i first asked him if the air force is still sticking to its denial now that the story has been broken open. no they just came out yesterday and said yes we used this program although they wouldn't say how much or give any details but they said you know if it works we're allowed to use it and they defended it so one of the things that really struck me about it that using informants at the air force academy is the academy takes its its honor code varies hugely they. require cadets never to lie in fact if you get hot line and get kicked out for one

offense but at the same time this program pretty much requires some cadets to lie and i tried to get them to speak about that seating contradiction and so far no one really disgusted me or we're learning of this through the case of eric thomas who claims that he has evidence that you presented that shows that he was working within this program he was spying on his fellow cadets securing numerous convictions in the process before he himself was kicked out of the air force and he was recruited after he got in trouble does as far as you know does this program with a. target people who are already in trouble and they were picked up any clean cadets and asked them to join the program well we know about what could as they've had contact with is very very limited. but generally speaking how these programs work in these programs are we are used in other places not just at the air force i'll go using them in colleges is is extremely rare what we know is that yeah you might get

. picked up first some sort of small misconduct and then law enforcement would try and lot leverage that and say look we'll make this go away if you work for us now jeralyn with any f.b.i. or or with mom fortune and they they pinch small time people to try to get bigger people see you get the drug user so you can try and learn in the drug dealer is there something like that in the case of the academy that didn't necessarily seem to happen it seemed as if when they created informants they were looking for any kind of misconduct no matter how small. what happens to other o.s.i. informants thomas was was kicked out here do you eve spoken with four other former and informants they provided some statements to you in this piece it's almost as though once you get recruited into this program you're on your way out of the air force you're going to be kicked out of benchley when you no longer use to rat out your fellow cadets is that kind of the way this works. you know obviously we don't

know how it works what we do know is we have a few you know a very limited number of examples within those examples. three of the five i know of were kicked out. for. their actions one. went on a sort of dropped out of the program and became an officer wants nothing to do with it another went and worked for i now work for o.s.i. so i think there's a range of things that can happen but it's there's a lot of risks involved when you're an informant by nature you're running with a bad crowd a lot of unintended things can happen and so i wouldn't be surprised if it's. typical outcome that that these guys get into more trouble and are eventually expelled you brought up in your story kind of a back story in the air force in which they were dealing with all these allegations

of drug use in the early to thousands which might have been the nexus of this or the origin of this sort of informant program out of the o.s.i. . as far as you can tell is this exclusive to the air force can we assume that other branches of the military have similar programs in place as well well actually a tricky question so yesterday i got statements from both the army and the navy saying that they do not have programs of this type. the question is are they telling the truth i imagine if i had asked that question to the air force you know a month ago their response would have been the same so officially no there's no other programs like this i'm officially i'm not sure what happens to eric thomas now your article has kind of dragged this program into the light as you said the air force is now fessing up that this does this program actually existed. have many of these new documents that you received through foyer requests everything can they allow thomas to have any recourse to what happened to him. well what thomas monson

just did get his diploma from the academy and get his officers commission and have a career in the air force he said that's all these really ever wanted to do. will that happen now that all this is coming out as it is totally unclear right now the air force's response to our reporting is to say. that that cadet thomas was a dad with a long history of misconduct that all of his misconduct happened before he was an informant and that therefore they were totally justified in what they did now my reporting i believe contradicts what they're saying. right now they're they're not conceding any of those points there will be interesting to see what more comes out of this reporting here dave phillips investigative reporter at the gazette thank you so much thanks for having me and that of pakistan where blowback from the u.s. drone war has crippled an important supply route used by the united states and nato

to transport supplies in and out of afghanistan that supply route running through a province in northern pakistan has been blocked since the end of november by protesters demanding an end to the continuing drone strikes in pakistan former cricket player turned politician imraan khan says his political party is responsible for blocking the supply route one of two routes that run through pakistan he says his party may block the second route as well again to protest drone strikes in response to the disruption a spokesperson for the pentagon said today that the u.s. military is halting cargo shipments out of afghanistan through pakistan out of concern for drivers on these routes and all the pentagon hopes the supply route will be reopened in the near future they're in the process of redirecting supply lines by bypassing pakistan and all the pakistani government which has both publicly criticized the drone attacks and privately supported them claims to be committed to reopening that supply line. and while supplies may have trouble

leaving afghanistan at the moment we will soon be seeing more and more u.s. soldiers leave that country as the war there winds down next year of course those soldiers will have access to medical care through the v.a. when they return back to the states. but is that so-called care they're receiving actually driving them toward drug abuse or period boring reports prescription drug abuse and overdose has taken so many lives in america that the white house classifies it as an epidemic sadly our nation's veterans are some of the most at risk of becoming addicted to prescription drugs better and like nick stefan a brick i got this shirts are we discharged from the marine corps in two thousand and six. and when i came home and when i started using pills. for everything. oxycontin is an opioid prescribed to treat severe acute or chronic pain veterans hospitals are increasingly prescribing the drug to people with chronic pain who also have post-traumatic stress disorder it almost cures. the type of

medical disorders that come back from combat with immediately but mental illness can increase a person's risk of addiction so that addiction turned just snowballed and spiraled out of control. to the point where i had lost everything divina vick got so caught up in his addiction he was ultimately arrested for writing fraudulent checks to buy drugs illegally oxycontin is an opioid and addictive painkiller that resulted in over sixteen thousand deaths in two thousand and ten that number has been increasing over the past eleven years despite its highly addictive nature the number of opioid prescriptions written by the v.a. has risen by two hundred eighty seven percent between two thousand and nine and two thousand and twelve in two thousand and twelve alone the v.a. treated over fifty thousand veterans for issues associated with opioid use many of which were overdoses according to a study by the v.a.

veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder are more than twice as likely to be prescribed opioids which is a pain killer at the same time opioids can have a toxic reactions to other common p.t.s.d. medications. but is it safe to give opioids to people who have p.t.s.d. i asked produce pharma the leading producer of oxy cotton about this and they told me opioid anneli jacks are an important part of treating veterans who suffer from chronic pain there you should be closely monitored at all times especially in combination with other medications but purdue has a history of misleading the public in two thousand and seven the company put it guilty to criminal charges against branding the product as less addictive than what it really was and misleading doctors patient and regulators about the risk of the product yet the v.a. continues to prescribe the drug which is produce farmers cash cow the painkiller accounts for eighty percent of their total revenues oxycodone sales increased three hundred percent between two thousand and one and two thousand and eleven purdue has

sold over twenty seven billion dollars worth of this drug since one thousand nine hundred six that's more than the entire gross domestic product of north korea and jamaica combined we all know we can't deny they're making a ton of money off of us judy's would tell ski is a veterans treatment court judge in michigan we're looking at dramatically increasing rates and that's different for our veterans she believes the criminal justice system can be successful treating prescription drug addictions divonne of extend himself and a veterans treatment court program after his arrest he was court ordered to report to a judge and attend treatment sessions for a year he says the program saved his wife but to get into the program a person first has to get arrested the larger policy question is how the v.a. can avoid contributing to the addiction problem in the first place the. rate of recovery from opiate dependence is less than one percent typically so it's even much less it's highly addictive one in six iraq and afghanistan veterans have

a substance abuse issue returning home from defending our freedoms many veterans find themselves caged and a prescription drug addiction in washington d.c. i'm perry and boring hearty. and that does it for now. i've got a quote for you. it's pretty tough. stay with sob story. but if this guy like you would smear the guys instead of working for the people most issues in the mainstream media are working for each other right right was it easier to find. the dead rather.

i was a new alert animation scripts scare me a little. there is breaking news tonight and we are continuing to follow the breaking news. alexander's family cry tears of the war i it great things other that there has to be either read or get a quart of water around a liar there's

a story sort of movie is playing out in real life. there i marinate it this is boom bust in here the stories we're tracking for you today. first up where have all the banks gone well according to statistics from the f.b.i. see the way the dinosaur will tell you about it coming right up and also a columnist and former treasury secretary paul fred roberts joins me today to discuss all things bad policy related and later on the car as is and i discussed high net worth practice of her diction shopping her story it's in today's big deal you won't want to miss any of it and it all starts right now.