coming up on r c it's a digital storm of new developments in the expansion of u.s. surveillance a new report reveals how the n.s.a. is ripping a page from online advertisers to bolster its own surveillance capabilities meanwhile hundreds of authors are adding their voices to the growing concern over n.s.a. surveillance that and much more up ahead. and on capitol hill that hearing is held on past and future u.s. afghanistan relations does this mean u.s. troops could remain in afghanistan beyond the planned twenty fourteen pullout the latest on the hearing coming up. in the nation's capital is marked with a series of local police scandals multiple officers have been investigated for corrupt activities with one of them committing suicide more on the police

corruption in d.c. later in the show. it's wednesday december eleventh five pm in washington d.c. i'm sam sax and you're watching our two. today on capitol hill the chief of the n.s.a. general keith alexander field a question from lawmakers on the senate judiciary committee the focus of the hearing is continued oversight of u.s. government surveillance authorities and it's hearings like this one that have been a common staple on capitol hill since june since edward snowden begin spilling the n.s.a. secrets out on to newspapers around the world the latest secret published today in the washington post reveals how the n.s.a. is using the same techniques that corporate online advertisers use to pinpoint surveillance targets and gather intelligence on people's locations essentially the n.s.a. is using google cookies cookies are little packets of data that allow online ad to

advertisers to uniquely track you and me and what websites we visit in order to tailor online advertising for us cookies are the reason why web sites you go to seem to remember you and why if you search for something on google one day you'll be hit with ads for that very same thing the next day basically cookies allow for corporate advertisers to spy on your online activity and they've been doing it for years and now we know that this online infrastructure these cookies set up by companies like google to allow advertisers to track our online activity is also being used by the n.s.a. to single out one person's communications data as it flows amongst everything else on the internet not only that the n.s.a. is using the location data that's imbedded in apps on people smart phones to get a more precise location of where people are here to for online advertising reasons apps will send unique data about you like your location to corporate advertisers

a lot of the time without you even knowing about it and the n.s.a. is taking advantage of that information too it's not completely clear how the n.s.a. is gathering this data whether companies are voluntarily sharing it whether the n.s.a. is taking it or whether companies like google are being legally can. held to handed over through a pfizer order you may remember earlier this week tech giants like google and apple banded together to push for reforms to the n.s.a. and its surveillance operations which are beginning to erode trusting consumers and could hurt the bottom line of these same companies also teaming up against the n.s.a. some of the world's leading authors five hundred authors from eighty one different countries around the world including five nobel prize winners are joining together to call on the united nations to pass a new international protections for spying and their statement the authors say this fundamental human right has been rendered null and void through abuse of technological developments by states and corporations for mass surveillance

purposes a person under surveillance is no longer free a society under surveillance is no longer a democracy and of course once a week of new n.s.a. revelations without an international relations mess it's one coming from c.b.c. news in canada where a new snowden document exposes canadian spies doing work on behalf of the n.s.a. to spy on approximately twenty trading partners classified as high priority countries the n.s.a. appears to be using canada to exploit relationships that the united states can no longer keep unclear what sort of diplomatic fallout the canadians makes perience as a result of this latest leak so that's the latest all of it again coming out just as the chief of the n.s.a. faces off with senators today for an oversight hearing i was joined earlier by shah had to tar executive director at the bill of rights defense committee here in d.c. and steve anderson executive director of open media and i started out by asking shah had now this information has come out will this bring more attention to the

type of spying corporations have been doing on us for years. it very well might and there's a great documentary out that's just making the rounds now called terms and conditions may apply about this sort of data exchange from the private sector and companies that are selling us and goods to the government intelligence agencies that are monitoring and watching us including our first amendment protected behavior the difference between those two spheres historically has been that google for instance can show up at your house with a gun and put you in handcuffs and detain you that's a power that uniquely the government has precisely the problem with the co-optation of the online advertising companies cookies is that it collapses the distinction between those two things so that anything you do share with an online company whether through the prism program or whether through the data center hacks or whether or through these kinds of tools the n.s.a. gets it too and it's historically because the companies don't have the monopoly on the use of legitimate force that the state has i think that's been one of the

reasons people have been more comfortable with allowing online advertisers to track online activity is a very different equation now that we know that our government spy agencies are watching that information too. that is that has tools that go way well beyond the scope of tech companies and if we were to limit these tech companies that doesn't mean that the n.s.a. wouldn't be able to spy on us but the same time we've allowed google in these companies to build this sort of online infrastructure to create these cookies and a lot of time they let these cookies go because they're very lucrative by. inventing these cookies and tracking users they can offer free services because or advertisers are paying them for that for that data but can we expect moving forward civil libertarians like rand paul or just some remarks you've really been leading the forefront against government spying in the end of the n.s.a. to kind of change their tune and reorient themselves toward corporate law particularly well you know in a lot of those cases some of the same officials the elected officials for years

often about tend to be free market. adherence and so they might for instance find themselves comforted by. the idea that the market will select out advertisers who are very abusive toward their users privacy i don't think that's necessarily a good argument in this case because we've seen for instance that their incentives in the markets don't always work very well there are incentives for online advertisers to abuse privacy will those particular members of congress see the concern and offer to take an iconoclast position with respect to their own free market inherence that's an open question i really don't know the answer there but i will say that as long as the n.s.a. is hacking the online internet companies and the cookies aren't the only example of all my infrastructure that the n.s.a. has tapped into the data centers coming out of new york and intact in the back and the prism program basically to the back end of the internet companies i didn't start the senators with google and yahoo and this is why brazil is trying to build their own to europe to get around the u.s. servers i don't want to get on that issue here in just

a second but i mentioned to me in the beginning here the general keith alexander is on the hill testifying here we have these hearings now every other week in which we bring the top spy chiefs on the answer questions and yet we haven't seen any legislation come out of this there are a few lawmakers who are position themselves to do something with the n.d.a. and try it in the senate try and rein in the n.s.a. through that we learned this week about it's not going to happen because they're not going to be any amendments in the senate what's the purpose of these hearings what do you think lawmakers are trying to do with these hearings every other week or so if it's not to create legislators that the debian is a platform to defend itself against these leaks which each week couple different possibilities and one of them is that they're grandstanding to mollify their constituents or pretend like they're doing something productive and alternative possibility is that they themselves the members of congress are sincerely interested in the information that's been kept from them for the last ten years multiple members of the house judiciary committee complained earlier today that they didn't know about the extent of the surveillance programs despite the obama administration's repeated assurances that it is briefed congress particularly

congressman from california as aloft and said that the briefing that the white house has cited on numerous occasions supporting this idea that. has been brought into the programs is less than a page long and eight sentences long which is to say there they themselves are being kept in the dark and so maybe the hearings are serving this sort of oversight transparency function ultimately though you're right congress's job is to legislate and to oversee executive agencies it's already failed on the oversight piece and so legislation is long overdue some of the people proposing bills to restrain n.s.a. spying include the very authors of the patriot act james sensenbrenner a republican from wisconsin and patrick leahy senator from vermont on the other side of the chamber and they've teamed up to propose very very significant restrictions on n.s.a. spying i do hope that the usa freedom act passes and given the dysfunction visible across congress that's really an alien tech companies joining in the mix earlier this week change the calculation on capitol hill and makes this legislation more likely your sort of freedom act i certainly hope so but in the company have been there are other issues though where the tie companies have been very allied on

privacy concerns and yet not been able to secure congressional reforms even around more meager proposals of the electronic communications privacy act for instance has been an object of attention of the tech companies for over a year now this is a bill that hasn't been there a lot of it hasn't been updated in thirty years getting not the n.s.a. but local police and the f.b.i. and every other law enforcement agency the right to access stored communications like your g. mail account without a warrant and that that doesn't even reach these issues around n.s.a. spying that historically people have thought were going to be a tougher sell a longer ranging issue things possible that were impossible in britain steven anderson is the executive director and open media in vancouver he probably has a unique perspective on this new about how canadian spies were basically working at the behest of the n.s.a. to spy on key trading partners steve what has been the reaction in canada to a lot of these revelations since june and how does this latest leak maybe change

their reaction can we expect some fallout out of this leak with canadian canada's allies. i think for sure and i think canadians domestically have been increasingly alarmed tens of thousands of people have reached out to lawmakers to call for more oversight and really what it comes down to is trust i mean and this latest revelation. can a canadian spy agency is in our kind of embassies are being used at the behest of the us n.s.a. for spying on our allies it's just making that worse and i mean our government warning answer better basic questions like how many canadians are swept up in this surveillance and what information they have on us how secure are those databases is that information being shared with other countries like the u.s. you know the n.s.a. and other countries so basically what is happening and so far a government has been really tight lipped they won't tell us what's happening here

and the fact that we hear now that some of this spying is going on for the basically the n.s.a. is telling our country what to do and who. just makes the concerns grow even stronger. the five hundred authors who are calling on the u.n. to pass this new international charter to protect civil liberties in the digital age what do you think something like that looks like and how does that jive with what we're seeing on a country by country level like brazil trying to wall off its internet what are the two avenues here that which one should we take which one would work which one doesn't work. you know i think we definitely need domestic legislation. and really most countries around the world to rein in the surveillance i think that it's out of step with basic basic understanding in expectations for the right to privacy so you need that in canada you need that legislation in the u.s.

brazil needs to take action other countries and take action but i also believe. we need privacy to be enshrined as a human right. at the u.n. there's a civil society coalition called necessary proportionate that's pushing for that we've joined in that and open media with groups like the electronic frontier foundation and others so i think that you know writers coming out and speaking out about this is a kind of welcome step welcome development and i think you're probably going to see more gamers actually speaking out about this stuff now that it's been revealed that gamers are being spied on and what's happening is more and more people are realizing how this affects them in their personal lives and then they're becoming more vocal and engaged in the issue and i think that's going to continue and i hope that the politicians realize which way the wind is blowing that is going to continue and that will show that there were some concerns in brazil so they wanted to kind of wall off their internet and that other countries start doing this suddenly you've kind of destroyed the world wide web do you share those concerns

and is this idea of creating some international framework that kind of dictates all countries a better way to go about this i think most of the deepest concerns with countries defecting from the shared infrastructure of the internet or by silicon valley because it's american firms and businesses that would stand to lose significant markets as a constitutional lawyer i tend to favor a more robust checks and balances and so if the infrastructure of the worldwide web was dismantled so that no n.s.a. could seize all the data traveling along the back and i think that's a positive development because there are more checks and balances there is an efficiency tradeoff there and i think that's the inevitable consequence of witnessing governments like our own abusing the trust of the commons to take advantage of the space that the open internet enabled to then co-opt freedom and freedom of thought one element of the author stated that i think is really useful just to draw out is there well established not particularly controversial statement that people who are being surveilled are not free in a society under surveillance cannot be

a democracy that is something that we understood in this country for a long time and it changes the context for what's happening on the hill these are just hearings. into the n.s.a. spying programs these are hearings into the assault on democracy in america. i think it is going to be sure going with this problem too for a while here stephen the issue that was brought up today at the hearing was about metadata and we heard general keith alexander again defend method as not being such a big deal. of their intended method that is still a really big deal just like it is here isn't that right. oh absolutely i mean we joined with the civil liberties association recently in launching their lawsuit against the government which is basically saying that collecting our method data and that's our sensitive private information to be clear that's what it is that collecting that information on law abiding canadians is unconstitutional so absolutely people are concerned up here and the government going to need to answer on that and listen you know metadata tells you can tell authorities where you are

where you're going who your friends with all kinds of sensitive information about your relationships so i think it's absolutely crucial that there be checks and balances on that kind of information collection and strip and storage that was shot head batar executive director of the bill of rights fence committee here in d.c. and steve anderson executive director of open media in vancouver thank you all. staying here on capitol hill there's a new budget deal on the table that could avoid another government shutdown next month republican house budget chairman paul ryan in the senate's democratic budget chairwoman patty murray announced the deal on tuesday night i am happy to report that senator murray and i have reached an agreement. we've been talking all year and this week that hard work of the two of us sitting down and talking to each other all year is paid off now the deal would set spending for this fiscal year at one point zero one two trillion dollars and it gets rid of roughly sixty three

billion dollars in sequester cuts set to head in two thousand and fourteen and twenty fifteen those cuts though are replaced by savings elsewhere plus another twenty two point five billion dollars and more deficit reduction some of those so-called savings include higher fees on airline tickets a paid cut to newly hired federal workers of more than one percent and a one percent cut in the cost of living adjustment for military retirees under the age of sixty two important note not one corporate tax loophole is closed in this deal and it doesn't address extended unemployment benefits which are set to expire for more than one million americans shortly after christmas house representatives may vote on this budget deal as soon as thursday before skipping town and going on holiday recess until next year the senate could take up the measure there after all to really both chambers must come up with a budget deal before january fifteenth two thousand and fourteen to avoid another government shutdown. also on capitol hill lawmakers are grappling with questions

over afghanistan and what exactly the role of the u.s. is in that country in two thousand and fourteen after combat operations are supposed to officially end the senate's foreign relations committee held a hearing on that topic today in artie's maine lopez has a report. today the house foreign affairs committee now on capitol hill to discuss the future of afghanistan as well as u.s. presence in the country beyond twenty fourteen we've heard from members of the state department usa id as well as the defense department all talking about the particularly steps that need to take place in the country in order to ensure a free and stable afghanistan after u.s. troops finally do leave the country now one of the major issues that is looming over this entire hearing and the issue of afghanistan in general is the lack of a bilateral security agreement between the u.s. and afghanistan without such an agreement u.s. officials warn that they cannot leave troops in the country for fear of them being prosecuted under afghan law for completing their military duties last month the

loya jirga which is the council of twenty five hundred afghan tribal elders approved the bilateral security agreement overwhelmingly so what's the hold up will hold up in this case is afghan president hamid karzai who says he wants to wait until after his country's elections in twenty fourteen in order to sign that bilateral security agreement now obviously this issue of signing this agreement has caused major contention between the u.s. and afghanistan in fact members of congress that were in this hearing today said that they need to come up with a plan b. in case such an agreement doesn't actually sign take a look without a prompt signature we will have no choice but to initiate planning for two thousand and fourteen future in which there would be no u.s. or nato troops now in a recent interview with limone newspaper president hamid karzai accuse the u.s. of applying quote colonial pressure and order to force him to sign such a bilateral security agreement of course members of the house foreign affairs

committee had some interesting words to sling back at tommy karzai as well as accusations take a look at this i'm concerned that president karzai is blustering over whether or not he will sign the bilateral security agreement risks destabilizing afghanistan. by the stabilizing the security situation even further now perhaps one of the most contentious moments of this entire hearing was when congressman dana rohrabacher had his chance to speak what child the exchange played out between congressman rohrabacher and the members that they invited to the hearing to testify how much are we spending annually in afghanistan now i wish the cost the american taxpayer anybody know how many killed and wounded and we suffered in the last twelve months. should do it would you know that. i do know and i'll have to get back with you on that one also we don't know what

the cost is and we don't even know how many killed and wounded are and we're supposed to believe that you fellows have a plan that's going to. end up in a positive way in afghanistan holy cow now answer congressman rohrabacher question six point seven billion dollars is being spent in afghanistan each month so our interesting questions are rose during the course of this hearing like what the u.s. is still doing in afghanistan what the mission is and what success or realistically looks like there seems to be of a lack of a clear definition on what our mission is what is the end state that our troops are trying to accomplish there that we are trying to accomplish there i can't think of the last time i saw the president of the united states tell the american people why we're in afghanistan what is the end game i mean what are we what are we hoping for that they'll have a stable government one that's not right with fraud waste and abuse that will run a country that we can be good allies with and trading partners now those are

questions congress members themselves are still trying to get the answers to and most importantly the lawmakers here today said they don't want another iraq scenario where u.s. troops were withdrawn from the country just before was able to stand on its own two feet now with presidential elections looming in the country and the twenty fourteen a self-imposed u.s. deadline still hanging overhead all eyes are finally back on afghanistan as we look for an exit strategy on capitol hill meghan lopez arsene. problems with the police have come to the nation's capital on tuesday night the body of a d.c. police officer was pulled from the frigid waters around his point park in southwest d.c. he was identified as thirty two year old officer mark washington and washington was on house arrest at the time were a g.p.s. tracker on his ankle after he was arrested last week on child porn charges. washington was accused of ordering a teenage girl to remove her clothing so that he could take pictures of possible bruising to be used as evidence search of washington's camera found that he had

hundreds of similar photos of young women dating all the way back to two thousand and eleven though in an unrelated incident another d.c. officer forty seven year old linwood barnhill was arrested today and linked to a child prostitution ring after authorities found a missing sixteen year old girl in his apartment d.c. police are now looking into the possibility of more victims now these stories of abuse and misconduct among d.c. police officers come just as the pardon is dealing with criticism over how it handles sexual assault cases that was a topic of a report released this year by human rights watch now to discuss more about this issue i'm joined by sara dirt sure it senior counsel of the u.s. program of human rights watch and the author of this report capitol offense police mishandling of sexual assault cases in the district of columbia a sarah welcome the show so to be clear your report focused on d.c.

police mishandling sexual assault cases not on d.c. police actively being a part of sexual assault cases but given what you've learned about the police force on this issue do these or arrests that i talked about in the intro of sexual misconduct in the like surprise you they don't entirely surprise me because what we found was that. scores of cases were not being investigated and that victims were often being treated. really poorly when they reported which indicated not that the policies in d.c. were bad but that the police department actually didn't have a culture that took sexual assault seriously now as part of this report you spoke with sexual assault survivors how did they describe some of the treatment they received by police. sadly a number of sexual assault survivors told us that they found their experiences with police actually worse and more traumatizing than the assault itself they were

sometimes blamed for their assaults and they weren't believed they were discouraged from reporting they faced. lectures sort of the whole gamut of inappropriate. victim blaming behavior that you wouldn't expect from it from detectives who should be trained in handling traumatized victim sensitively not all the tactics did this but it was widespread enough that it was a problem that we that we felt it was important to bring to light that you might have touched on this topic in the in the first question but how much of this is a result of institutional problems. within the d.c. police force and how much of it can you speak tribute to bad apples or bad actors that might exist in any police force. i think the problem is that there are undoubtedly bad apples and bad actors in you know in anywhere you go but if they're not held to account for misbehavior then it becomes an institutional problem and in

d.c. this problem was exposed in two thousand and eight where it was discovered as part of a lawsuit that half the time people were complaining about sexual assault cases police wouldn't even bother writing that down supposedly the police change their practices but my research took place three years afterwards and i found that still a lot of cases were being classified as office information cases or they weren't they weren't even being considered rapes and investigated at all they were just closed at the time the victim reported given what you've learned about the d.c. police force on this issue is it reasonable to assume other police forces around the country have similar problems doing research will solve cases have you looked into other police forces on this issue. we have done some work previously of on rape kit backlogs and so we have. around in illinois in the los angeles that there were thousands of kids that had been kept in storage we didn't look at police investigations but also usually if you find a lot of kids in the back room it can mean that there is

a larger problem and that police have an attitude toward sexual assault cases in which they decided not to investigate for whatever reason they decide it's not a good case and they don't take the case any further i understand there's a d.c. city council hearing tomorrow and recommendations from this report will be discussed what are some of those recommendations what are you hoping to see comes out of this this hearing. so the two key things we really want to see is external oversight of the police department we want an expert to assess police department policies and practices and make sure reforms are actually implemented and restore public confidence in the police department that they are taking these cases seriously and treating victims properly and with respect and the second thing we want is transparency and and the right of victims to have an advocate present during police interviews i think will provide support to victims while they're going through a difficult process and ultimately help law enforcement by keeping victims in the

system and i think it may discourage some of the more troubling behavior we saw we have just about a half a minute left what are some of the consequences of this i mean already sexual sold as one of the more underrated crime or underreported crimes in the country. well i mean this is exactly the problem one of the one of the fears that people have about reporting is that they won't be taken seriously and that they won't be believed when they report and so that's why it's absolutely crucial to make sure that best practices are in place and that victims do get the support that they need when they report not every case is going to be prosecuted but they do all need to be investigated and victims need to be treated with dignity and respect when they report it really goes a long way to helping in their recovery. senior counsel of the u.s. program of human rights watch thank you so much thank you then finally today former pizza man turned republican presidential hopeful herman cain is now being the

moralized in a comic book today political power herman cain hits stores retailing for three ninety nine or one ninety nine for the e-book version bluewater productions which is behind the comic book said that cain is quote an example of american ingenuity and perseverance because those are certainly the best way to describe the highlights of mr cain's presidential run last year and when they asked me who is the president of you beki beki beki beki stan stan i'm going to say you know i don't know do you know no one who is the hit of some of these small insignificant states around the world i don't think that is something that's critical to focus in on national security remember nine nine nine plan throws out the current tax code i am the koch brothers brother from another mother marvel comics each your heart out and that does it for now for more on the stories

you covered go to youtube dot com slash r t america check out our website r t dot com slash usa you can follow me on twitter at sam sachs. it. 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 us role. in fact the single biggest threat facing our nation today is the corporate takeover of our government and across several we've been hijacked lying handful of transnational corporations that will profit by destroying what our founding fathers but once will just my job market it on this show we reveal the big picture of what's actually going on in the world we go beyond identifying.