i'm going to you're. coming up on r t a federal court ruling delivered a blow against u.s. surveillance a judge found that the n.s.a. is tracking of phone data is likely to be unconstitutional the latest on this new development just ahead the transfer of to guantanamo bay detainees to saudi arabia may rise hopes for the attention camps closure with phil bomb administration pushing forward on the transfer of more detainees is this the end of get mo more on that coming up in mexico politicians and the public riots and protests against an energy bill critics fear that it will allow foreign companies to plunder the nation's oil resources and help the u.s. dominate mexico's oil and update on this growing opposition later in the show.

it's monday december sixteenth four pm in washington d.c. i'm meghan lopez and you are watching r.t. well starting off as our a landmark ruling could pave the way for more regulations of the national security agency u.s. district court judge richard leon ruled that the n.s.a. is spying program violates the fourth amendment probation on unreasonable searches and seizures the decision says quote the court concludes that plaintiffs have standing to challenge the constitutionality of the government's bulk collection and the querying of phone record at meadow data that they have demonstrated a substantial likelihood of success on the merits of their fourth amendment claim that they will suffer irreparable harm absent coleman ery injunctive relief the ruling applies to the meditator collected from phone calls that take place from the or within the u.s. judge leon also said that the department of judge. this failed to demonstrate how

collecting this metadata actually helps terror plots senior white house reporter for politico josh bernstein was one of the reporters who broke the story and he joins me now to discuss it joshua first of all let's start off with how important is this ruling. well it's not the last word by any stretch of the imagination on this program but it is the first ruling to suggest that the program might be unconstitutional or to indicate that it may go against the fourth amendment it's also the real lee the first substantive ruling we've gotten on the several lawsuits that were filed after snowden leaked that information in june that made public the fact that the national security agency meditative program was going on now the decision that was amended data collected is likely unconstitutional and that's what the judge calls it anyway what does that actually mean and what does this ruling realistically do well the reason he says it's likely unconstitutional is this is

a preliminary ruling it's a ruling at the early stages of this lawsuit there is not been all that a geisha and back and forth to develop a record that would show the details of how the program works and what its impact may have been what specific information work what was collected about these individuals who sued so the judge had to make a decision at the outset of this lawsuit about whether he would allow permission to continue to be collected and he bound it as a legal matter if they're divided at the moment and that it shouldn't be allowed to continue his decision doesn't have any immediate effect in the sense that he did say it so that an appeal will go forward but it is held on appeal he ordered that these individuals who sued that that they not collect their information anymore and that any information they have on them be deleted and i'm glad you brought off the plane concern the plaintiffs in this case can you explain a little bit more detail what their claim was and what they gave as standing to to

constitute this lawsuit. well you know in the past these kinds of lawsuits failed because the courts and ultimately the supreme court concluded that it was too speculative that the individuals who were suing could really show that there was a high likelihood that their communications had been tracked or intercepted that's why the supreme court threw out a case like this a couple of years ago but in the wake of the snowden disclosures there are now documents public records and declassified information about how this program works that indicate that virtually every american is affected by it and that if they use a telephone at any point to receive a call or make a call it's very likely some information about that call is being retained by the government for five years so the judge essentially found that the scene here the background has basically changed and that individuals who sue over this now do have standing to pursue their suits and just moments ago journalist glenn greenwald who

actually helped edward snowden released those documents submitted and released a statement by edward snowden south about this ruling i want to read part of it it says i acted on my belief that the n.s.a.'s mass surveillance programs would not withstand a constitutional challenge and that the american people deserve a chance to see these issues determined by open courts today a secret program authorized by a secret court was when exposed by the light of day found to violate americans rights it's the first of many so obviously you have one side of the the coin there but i want to talk about the other side of the coin have you heard from any officials kind of official response to this. well we haven't gotten much in the way of an official response that side the fact that they're studying the ruling but it should be pointed out that while this judge thinks the program is probably unconstitutional perhaps fifteen or so other judges over the course of the last seven years have repeatedly reauthorized this program and that it doesn't run afoul of the constitution and

a number of these lawsuits are now pending in different courts around the country other judges will get a chance to rule on that and the issue is even coming up in criminal cases now with the justice department telling individual criminal defendants that some aspect of these n.s.a. programs played a role in their case they then bring a challenge in the context of their criminal case all those challenges and all those rulings eventually having the possibility of making it to the supreme court for a definitive decision on this program now while all of this is coming out a top an essay official in charge of assessing the damage in the wake of the edward snowden revelations said that he would consider granting amnesty to the former contractor in exchange for the rest of the documents that he stole from the n.s.a. the man's name is rick ledgett and i really don't want to read a quote from him said my personal view is yes it's worth having a conversation about i would need assurances that the remainder of the data could be secured and my bar for those assurances would be very high it would be more than just an assertion on his part so what are your thoughts on edward snowden receiving

any type of amnesty is it possible at this point or is it possible ploy to get him back into the u.s. . i think it's possible but it's extremely unlikely number one you have the problem mr ledger just referred to how could snowden show or prove that there was no way that these documents could get out as we understand he's shared a lot of them with various journalists in different parts of the world there's really no way to provide an assurance that they might not release other documents that haven't made their way into the public domain another big hurdle here is there's a large standing justice department policy in the united states that says that the department doesn't negotiate with fugitives about anything other than the terms of their surrender so the idea that his lawyers would somehow work out let's say a plea deal or amnesty in exchange for his eventual return would require a pretty significant departure from the standard operating practice the justice

department and frankly something that i think probably the president himself would have to authorize in order for the system to allow it to happen josh there's just so many different elements coming out from the n.s.a. these days i mean a presidential task force just drafted recommendations for that unfortunately i mean we could spend the whole show talking about unfortunately we're out of time a lot of our reporter josh garcia thank you so much for bringing us your story thank you the c.b.s. news magazine program sixty minutes is under fire for the second time in as many months for reporting a scandal for reporting scandalous time it is the programs in criticized for a recent two part series that looks into the n.s.a. director keith alexander conflicts to minister to invite them into the agency for an unprecedented inside look at what the n.s.a. does and what officials think about the leaks from former contractor edward snowden media critics argue that not a single dissenting voice was featured throughout the reporting and no tough questions were ultimately asked our chief political commentator sam sachs analyzes

the report as well as the blowback. sunday night's sixty minutes report which touted unprecedented access to the n.s.a. didn't start off so well full disclosure i once worked in the office of the director of national intelligence seriously seriously they couldn't have chosen a different reporter someone who'd say didn't previously work for the intelligence state john miller has always had a very close that's his schtick is that he's got this close relationship still with all his national security people he used to work with and it basically meant you've got a national security insider preventing this you know presenting this so-called big scoop but the compromise reporter really is the perfect setup for what followed next a p.r. job for the n.s.a. and since it was a p.r. job the n.s.a. was spared tough questions and given a platform to distort the claims made against the agency by the edward snowden documents and i say can only target the communications of a u.s.

person with a probable cause finding under a specific court order today we have less than sixty authorizations and specific persons to do that he actually was asked. whether a bit collect content and responded by by addressing whether they target americans which are different things because some of the biggest programs they collect content targeted on a foreigner say bad somali terrorist guy and any americans whose communications who are communicating with a bad somali terrorist guy will also be collected the n.s.a. is legally allowed to take three hops from any target and peer into the communications of individuals who talk to individuals who talk to individuals who talk to targets that could include millions of people including americans and then there are other ways we know for example that the n.s.a. collects. email directly from telecoms which is in the united states and

we know that it every year that they may collect as much as fifty six thousand americans e-mails alexander didn't address e-mails at all and i think that they end up getting a lot more e-mails than they do phone calls but that they're collecting a lot more u.s. person and am listening to a lot more u.s. person content than they are letting on and then there was this claim made about how the n.s.a. collects data from internet companies like google and yahoo one of the snowden leaks involved. the concept that n.s.a. had tunneled into the far end data centers of major us internet providers the belief describe it the right way no that's not correct we do target terrorist communications and terrorists use communications from google from yahoo and from other service providers so our objective is to collect those communications no matter where they are but we're not going into a facility or targeting google as an entity or yahoo was an entity but as the

washington post reported back in october the n.s.a. is hacking into data links between google and yahoo servers and scooping out data which raises a bunch of questions in itself they can legally get terrorist communications from google and yahoo it's not clear they can legally get for example financial intelligence from google and yahoo one of the reasons they would have to go overseas to have to sue to break into google and yahoo communication cables is is that they're doing stuff beyond what the face a court would approve but softballs in soapboxes weren't the only favors handed out by sixty minutes sunday night they also help the n.s.a. with its mowen hills problem by featuring young hip millennia analysts and sixty minutes devoted a good chunk of their report to bashing edward snowden. they discovered the first secret snowden stole was how to cheat on a test to get

a job at the agency and it's also worth mentioning that not a single voice opposing the n.s.a. was interviewed during the entire report so what was the point of all of this keep in mind that after the christmas break congress is going to come back more start we're going to have a fight between whether dianne feinstein's bill or whether the leahy sensenbrenner bill gets passed which which reigns in all of the spying so i said sixty minutes report was less about giving americans answers and more about giving the n.s.a. a chance to fire the opening salvo in what could be a pivotal legislative fight next year and they seem to have the mainstream news media in their corner in washington d.c. same socks are to syria has been in civil war for nearly three years now with no end in the foreseeable future violence on both sides ramped up dramatically this weekend leaving hundreds of civilians dead arcee arabic correspondent paul of all

the ohio has more. sources in the military say radical islamist fighters entered the town of and massacred local civilians according to the latest figures at least eighty people were killed in the districts which the syrian army has now liberated entire families were killed other families were kidnapped and are being used as human shields in the battle against government forces. it was instructed by don't strike and there are no it's the system to withhold the streets and throw so it's very. terrible they were killing strangers fear one of them to fire the army and see if they carry the smell of the worst thing that runs in the shop. the kids and maybe. some of the kidnapped families have been transferred to areas south of the town they're now being held in strategically important tunes which the rebels said.

gratian these places are heavily fortified sources also say the total death toll and the drug may in fact increase because the syrian army has not yet liberated the entire town that was r.t. arabic correspondent bob tal of all the higher. to long time guantanamo bay detainees have been transferred out of the detention facility and to saudi arabia and what is being described as a ray of hope for the facilities eventual closure according to quantum overview task force assessments from two thousand and nine leaked by wiki leaks to the new york times scientists mohamed qatari was captured in pakistan back in two thousand and one and was considered at high risk for reengaging with al qaeda meanwhile dollar was captured in karate pakistan in two thousand and two his official files describe the mood as a member of the osama bin ladin fifty fifth era but brigade who took part in the

attack. air force base he was described as a high risk to u.s. interests with a medium intelligence value to talk more about the transfer of these men and what it means in terms of long term plans for one tunnel bay i'm joined now by michael ratner president emeritus at the center for constitutional rights michael thank you so much for joining me talk about the timing of the release of these two men why now when one of these men was recommended as i understand it to be released years ago. you know we've had eighty people who've been recommended for release years ago and it's taken five years since obama promised to close the place to start getting some people released it is as you said a ray of hope why now i think a couple of things one is i think the hunger strikes that took place in may or a few months ago put this issue back on the front page that's number one number two i think it is still a huge issue in the muslim world that we are keeping one hundred eighty people or

one hundred sixty people rather who have never been charged with crimes of one condom oh so i think they want to they actually may actually making an effort to close it but obama has had clay feet about it we'll have to see whether these two plus two people recently sent to algeria against their will and i think two more people that are going out today to sudan will make a difference will be down to one hundred fifty eight will they actually get it closed i still think it's very unlikely in this administration you have to remember half of those people have not been cleared for release they haven't been charged with anything but they haven't been cleared for release do we have any indication at this point why the guantanamo bay officials chose these two men for elise as well as the other four that you had mentioned previously. you know i think they're trying to figure out what countries they believe they can get assurances that the people sent back won't be tortured they claim to have that from algeria we have the

center who had one of those algerian clients and think that's wrong that he is in danger in algeria but they went ahead anyway i think because of the pressure on them to try and get them closed i don't think there's any particular order i think it's when they can get agreements with countries and get people out but they certainly have not worked very hard on it as we sit here we're coming up on january eleventh of the twelfth anniversary some of these men have been there are eleven and almost twelve years so that just shows me that they're not working very hard and recently a couple of days ago the general who actually was responsible for setting up one tunnel general lenhart came out with a statement saying it was the wrong thing to do to set it up to begin with we didn't learn anything from the interrogations it has to be closed immediately and it's unconstitutional to keep people at guantanamo without any charges and without any convictions yet that's what i'm afraid to say that part of my country has become do you know what will happen to these men next after they are transferred

away from guantanamo bay are they still in prison somewhere else or do they walk as free man. well certainly with regard to the to algeria as they were put into incommunicado detention and algeria immediately we have been trying to put a huge amount of pressure on algeria we have petition campaigns demonstrations so that they won't do anything to these men the experience in two thousand and ten of a man who was sent back to a jury did not go well he got a very long sentence really for not doing anything that you and i would consider criminal except really opposing the algerian government by having left it so we're worried i mean obviously we have to keep track of the people in saudi arabia were sent back and each of them because you never know what's going to happen to them hopefully this administration will be more able to look at that than they have in the past and will be more concerned by it because one bad example will put this program to an end but one thing that shocking to me is that obama tomorrow could close a good half of that camp the spite the restrictions that are there in congress yemen

in particular there's eighty some people from yemen sitting in one town i'm over fifty five of those have been cleared for release yemen has been taken off the list of countries where you can no longer send people tomorrow obama could transfer those fifty five when we start getting some mass transfers like that begin to have some hope that this ray of hope will go into real sunshine for the people at guantanamo now piggybacking off of what you were just talking about let's talking a little bit more detail about one of the major issues that has been slowing this process down significantly and that is the transfer of these men to other countries now a new national defense authorization act seems to have some language and it that allows for compromise on flexibility in transferring this man out of cuba what do you know about that. well you know the last national defense authorization act which is still in effect was permissible enough to allow these six people to be transferred to algeria to distort the arabian two to sudan what that shows me is that those

quote restrictions could have been complied with by obama all along but he didn't the new n.d.a. which will be voted on next week gives him a little more room to make the certifications that the people won't be dangerous or recidivist etc but he's always had that room but hopefully it will be somewhat of a green light if not a big green light for him to say i now may have the courage because maybe congress is not as strong against that to get these people out of guantanamo but it's something the president should have done a long time ago that i put really right at his feet and finally we have just a short amount of time left but we have guests here on our team before who have said that even if guantanamo bay does eventually close for good the idea of guantanamo bay or indefinite detention well not what do you think about that you know this country has changed permanently since nine eleven the idea that we can indefinitely detain people that we didn't prosecute anybody for torture you don't

have to try people when you pick them up i'm afraid that is now imbedded in the american legal system and so what i fear is that you can close guantanamo physically but you will not end the illegal detentions that are currently going on in places like bad graham and may go on in other places as well so i think it's very bad going forward even if it's closed physically but closing it physically would certainly be an important step particularly for the men and one connell michael ratner president emeritus at the center for constitutional rights thank you so much thank you for having me. well google is moving forward with plans to buy out the robotics company boston dynamics and a somewhat surprising move by the internet giant for years boston dynamics has been leading the way in machine innovations piquing the interest of the defense advantage research projects agency or darpa which has been partnering with boston dynamics for a years and now it seems google wants in here's a quick look at some of the most interesting inventions of boston dynamics has

brought us now the first one you're looking at this is pet then a robot designed to look like a human for the testing of chemical protection clothing having to walk and move freely and do a number of calisthenics exercises even when exposed to deadly chemicals and then there is this little robotic dog that you're looking at called big dog this canine s. creature was originally designed to lug around the soldiers here but it can also throw cinder blocks like a shot put master check out the cheetah oh and a treadmill that one is coming up next there is lookout bessie's going this robot runs about one mile faster than a limp expressed are you saying volts though still slower than the actual cheetah well for now anyway now boston dynamics is the eighth company google has acquired in the field of robotics in the past six months the tech giant is also behind the first driving car no word yet on how much google paid or how it plans to use the

company in future ventures so it looks like for now anyway we're also going to have to stay tuned. well you've heard of people using picket signs and protest chance to get their message of dissent across in the past but how about stripping down to your skinny that's exactly what one mexican congressman recently did during a speech to raise awareness about a controversial new energy bill in the country congressman antonio garcia of the democratic revolution party pulled the stunt on wednesday while talking about the future consequences of a. allowing foreign private companies to drill for oil and gas in mexico arctic or spanish correspondent nicholas o'donovan sanchez is in mexico with a look at some of the other protests taking place. protests against the energy reform have been held in all major cities across mexico it's a new demonstration of power of those who oppose what they government has approved

without their consent we can't forget that there are three points of the mexican constitution that will be modified under the new measure for many mexicans this new era in the energy sector just means that they can in theory and of the country's independence many also believes that the whole process has been just a farce and that the decision was really already made even before the debate began the rapid approval that the reform is getting in the local delegations at least read to me is the position of those who think the politicians of mexico aren't on the side of the people on the side of commercial interests losing that is not interested in asking that they don't care about what they think at all this states who have sort of full maturity and in a minute they know know what they're doing in there to train us the streets are the only thing as i have now and will do all it takes is a plan i didn't symbolically protesters in mexico city the nation's capital chose the square of independence to kick off their massive march pressure tension and

frustration to be able to not hear it's not only about energy reform they talk about education reform about the transfer overseas indeed it's just the mexican people coming together really who demonstrate to government they just are not happy with their policies that was r t is that nicolas o'donovan sanchez reporting from mexico city. full of food and drug administration announced plans last week you phase the antibiotics out of the animal feed due to our growing health public concerns the reason for this move is because experts. say humans are taking in too much of these antibiotics and their bodies are coming up with drug resistant super bugs that render these antibiotics useless the center for disease control reports that every year two million people get sick from antibiotic resistant bacterial infections and that of those twenty two thousand people die now the majority of the bacteria that causes those illnesses comes up from food particularly from meat this

move is the latest in the obama administration's attempt to raise food safety standards the food additives that are targeted at this time include anti-microbial zx that are used to fatten the animals up to provide more meat it is also aimed at phasing out the use of eight medical anti-microbial such as penicillin and tetro cyclon now the natural defense resource council says eighty percent of all antibiotics sold are used unnecessarily on livestock pharmaceutical companies are also asked to voluntarily participate in the rubble of broken motion claims on the labels for these antimicrobials they don't have ninety days to decide whether or not they will add here to these new policies and three years to put them into practice well that does it for now from now on the stories we covered go to youtube dot com slash archie america check out our website artie dot com slash usa and you can also follow me on twitter at meghan underscore lopez but stay tune boom bust with host aaron eight is next and i'll see you right back here at five pm eastern.

the steady stream of snowden related leaks no longer surprises but the all encompassing scope of spying still does he even online gamers have not been spared all the while the powers that be are hesitant to rein in the n.s.a. they appear only want to make legal what is no illegal is it time for an international bill of digital rights. one of the wonderful strong arm in a lot of these policies i think you know alone. it was. a pleasure to have you with us here on t.v.

today i'm real researcher. i was a new alert animation scripts scare me a little bit. there is breaking news tonight and we are continuing to follow the breaking news. alexander's family cry tears of joy at great things other than their. regard to the core of what the ground alive is a story made for a movie is playing out in real life. so

there i marinate it this is boom bust and here are the stories we're tracking for you today first up policy meetings at the federal reserve this week have markets do in some bunkers still we'll tell you all about it coming right up and a wired nation just simply better than others there in oz and most lou author of why nations fail sat down with me to talk about this very subject and finally it was just basis is nifty little drone delivery gadget had everyone pumped about amazon recently the online retailers german workforce is none too pleased with their employer virtual purses and i discussed this very issue in today's big deal it's all coming up and it all starts right now.