it's. coming up on r t in iraq two major cities have reportedly fallen to terrorists delusional romani of a siege by al qaeda militants while many iraqis still experience a brutal insurgent bombings the latest on the unrest in iraq just ahead and a series of new developments on n.s.a. surveillance u.s. senator rand paul plans to bring the n.s.a. to court for violating american rights while the n.s.a. sidestepped the question when asked whether or not they've spied on congress more on that coming up and four states which have fostered the nation's energy boom have found that there is a link between fracking and water pollution look at the states that have found the connection later in today's show.

it's monday december sixth i'm meghan lopez in washington d.c. and you are watching r t well over the weekend an already volatile situation in iraq turned deadly when al qaeda linked forces took hold of two key cities in the anbar province numbers with the islamic state of iraq and syria or the i.s.i. yes launched attacks on the cities of ramadi and fallujah if lucius sounds familiar to you that is because it is the location of some of the bloodiest fighting between u.s. forces and al qaeda groups back in two thousand and four at least twenty people died on sunday in bombings iraqi military forces have responded with air raids that killed reportedly sixty militants twenty two soldiers and at least twelve civilians have also died during the battles u.s. secretary of state john kerry has promised military support to the iraqis but said no u.s. troops will be put in harms way. hey kerry said quote this is

a finding that belongs to the iraqis we are not obviously contemplating returning we are not contemplating putting boots on the ground this is their fight but we are going to help them in their fight joining me now to talk about the current situation in iraq aside our economy is a correspondent a political analyst for the all crudes newspaper thank you so much for joining me so let's start off by talking about the iraqi forces preparedness for something like these two cities being attacked were they prepare for this prepare thank you for having me on again. this is the epicenter of the sunni heartland it was the center of the third you see back between two thousand and three and two thousand and eight until or until progress was able to create the awakening councils and so on so it is very important and the iraqi forces are not really ready to handle this influx of huge forces or i mean broadly speaking as far as irregulars are concerned

large forces. around the city and basically taken the main the main center and the surrounding areas and so on so that they are virtually control this for the region which is the also a trade center it is a cultural center of the. province and so on so it's very important for them to control it for the for the. u.s. to control it but also it is equally important for the government to take it back and let's talk about the specific importance of this area you had mentioned a couple of different issues were guarding this area obviously it's a key area but also there is a sunni majority as i understand it in this area so how does that play into this whole situation. during the insurgency that was really the epicenter of the insurgency so it was basically the initiative of general petraeus back then who went and created virtually. created with his advisors the awakening councils where

the sudanese were. mobilized to fight and they did and they you know they threw them out of the the region and so on and returned they were taken back into the government and they were assume a great many of their former positions under sadam and so on a lot of them were you know these tribal chiefs and so on were in the military they had high ranks and so on so they were going back these prestigious positions and pay and so on so they were basically made peace with sort of speak by the americans so it is very very important that they don't get alienated they did earlier that they are not going to side with the government and that would give you know sort of tremendous leverage for the current that basically are not there for the to grow and foster their own activities and we know that right now iraq is led by a shia majority followed by a prime minister nouri al maliki so i as i understand it reports that i've read some of those militants actually went to prayers over the weekend saying that they

were going to protect the sunni people living in fallujah and living in the anbar province the shia majority government which is an interesting point now is this the biggest security threat as iraqi troops have faced since the u.s. left definitely is the most volatile. the most situation since the military the u.s. military withdrew from iraq in two thousand and eleven and now the problem is it's also playing on the sectarian differences that are now everywhere in the region in syria there's been a spillover from the syria war into iraq and so on that really the situation makes it far more complex and so on and in the absence of. good status of forces agreement with the united states iraq really is unable to defend itself i mean today we were told that there are good supply them with hellfire missiles and so on but in fact iraq has not even had the meat to deliver those missiles they don't have fighter jets they don't have the. you know combat helicopters and so on so

unless the u.s. to basically directly and perhaps with some drone strikes as they do in yemen and pakistan it's going to be very difficult to do for american troops and i'm really glad that you brought up the point of syria and how the violence in syria is spilling over to the us i know that some of the weapons that the i.s.i. us is using they smuggled from weapons that are in syria that were actually supplied by saudi forces so it is all of this directly related to syria or is there something else that's going on here without a doubt directed to do things to syria directly because it is called the islamic state of iraq and the levantine and the syria basically that's what it is and that's where they began and the acronym stands for that so it is you know it is sort of elastic group that goes across the border the border has always been porous across iraq so that's one and secondly there is also the sectarian divide that is being fed constantly through this war in syria that more and more have taken on

sectarian aspect and another interesting aspect to bring up is the rumor that we are seeing our two lawmakers in particular that are really criticizing what's going on in iraq as a fail or a button failure from the west for not leaving us troops in two thousand and one those being senators lindsey graham and john mccain now the reasons we didn't leave those troops and is because there was no iraq harlem and terry decision to give immunity to troops were kind of conversely going through similar situations in afghanistan do you think that karzai should be taking note. i think that there should be a lesson drawn from iraq and what happened and where the failures it was basically a failure on part of the u.s. to sort of hold out some sort of an agreement with the iraqis i was there during two thousand and seven when the personal program it was you know worked out with the iraqis but then you know in two thousand and eleven or two thousand and ten there. was an able to that work. with any kind of

a status of forces agreement with iraq and so they were live through their own devices sort of speak to fight terrorism and basically depend a great deal on iran and iran's influence well right now what we're seeing is a battle between araki forces and between this al qaeda i.s.i. yes but it could very easily slip into sectarian violence in the coming days we'll have to keep a very close eye on this site erica a correspondent a political analyst for all kids newspaper thank you so much for weighing in thank you for having me all kentucky senator rand paul is making headlines once again this time he's attacking the national security agency with a nasa a class action lawsuit that claims the n.s.a. violated americans constitutional rights with its bulk collection of metadata here's rand paul explaining the lawsuit we think everybody in america who has a cell phone would be old jubal for this class action suit if any of your viewers have a cell phone they have to go to my facebook tonight they can sign up to be part of the lawsuit we want to overwhelm the government and we want to show publicly that

hundreds of thousands of people don't we object to the government looking at our records without our permission. so far senator paul claims he has more than two hundred fifty thousand signatures on his website and that number is growing daily now in that same fox news interview rand paul was asked if he's afraid if the n.s.a. is spying on him he said he didn't believe that he was being spied on personally but the potential for abuse exists which is right on point by the n.s.a. is own admission in a statement responding to senator bernie sanders question about whether the n.s.a. is spying on members of congress the agency tells our t. quote and essays authorities to collect signals intelligence data include procedures that protect the privacy of u.s. persons such protections are built into and cut across the entire process members of congress have the same privacy protections as all u.s. persons so it looks like they are on the same page as the rest of us which means

they could in fact have their motives collected here to talk all things n.s.a. related as rachel robinson waltman counsel at the brennan center thank you so much for joining me so could everyone with a cell phone realistically be a part of this class action lawsuit like rand paul alleges or i think is a legal matter this is still a little undetermined the n.s.a. has been a little closed mouth about which companies it's actually collecting from and we know in part from the presidential review boards report that came out a couple of weeks ago that they may not be collecting from all companies there's kind of some number that isn't public yet so i think it's hard to say that literally every single person with a cell phone is necessarily being affected by this certainly we know that a lot of americans are sure now how likely is it that a class action lawsuit like this could realistically result in a change where others monetary or otherwise i mean i think you know it has some legs what's required for a class action suit is that there be

a group of people who kind of have some claims of question of law in common and it's more practical to bring that lawsuit as a group than individually we have these two. kind of competing decisions that have just come down from different district courts one saying the program is totally constitutional one saying that it's not but in both of them the pleased if in those cases had standing that is they were allowed to bring these lawsuits it's not inconceivable that some much larger group of people would have standing to give what we're learning about the program and i'm glad you brought up those two kind of differing opinions when it comes to federal justices and what they had to settle for a federal judge's anyway on the other hand on friday the fisa court renewed its program for another ninety days that bulk metadata collection so is a significant considering how contested this metadata collection program has become well i think of knew that that the pfizer court was going to renew the order i would have been stunned if the court had said no we're not going to the court has

had the information in front of it it has decided that it's comfortable renewing these orders that said this program is now being battled out in much more public arenas with these courts where they're adversaries on both sides there are people making the argument against the programs and so i think these cases are going to test the constitutionality of the programs really much more than has been happening in the much more secret files of court and absolutely no you marry member this exchange between senator ron wyden and james clapper who is the director of national intelligence take a look does the n.s.a. collect any type of data. on millions or hundreds of millions of americans. it does not. not wittingly. now since then activists and even legislators have been calling for action some type of action against james clapper for saying that they say that he blatantly lied to congress and the d.n.i.

his lawyer actually shot back against the new york times for that saying that he blatantly lied to congress they said quote indeed it would have been irrational for mr clapper to lie at this hearing since every member of the committee was already aware of the program as mr clapper has explained he was surprised by the question and focused his mind on the collection of the content of americans communications in that context his answer was is accurate when we pointed out mr clapper is a mistake to him he was surprised and distressed what do you make of that surprised and distressed state so this is hard to know because you sort of have different narratives coming from center wides office on the one hand and from which office the lawyer for the d.n.i. on the other hand so they both agree with with the basics which is that senator wyden office had presented the question advance and then in questioning mr clapper basically seemed to misrepresent the collection that was going on senator wyden said he got the question vance he had a he had an opportunity considerate to answer it correctly or at least to say he

couldn't answer it in an unclassified setting and then when the mistake was pointed out to him he didn't take any opportunity to correct it by what on the other hand says he didn't see the question his staff saw it but he didn't and he couldn't really correct it because the programs had been declassified get i don't think we know exactly what went on behind the scenes that being said the you know mr clapper has been in this business for a long time he's been doing intelligence for a long time personally he's testified to congress many times so i think it's still troubling that faced with this question he somehow wasn't thinking of a massive metadata collection program on americans and didn't even at least fall back on answering in a classified setting he simply gave an answer that was untrue that's a very interesting point and you know in that same fox interview that we played earlier rand paul went on to say that if we are going to extend the law and prosecute edward snowden then we should keep that law and prosecute james clapper and he went on to say that he thinks would be interesting if the two of them were in a jail cell to dell or together thank you so much for joining me rachel levinson wildman

counsel at the brennan center. well i know i've done it before i bet you probably have to you read something on facebook that was posted by somebody you probably haven't talked to in years and it really gets your blood boiling well our tears a marriage david explains why in these moments you might want to keep your fingers off the keyboard. if you have a facebook account then at one point or another you've probably found yourself in the following situation you're typing your status update you're all set to post it and then common sense kicks in and you realize that posting it would be a huge mistake maybe it's too personal or controversial but for whatever reason you do leave it feeling a sense of relief that no one will ever be able to see those words but what if that's really not the case you see facebook calls you were on posted thoughts self-censorship and it's a behavior that the social media side wants to discourage the company wants you to post anything and everything you're thinking when you're thinking it to facebook

back to researchers decided to examine the frequency at which users filter what they typed how do they do this well according to the study facebook sends a code to your browser that code automatically tracks what you type into any text box and then reports that information back to the website now the researchers say they only sent back better data that shows whether a user had self censored not what that user had typed but that doesn't mean that facebook can't read what you don't post in fact the study proves that the company certainly has the technological ability to read that information and it's a notion that's not sitting well with some facebook users and in on line petition twenty eight thousand people so far have called on the social network to quote stop stalking our unposted thoughts in response to the petition of kompany spokesperson denied the allegations telling mashable that facebook does not collect or track any content that people have chosen not to post but that's not an easy sell coming from

the same company that's under fire for another privacy complaint you see just before the new year facebook was slapped with a class action privacy lawsuit a lawsuit claims that the social network is scamming users private messages in order to profit from their data in other words if you send a private message that includes a link to another website. facebook will then register your private post as a like for that company and that means that your private communications all of a sudden become public but the main problem the suit argues is that facebook has been misrepresenting the privacy measures around personal messaging the suit says facebook mines any and all transmissions across its network including those it labels private in order to gain any and all morsels of information it can about its users a social media site will likely argue that there is a difference between having its computer scan your messages versus having a human read them and interestingly that's not an argument we haven't heard before

in recent months the n.s.a. has come to a similar defense regarding the agency's bulk collection of the public's metadata so in an era where americans are forced to really evaluate their perspective on the n.s.a. it seems like many of them will also have to re-evaluate their perspective on social media and washington a marriage david. well the federal bureau of investigations has long been in the business of finding crime with law enforcement as its main focus however it seems the f.b.i.'s priorities might be shifting away from putting criminals behind bars while combing through pages of f.b.i. documents after successfully filing a freedom of information act request washington based national security lawyer kel mcclanahan noticed a change in the agency's fact sheet that was sent out this summer the primary function of the f.b.i. agency used to be law enforcement but these days national security is the agency's

main focus the f.b.i. says this change in priorities has been going on since the september eleventh attacks on the world trade center f.b.i. spokesman told branson told foreign policy magazine that the agency's website and missions have long reflected this deviation from its original goals however critics say the f.b.i. is deep prioritizing law enforcement substantially in fact according to a two thousand and ten inspector general's report between two thousand and one and two thousand and nine the f.b.i. doubled its number of agents focused on counterterrorism and national security efforts during that same time there was a notable decline in the number of criminal cases that were investigated by the agency and a steep drop in investigations over white collar crimes so that might be a reason why the bankers who caused the two thousand and nine financial crash and who continually use risky business practices in their day to day lives are still walking us free men perhaps the question now is if the f.b.i. is primary mission now is national security then what is the mission of the

national of the department of homeland security. the trial of two police officers charged in the death of a mentally ill homeless man has resumed this week with testimony from a u.c.l.a. cardiologist the cardiologist is expected to support the prosecution's claim that thirty seven year old kelly thomas died as a result of the violent beating at the hands of six fullerton police officers and not because of a bad heart caused by years of drug use kelly thomas got into an altercation with police officers the night of july fifth two thousand and eleven after reports were called into the station about a man juggling car door handles and a bus depot parking lot the defense contends that the officers acted within the department's policy and that thomas fought with them now former fullerton officer manual ramos has been charged with second degree murder and involuntary manslaughter former police corporal jason only has been charged with involuntary manslaughter and the use of excessive force a third officer joseph wolf will face trial later this month this is the first time

in the history of orange county where police officers are on trial for their actions while on duty the case could be handed over to the jury by the end of this week. well an investigation has begun to shed light on some of the dangers of hydraulic fracturing or fracking across the country he says and if pressed collected records of complaints in pennsylvania ohio texas and west virginia hundreds of grievances were reported by residents over the years pennsylvania had three hundred ninety eight complaints last year alone ohio reported forty west virginia says it received one hundred twenty two letters of the past four years and texas presented the a.p. with a ninety four page spread sheet outlining two thousand complaints over the years however very few of these allegations were actually confirmed by the states now fracking is a way to extract natural gas and oil from deep within the earth and previous technologies actually allowed how while horizontal drilling injects highly

pressurized fluids into shale rock layers fracturing them and allowing access to a gas or oil well to speak more in depth about while water contamination caused by hydraulic fracturing let's bring in tyson slocum he's the director of public citizen energy program thank you so much for joining me it's my pleasure now is the safety investigation the most conclusive in terms of what we've seen when it comes to environmental damage caused by fracking so far yes and what this study shows is that there's huge discrepancies between what kind of procedures each individual state takes in addressing these concerns about water and other environmental contamination from the hydraulic fracturing process what this investigation shows is that basically most of these states are just operating hotlines where people can call and report these concerns that they're having but we're not seeing a systemic follow up to to determine exactly what if any contamination has occurred

in fact what we've seen that public citizen is that once the oil or natural gas companies confront landowners. they typically require them to sign what's known known as nondisclosure agreements which for bid these landowners from discussing if there was contamination at all and so what we're seeing is that we is that the lack of good information about well contamination and all of these gag orders on these nondisclosure agreements it's having a huge impact on policy because we're not getting the data we need to determine what the impacts of fracking are and so one thing that we've asked the oil industry to do is to release homeowners and land owners from nondisclosure agreements to allow them to talk publicly about their experiences of having their water

contaminated from fracking now you touched on it a little bit during that response but i do want to address something in particular and i'll overall i read a number of different complaints that happen in all these different four states it is turned out that it was two thousand and eleven for instance in ohio fifty four port only two were confirmed that seems to be the pattern consistently why is it that so few are actually being confirmed at this case well a lot of it because the states lack the resources to follow up on these they also lack the technical ability to assess whether or not the contamination has occurred and often at the same time that these folks are contacting the state with their concerns they're also contacting the local oil company and typically the oil company will swoop in and they'll want to a hush this whole situation up and so the oil company will say listen we'll give you ten or twenty thousand dollars in cash will give you a year's supply of free drinking water or you have to do is sign this nondisclosure

agreement that forbids you from ever mentioning this publicly and in fact there was a famous case that came out this past summer where one nondisclosure agreement for . two young children of a family from ever talking about hydraulic fracturing for the rest of their lives so these nondisclosure agreements are becoming more and more on arrests and it's inhibiting policy analysis to determine the extent of the dangers of fracking and i remember that case well we actually covered it right here on r.g.p. now this same associated press report said that the most common type of pollution is from methane and not from the chemicals injected into the ground when used during the drilling process what should we take that to mean well the methane is basically the natural gas and that's just the most common form of interaction between these wells the seismic formations and ground water sources and so that's the the. that's also i mean it's the easiest thing to detect the fact is

that the hydraulic fracturing process as you mentioned in your overview is injecting millions of gallons of highly corrosive and highly toxic chemical mixtures into the ground and some of them are in small traces it still is harmful. for health but it's more difficult to pick up especially if different state agencies lack the resources to do the full kind of testing required and in fact this rail car accident carrying frac crude oil up in north dakota one of the things that we're seeing that caused this fire to be so combustible was fracking chemicals were mixed in with the crude oil of it as it's coming out of the formation which is creating problems in our rail transport system so we're seeing dangers with the chemicals not only for the environment and for and for drinking

water sources but also on rail transport where you know seventy percent of north dakota fractal oil is being moved now we really don't have much time left but something that i noticed while looking over all these documents was that texas had that ninety four page spread sheet and i said it was very thorough but ohio and pennsylvania and west virginia they weren't as thorough so can you quickly go over why there are such differences in this reporting and what make a difference if the states kept better track it would but again the texas did more thoroughly and what they were able to produce. in response to an open records were request was simply a log of all of the complaints that given agencies received there wasn't necessarily follow through to determine the validity of these complaints and so it's one thing to have a clear catalog of all of the complaints and every state we need to have. standards for that but the most important thing is actually the investigation and that's

where the states aren't doing their jobs thank you so much for weighing in tyson slocum director of the state public citizen energy program thank you my pleasure that does it for now i'm not going lopez. look it was a problem very hard to make a plan to get long here a lot of that had sat with her great care no legs. below. well i'm

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what. has no end a welcome to the twenty fourteen and all girls isn't a boom bust here's some of the stories we're tracking for you today. first up we're kicking off a year and a historic way for women talking about janet yellen sped had confirmation taking place today we'll tell you all about it coming right up also the wall street washington world valving doris didn't like a roulette wheel and it looks like the carlyle group is cleaning up thanks there new acquisition i'll tell you who's going to wear later on in the show and you have a judge a book by its cover or maybe a company's stock by the pretty face of its c.e.o. well apparently having a good look at the helm is also good for business but dumpers is the not discuss this.