coming up on r t's stopping the n.s.a. california lawmakers propose a bill to curb and say snooping the bill blocks state agencies from working with the n.s.a. will other states join in this effort to stop government spying the latest on this push for privacy head. and although the u.s. war in iraq ended two years ago al qaeda has taken over the city of fallujah the u.s. is sending drones to the iraqi government but not troops at least for now what this means for the region coming up. and did you hear about the polar vortex if you've turned on the t.v. this week you've seen the mainstream media obsessing over the cold we'll take a look at how the media has made this cold weather into

a hot story later in the show. it's wednesday january eighth four pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wall and you're watching. the fallout from the ad words snowden revelations continues and some of the most significant changes could first be happening in the states and california state lawmakers have introduced a bill that would ban state agencies from working with the national security agency the bill to prevent the n.s.a. from spying on californians it would do this by denying n.s.a. facilities in the state access to basic utilities like electricity and water the bill also bans officials and agencies from cooperating with the n.s.a. those that violate the rules would be slapped with sanctions and a press release. one of our ted lu who introduced the bill says quote state funded

public resources should not be going toward aiding the n.s.a. or any other federal agency from indiscriminate spying on its own citizens and gathering electronic or metadata that violates the fourth amendment or more in the bill that takes a firm stance against the feds i'm joined now by she had with tar executive director of the bill of rights defense committee welcome thanks for having me on this so i understand that you helped to create the model legislation that this bill is based on can you tell us more about the goal of this legislation the goal of the bill is to force accountability on the n.s.a. the courts have abdicated their role of sensually of guarding constitutional rights congress has been abysmally dysfunctional and guarded because situation and passing either legislative checks to restrain executive abuses or affect conducting effective oversight this bill is a state taking the matter into its own hands and it aims to cut off the water cut

off the electricity cut off the prosecutors and cut off the universities as sources of talent to fuel the us is next generation it's a very aggressive opportunity for other states also to raise their voices and i suspect the california will not be the last state in which will see this bill as a very aggressive very bold move for a state government to take on a massive agency federal agency like the n.s.a. here they disagree you think it's realistic absolutely and i wouldn't describe it as particularly bold at all i mean if anything california is asserting a constitutional position while the rest of d.c. is asserting basically a chinese or soviet position this is not a left right issue illustrated by the introduction of the bill it was both a democratic and republican state senator who teamed up to introduce it reflecting that this is not at all a fringe issue this is an issue that unites americans from all walks of life all points on the political spectrum and i daresay all corners of our great nation and again we will see this also introduced in other states the particular ones where i think the controversy. will be greatest are the states in which the n.s.a.

has data centers so utah maryland figure very prominently in this campaign and i think that that's where the real battle lines will be drawn and in those states people have also been quite assertive you know residents of maryland were dropping twelve foot banners off a highway overpass outside the n.s.a.'s front entrance saying save america close the n.s.a. over the holidays with dissent like that from so many different corners i don't think the agency can withstand the public pressure and the last thing i'd say is even if for whatever reason you know if it's deemed to be an overreach by a judge somewhere what this legislation can be very effective in doing is revealing that the congressional and federal emperor has no clothes and forcing congress forcing the courts to take a long overdue action to defend constitutional principles and restrain the n.s.a. well certainly we're seeing demands for action like never before in the wake of these revelations by at weren't so i would add do you think that we would be having this conversation now if it were not for the. massive leak that we're seeing now

there's no question we absolutely would not it's the exact same situation as cointelpro in a just earlier this week the peace activists who under oath the f.b.i. is domestic spying operations forty years ago revealed themselves you know snowden revealed himself a week after his leak broke instead of forty years but otherwise it's the exact same thing what they're leak prompted was a two year congressional investigation which caught the nation's intelligence agencies embroiled in a full frontal assault on the constitution here we are forty years later it's a different federal agency committing a very similarly broad abuse in fact a far greater abuse right the f.b.i. was simply suppressing activist groups of all different kinds you know the movement and the war in vietnam the movement for women's rights movement for native american rights the puerto rican independence movement you name it whereas the n.s.a. is monitoring everyone everywhere all the time i mean it's preposterous. but

frankly you know so yeah absolutely edward snowden is a hero and you had mentioned earlier that on a federal level of reforms have been slow to transpire do you think that this is kind of the way that it's going to go that change is going to be to happen on a state level first do you think this could set a precedent for other states to follow suit absolutely could set a precedent for other states i think ultimately as to whether or not it's the state mechanisms the come to control domestic spying it that's really up to congress whether or not congress gets off its hands and passes a far reaching dramatic reform like the usa freedom act or better yet the surveillance state repeal act that would take the matter out of the state's hands i think the states will be much less interested in passing these kinds of bills after there are some assurances that someone is minding the store in washington at the moment nobody is interesting and now we're seeing this debate happen in the national dialogue about transparency about privacy like never before i want to bring some kind of related developments later this year car manufacturers will be

required to install black boxes in all new vehicles kind of like the black boxes you hear about after a plane crash the intention is to gather data. in government investigations insurance companies etc to determine what led up to the car accident so it sounds like a good thing in that regards but the worry now in the wake of these revelations is could this be another avenue for a surveillance there's no question that any kind of geo tracking device like the g.p.s. devices the police use or this kind of device or for that matter aerial surveillance drones or automatic license plate scanners all you know the latter two of which are in widespread use by local police departments around the country those tools can absolutely be used to violate people's rights particularly by chilling the willingness of people to come out in public for instance to a political demonstration or a meeting these are assaults not on the rights of individuals who may or may not feel like they have something to hide this is an assault. democracy fundamental

rights that enable our political process and we should all feel very concerted interesting overage she had broke through she is coming on the show that was as she had butare executive director of the bill of rights defense committee. well the u.s. war in iraq may have ended two years ago but the country remains a war zone the u.s. is rushing to send drones and other weapons to the iraqi government after al qaeda linked militants claimed the city of fallujah are to correspondent paula sware has more on the struggle for power. well the situation certainly is becoming increasingly volatile but we've now heard from the iraqi prime minister it is him urging all those who have joined to give up the fight and he has hinted at the possibility of hardening these militants if indeed they do so they are facing a massive siege that has been launched by the government troops now on my back he was speaking in his weekly televised address and he volunteered that it was to

continue what he calls the sacred war against al qaida is the local branch which is known as the state in iraq and they live and he also said that he would continue to finish the push to retake the key and biased cities off the move and ramadi which earlier were taken over by the militants and that the militants had to compete for the asia as they leave an independent state what we see happening now is that al qaida into militants are trying to capitalize on the six ten intention that is currently inside iraq and this is a tension that the united states failed to resolve you'll remember of course that the united states occupy iraq for eight years and then cooled ald leaving behind this major sick tarion power of the cake at the same time some of the clay de mint's militants who are now fighting in iraq all reported meat coming from across the border in syria and of course the united states has been supporting the syrian

opposition which inadvertently has allowed these extremist islamist militants to flourish in the first place the united states is now saying that it will be sending an emergency shipment of surveillance drones and missiles to iraq in an attempt to try and prop up its allies in baghdad. and that was our tears policy where zoc more about the fight for literature i'm joined now by gareth porter investigative journalist and historian welcome mr porter so the iraq war has been over for ten years officially. but with this take offer of allusion the question is are we any better off today than we were when we left that well we are not better off today than when we left it in terms of the situation in iraq obviously it's deteriorated in terms of security but i think of the underlying problem here has to be understood as was mentioned in the intro the

funnel problem really goes back to the us introduction of forces into iraq in the first place the occupation was the single biggest not just the single biggest but overwhelmingly the cause of the rise of jihadism throughout the middle east and this is very well documented and it has to be reiterated over and over again that without that occupation al qaeda would not have had the opportunity to flourish in iraq and therefore would not have been able to insert itself into syria when the time when the opportunity arose the last couple of years and as a result of course of the syrian opportunity then to go back into iraq with even greater presence and more trained fighters which is a large part of the problem today in fallujah and elsewhere in iraq so what we're seeing here is the direct result of the intervention of the united states and this

is so often forgotten as people talk about the problems that iraq is experiencing in terms of security and we open the genie's bottle and it's not going to be possible to put the genie back in anytime soon certainly not by military force now people will take a look at the situation there today and some say that what's happened that the result is that this is a result of pulling out too soon. and not enough of a surge what do you write about that that of course is the spin was being put on it by people who supported the war in iraq and who's put. medical positions and careers have. depended on the ability to spin. that position it's going to become more and more difficult it has become more and more difficult over the years to justify the the occupation and the iraqi war and i think those people are fighting a losing battle against history and it's becoming increasingly clear that the very

people who are making that argument and i have to include the former secretary robert gates among them because he's continuing to justify the iraq war. those people are on the wrong side of history fundamentally now we have people coming forward now actually just yesterday the army chief of staff general ray odierno spoke nearby here at the national press club want to first take a listen to part of his speech can the u.s. keep allocators expansion there at bay without having troops on the ground. well we have to wait and see we have trained security forces to do that i think the first alternative is for the forces that are there that we have trained to execute that strategy. so he's saying that we should kind of take this wait and see kind of approach. what do you think what do you think about his answer well look i mean

what he's really trying to suggest here is that their policy was all along to prepare the iraqi government and military forces to deal with this kind of problem and that was indeed the russia now in the latter part of the iraq war. but in fact you know what we what we have there is a situation where the sunni based resistance to the iraqi government a shia dominated government has risen in recent years as a result of the. the policies of the maliki government and it has had more and more difficulty suppressing the resistance the opposition of the sunnis and now you have al qaeda rising up militarily there is a difference between the two. does not have support from the sunni tribes it has individuals who joined it but the sunni tribes are still resistant to al qaeda and

by the way there they have a very major difference over. the islamic state of iraq and levant as it calls itself now wanting to have essentially a sunni stan which combines iraq and syria and the tribes in iraq are very much opposed to that so there still is very great tension between them but i think the fundamental point is that odierno is still trying to justify his role in the war based on the idea that well you know the iraqis were trained by us to handle this they may have been trained to handle this but the real problem is something that the united states unleashed which is not going to be solved by a military force but here we are today i mean is there any solution what is the solution now is there any clear path that the u.s. should. make at this point i don't think there's anything the united states can do to undo the damage that it has already done there's going to have to be a long term political process it's going to take many many years who knows how long

it's going to take but but what we do know is that that even if they the government is able to retake solutia and other places where a cut is currently in control or has a military presence the problem is not going to be settled at all the problem of sunni shia tension within the government within the country is going to continue for many many years mr porter appreciate you coming on the show and giving your perspective that was gareth porter investigative journalist and historian. well they were held as the nation's bravest and finest the new allegations say it was all a scam over one hundred public workers including new york city police officers and firefighters are accused of faking depression and anxiety after responding to the september eleventh attacks prosecutors say they were coached to tell military doctors that they were permanently scarred from the tragedy by recorded phone calls

and photographs found on their facebook pages paint a much different picture take a look you can see the former members of law enforcement living it up fishing jet skiing golfing taking joy rides on motorcycles shooting hoops you name it prosecutors say the men made everything up in order to collect social security benefits the lawsuit alleges that some of them continued to work jobs on the side they say the former officers are perfectly fine and have fraudulently benefited from hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars a lawyers for the accused maintained the clients at worst suffering. more as are expected in this case. and an orange county california closing arguments continue in the case against two police officers accused of beating a man to death kelly thomas' last moments were captured on surveillance footage and

the video you're seeing now has been used as evidence throughout the trial but this isn't the only case of video surfacing that that allegedly shows police brutality artie's megha lopez has more. today the family of keith vital is searching for answers after police shot and killed their eighteen year old schizo for an exxon boiling spring lake's police officers were called to the home of mark and mary will zoe the night of january fifth to help them subdue the ninety pound teenager who had a small screwdriver in his hand when they arrive please taste and then just seventy seconds into the confrontation shot and killed keith now this north carolina family wants to know why you the three officers resorted to such extreme measures have you ever buried a child i have i know how hard it is ok i'm burying my second child right now because somebody murdered him and this was called for and this is not how

mental health patients should be treated this is just one of numerous allegations of brutality coming out from across the country this week on monday a number ask a family filed a lawsuit against thirty two omaha police officers after an alleged parking violation turned violent back in march this youtube video allegedly shows four officers reporting to a complaint of an illegally parked truck twenty eight year old octavius johnson the owner of the truck is then slammed to the ground. he was later charged with resisting arrest and disorderly conduct his brothers john and demetrius were also arrested and charged while filming the answered and the family claims the officers violated their constitutional rights when they broke into the house and confiscated one video of the confrontation one officer has been temporarily reassigned as a result of this video the a.c.l.u. is helping the family with the lawsuit meanwhile in new hampshire three seabrooke

police officers are on paid administrative leave after this two thousand and nine a rest video went viral monday on you tube the video shows nineteen year old michael berger in having his face slammed into a wall by police officers after leaving the booking room he is then pushed down to the floor and pepper sprayed one of the officers even takes a moment to look up and smile for the camera burger and was arrested on charges of driving under the influence possession of controlled drugs and resisting arrest a police report describes him as aggressive and uncooperative the incident is now under investigation by the attorney general's office berger and is considering a lawsuit against the officers. all three of these incidents are making headlines at the same time as this ninety nine percent of all complaints over police brutality are left uninvestigated in new jersey that's according to a report published this week by the courier news and home news tribune the report

claims that between two thousand and eight and two thousand and twelve citizens filed hundreds of complaints alleging police brutality bias and civil rights violations only one percent were investigated and the other ninety nine percent police agencies reportedly either exonerated the officers dismissed the complaints as frivolous determine that they did not have sufficient evidence or simply never closed the investigation so what if anything is being done to confront the issue of excessive force well for now anyway it's up to individual police departments or regulate the actions of their officers watchdog groups like the a.c.l.u. are also keeping a close eye on police departments but perhaps the biggest agent of change is your cell phone after all a picture speaks a thousand words but one viral video can mean the difference between action and non-action in washington meghan lopez r t. hair and

our tale of the polar vortex didn't only bring a winter storm it also led to a mainstream media storm of coverage about the freezing weather more on the cold obsession next. i've got a quote for you. that's pretty tough. stay with that story. if this guy like but smear that guy stead of working for the people most issues the mainstream media were pretty much on the right writers day to day. they did rather well.

but i think. everybody's going to do is go did you know the price is the only industry specifically mentioned in the constitution and they're trying to that's because a free and open press is critical to our democracy schreck numbers. grow. in fact the single biggest threat facing our nation today is because we're taking the work of our government and our craft to make the world we've been hijacked by handful of transnational corporations that will profit by destroying what are probably harder ones 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 identify the problem next rational debate and real discussion critical issues facing america but never

feel ready to join the movement then welcome to. the. well as you probably know it's been cold out in case you haven't noticed the media was there to remind you just how cold it's bed with the wall to wall coverage are to correspondent on associate target explores if the media needs to chill out nor talked about in the us media than the most ridiculous celebrity baby name and the

royal wedding combined it's called a polar vortex the polar vortex the polar vortex the polar vortex more frightening than your worst nightmares a whirlpool of dense frigid arctic air ladies and gentlemen meet the cold to fix a cold hell if you can. and imagines it is the coldest it has been decades every thirty seconds and all it's really cold out this is the most important mainstream news story for days on end we have a team of correspondents covering this arctic blast it's really obvious that it's cold but just to keep your journalistic integrity you want to first hand account of how cold it is and if a mailman is all bundled up saying yeah it's cold then you know it's actually called here's a hamburger and a steak even though there's really only that much to eventually talk about how is your skin doing since weather is weather no matter how hard you try to keep your word touch or look at this is a little. chicago pizza hard as a rock you could use this as a weapon if you want to do it ok temperatures dropping to subzero extremes it is

a rare occurrence in certain parts of the us much as amping it up like there's no tomorrow might be a tad over exaggerated your goal is to remember other people know it's cold people know they shouldn't go outside you don't need to go on and on and on well the really really important news is that not getting covered then again weather coverage doesn't require bringing up the truly unpleasant you don't to worry about the confusing stuff the stuff with new ones like the syrian civil war like the pros and cons of genetically modified food you just walk outside and go by examples are hard as a result other countries are rolling their eyes at us because we're complaining that it's cold but they're also rolling their eyes at us about everything else it looks like the us mainstream media are taking their tips from an old piece of advice if you don't know what to say just talk about the weather and especially if you're going to r.t. new york. well perhaps now more than ever the issue of government secrecy is up for debate and a local station here in d.c.

has proof that secrecy is punished as a part of policy and b c for that washington investigative reporter scott mcclellan put in a freedom of information act request to get some details on the navy yard shooting their response was an ad. accidental email sent to the reporter from the navy press officer clearly meant for other navy members and not for media eyes in it the navy urges the navy official urges his colleagues to deflect and avoid the requests from n.b.c. for quote in the meadow navy foia official robin patterson refers to the reporter's requests for navy yard materials as a quote fishing expedition in the memo patterson also suggest the freedom of information act staff encourage mcfarlane to narrow his request for official navy memoranda by convincing the reporter his search would be quote costly all with unprecedented questions over government transparency accidents like this certainly

help feed the scrutiny we're going to leave it off there i am liz wall follow me on twitter at was well stay tuned boom bust is next. if you. know opportunity. to construct. a little bit. gangstas you don't want to be. they don't want to blow with no time to look it came be we can see. you just me as i was right in the hood. i. said. i don't want to die i got is really do not want to die young

young a. dangerous entanglements in contradictory alliances is the u.s. has. many client states how well do these plain states and alliances serve america's national geo political interests and is washington hopelessly overstretched in its foreign policy commitments.

hello there i'm aaron aid this is boom bust and here are some of the stories we're tracking for you today first up did some big name banks intentionally cheat clients following the two thousand and eight by an ample crisis the government seems to think so i will tell you all about it coming right up and also yawn as a bar of talk is joins me to talk to euro zone debt from a wall kate long weighs in on the mess the palette the madness plus we have a very very special new member of the groom but soon sitting down with me in today's big deal and it's quite a big deal you won't want to miss it and it all starts right now.