coming up on r t over warning about some graphic photos released today by the web site t m z they show looks like u.s. marines of burning the bodies of iraqi insurgents more on this just ahead taking on the n.s.a. new jersey congressman rush holt has called for major changes to u.s. surveillance join us to talk about the reforms he thinks are necessary in a few minutes. and although many west virginia's residents have been given permission to drink the water some are still leery eighteen lawsuits have surfaced against the company responsible for the leak more on that later in the shell.

it's wednesday january fifteenth fine in washington d.c. i'm megalo present and you are watching r t america well we begin this afternoon with shocking new photos released by t m z which allegedly show u.s. marines burning the bodies of dead iraqi insurgents back in fallujah in two thousand and four t m z reports it obtained forty one pictures but it did not name the source of those photos also the magazine said it will not release all of the photos because some of them are just too gruesome we are going to put up a couple of those pictures so please be warned these pictures are extremely graphic and upsetting but we here in our team believe they are an important representation of the true ugliness of war two of the photos appear to show a marine pouring gas on what seems to be two iraqi insurgents two other pictures that show the bodies on fire another shows the marines posing with the dead bodies others show the bodies covered in flies and being. dogs the reports that it turned

the pictures over to the pentagon last week are to reached out to the pentagon for comment today here's part of the statement they sent back the actions depicted in these photos are not what we expect from our service members nor do they represent the honorable and professional service of the more than two point five million americans who have served in iraq and afghanistan the marine corps is currently investigating the veracity of these photos circumstances involved and if possible the identities of the service members involved again these pictures have not yet been confirmed for accuracy however if they are this would be yet another explosive revelations about how some troops conducted themselves overseas another discovery in january two thousand and twelve showed us soldiers mating on the bodies of dead insurgents to discuss these horrifying images i spoke with jake deliberate oh he's a political researcher at the university of birmingham and i first asked him what

his initial impressions are. i've got really what i when i looked in the photos and i began making some phone calls investigating a little bit more on my personal view is i thought obviously again they were they were gross they are they also demonstrate that for the pilots the brutality of conflict and the kind of mysterious behavior that can come out of it but i think as i investigate a little bit more i think what we came clear to me was two major things which is that one after in the past there has been situations where soldiers have been ordered for humanitarian purposes just to burn bodies for cleanliness and this kind of thing but that's not the kind of situation that you would see from photos like this this is a clear demonstration to me of the paris actions cover up or scandal to some degree as the pentagon state is evidence of that i mean if the pentagon knew

that soldiers were doing this because of some sort of fellows they would have come out right away we have a report we knew why cetera but that didn't come out so we definitely know there is nefarious behavior there are some sort of criminality here done on by the marines unfortunately and i think that the video photos are very telling about the problems of or the brutality how it can affect people's mental state of being and how also all it affects iraqi me can't come at any iraqis these can be outraged now as a former soldier yourself what this aggression this type of anger against iran to the insurgents or other insurgents part of the culture. well i would definitely i mean when you have revenge actions when you have any kind of killing going on one human against. this this time to think it come out as we saw in afghanistan years ago with the soldiers on the. you know on the taliban and also the situations in

operator so they're isolated they're not normal but this is a problem occurs in conflict zones you know you don't see this in the streets of washington d.c. where you're at obviously so. it's a problem or it's a problem that all armies have had to deal with and i think that it's it should make everyone stomach curl should make us proud about the war in general. former marine that is now at the same time u.s. troops were hung by the neck back in fallujah in two thousand and four so it's just the true cost of war the true face of war that people are finally starting to see here. yes for sure. the longer we're separated from the conflict we're able to see more and more of the problems of it i think that this disk particular element highlights the particular two thousand four years under bush in two thousand for the member. states basically pulled back into their into

their bases they were kind of. they didn't have any real strategy a real political vision this is largely because of rumsfeld is trying to get the u.s. out of iraq as soon as possible and so without a clear vision without a clear mission without a clear for some time soldiers and marines can be left to them live left to their own demise which i think is this situation had they had a mission to work with the rockies to rebuild it to do that kind of thing to do you wouldn't see these kind of behaviors and also if you're fighting somebody you don't go and burn them afterwards this is clearly a sign of of lack. of lack of vision. of redemption and sort of brutality that comes out of your dark kind of environment you don't we . are sorry to interrupt you there but near while while all of this is going on there has been this huge ups for a violence within iraq within full lucia and these are these photos coincidentally

enough are from fuller's a sixty two were left dead just today as a result of some of these attacks so as a former marine yourself i mean what do you feel about knowing that this kind of violence is spring up again do you feel like your mission was a failure while i have said over and over again i'll be happy to serve the rest of my life. made by the bush administration to invade arar was an unbelievable moment cost americans thousands of lives cost trillions of dollars of it certainly cost our rockies a whole lot more of a look at the country got all of our air and you know what's what's there what's left what do we have to answer for well that much so it was a it was it was our it was our vision of failure if they could use ricky to agree absolutely thank you so much for joining me j. dilla barito political researcher at the university of birmingham well another day

another leak about the national security agency and its broader global reach check out this headline that greeted new york times readers this weekend it turns out the n.s.a. has implanted software into nearly one hundred thousand computers around the world that allows the agency to spy and also to create a digital highway to launch a cyber attacks this comes in the wake of a recent revelation about the agency building a quantum computer and another revelation that the n.s.a. could reach out mail to their offices so they can insert malware into computer components and then forward those parts to their own originally intended destinations this is known as digital packaging while this complicated n.s.a. spy web keeps on rattling congress is working on ways to rein in the agency's broad powers congressman rush holt of new jersey has even made it one of his platforms. i rush as a teacher i wish students would stop taking their e-mails. as your senator i'll

make the n.s.a. stop checking your emails behind your back lets and warrantless wiretapping we can do this several months ago congressman holt announced a bill called the surveillance state repeal act which offers a massive reforms congressman holt joins me now to talk all things n.s.a. and by the way he's also a rocket scientist so hopefully he can help us understand these more complex revelations like quantum computing for instance congressman paul thank you so much for joining me here not good to be with you to me as a journalist it feels like we are reporting on a new n.s.a. leak each day what have you what are your thoughts on these recent revelations have any of them surprised you know well another day another revelation first of all i should say lest your viewers be confused i am no longer a candidate for the senate but you're right i did make stopping this warrantless spying on americans a platform of my campaign and i do think that this is

a real transgression and these recent revelations that you talked about and you listed several of them. really go to show how capable the n.s.a. is for many people it's scary how capable they are and what what they can listen in on what they can manipulate so all the more reason that we have to make sure that they operate within bounds that they operate with good firm oversight and that the engender the trust of the american people. and to some extent people around the world i mean i'm sure the n.s.a. will say look we don't we don't owe the you know we don't know protection of civil liberties to other people around the world. although i would hope that the united states sets a good example everywhere around the world and that within the united states all

actions of all government agencies are bound by our constitution now i last spoke to you a few months ago about the n.s.a. and more specifically about the bill that you had introduced and the updates on that bill well a few more co-sponsors i wouldn't say it's close to becoming law i wish it would it does several things it grants whistleblower protection to members of the intelligence community as things currently stand. most federal employees have protection against retribution if they expose waste fraud abuse of power but not so with members of the intelligence community my legislation would fix that it would prevent the n.s.a. or any similar agency from installing back doors into hardware or software in other words to. prevent them from undermining the encryption.

that banks and ordinary e-mail services and others use it would prevent the n.s.a. from undermining those that encryption in ways that they know about but other people might not know about it turns out that other people do know about them and so and as a has. really hurt a number of u.s. companies by undermining the really the quality of their products the bill would. repeal the five amendments act and would. remove the justification that the n.s.a. has invoked for seizing the metadata of virtually everyone saying that they will treat it with care and we won't abuse people's civil liberties unless we suspect them well that's kind of

a backward way of. enforcing the law or detecting. evil doers and in fact the last time we spoke you said that you believe that u.s. citizens are now being treated as suspects first and citizens second now i understand that you believe the white house is panel recommendations on n.s.a. form as well as a bill that competes with yours that's known as the usa freedom act don't go far enough in reining in the n.s.a. i first want to focus on the downfalls that you believe come with the usa freedom act if you could walk us through a couple of those well the the the legislation that is the leading legislation in congress but it may not actually go anywhere is known as the leahy sensenbrenner conyers bill. and it would modify the patriot act and the. foreign intelligence surveillance court legislation.

so that. it would. provide some improvements but it wouldn't provide whistleblower protection it wouldn't really stop this back door. or the back door compromising that n.s.a. has undertaken it would not i think. really stop the this massive collection of of the metadata the two from information who sent what whom and when. in short it does not. it does not invoke the probable cause standard you know our fourth amendment to the constitution says there shall be no search and seizure of personal property or information without the enforcement or surveillance agency going

before an independent judge proving that they know what they're doing proving that they're not on a wild goose chase or operating on an empty hunch and. with very specific accounting of who they are looking for and what they are looking for now meanwhile we also have this white house appointed panel they put out a long list of forty six recommendations designed to increase transparency the very day that that review was released i sat down with one of its authors cass sunstein and he claims that he had complete access to conduct the report and i asked him if he found anything surprising during his investigation i want to take a look at his response and then we'll get yours i'll be interested we didn't discover any shocking practices so our goal was to think about principles that are going to be helpful for the future and one thing we do is honor and respect the hard work of the intelligence community which is helping to keep our nation safe

and helping helping to keep our own. it is safe and it's the order to keep in mind some of the work is helping to prevent human rights abuses and in atrocities abroad so we want to create security foundations that are respectful of. want privacy and liberty and and not accusing anybody of anything so we didn't find anything surprising what do you think about that i'm surprised that he didn't find anything surprising i do believe that the committee had very good access in some cases they went back to basics they approach this more or less like the law professors that they are. and you know i think i think all of us in approaching these things in going back to basics have to remember that there are there are bad actors there are terrorists there are people who would do harm to americans and the government and the intelligence agencies have

a responsibility to detect and deter such such people so that's the starting point but it's not a trade off i don't believe between safety and civil liberties in fact if you adopt a probable cause standard so that the those who are surveil or enforce have to prove to a court that they know what they're doing you will get better surveillance fewer wild goose chases or or people operating on their hunches or you'll have fewer cases where a bureaucrat you know a.g.s. thirteen in the government will decide who the bad guys are we don't want those who are doing the surveillance to be the very same ones who decide who the bad guys are that's the that's that's a prescription for. abuse and

a real violation of human rights. congressman rush holt from new jersey. well while congress and the n.s.a. try to figure out what to do to address the concerns of their constituents when it comes to spying it appears that the behind the leaks edward snowden is growing in popularity among average americans take a look at this poll from quinnipiac university fifty seven percent of those polled think edward snowden is a whistleblower while thirty four percent see him as a traitor he has gained international notoriety as a result of his leaks and it turns out the more information that comes out about the n.s.a. the more popular edward snowden becomes also out this week the freedom of the press foundation announced that mr snowden will be joining their board of their nonprofit organization it's a group that was started by the man who leaked the pentagon papers daniel ellsberg i spoke with jesselyn radack the national security and human rights director of the

government accountability project just a short time ago and i first asked her what snowden will be doing for the freedom of the press foundation well i think. he'll be weighing in first of all it's a huge huge symbolic moment he is participating in civic society in the united states despite the fact that the u.s. has tried so hard to sideline him and freedom of the press foundation is an amazing organization because they are trying to foster safe and free journalism that protects both journalists and sources so i'm sure he has a lot to add to that discussion so does this mean that he will be remaining involves and participating in future or a whistle blowing accounts and leaks well i mean in terms of the future leaks he no longer possesses any of the information all the information he had was given a journalist and it is really up to them to decide what would be newsworthy and in

the public interest to put out. but certainly working with the freedom of the press he would just mainly be helping to make it a more secure environment here in the u.s. for both journalists and sources do you think that snowden's involvement with this organization this foundation will hurt his chances of earning clemency in the u.s. in the future i don't think it will have an effect one way or the other i'm sure the detractors will try to find some reason to fault him for being on the board of this fine organization but i don't think it really will affect it when way or the other not once that he leaks continue to come out americans are growing increasingly supportive of edward snowden what do you think that is well i think it's a number of factors we have had an avalanche of wonderful supportive news including

you know an opinion by a federal judge that found the main program likely unconstitutional including tech giants dressing down the white house and saying that he should be pardoned including the editorial boards of the new york times and guardian saying that he should receive and amnesty or a pardon and i think all of that does shape public opinion in a huge kind of way in all along this case has been about one percent legal and ninety nine percent political and unfortunately the government has the megaphone and mr snowden's camp does not new america foundation just launched another study as well as the poll that you cited that shows again that the information revealed really didn't do anything to thwart a terrorist plot and is likely illegal now just one as you say it is the congress members and the politicians that have the megaphone however with polls like this

with endorsements like the new york times do you think that it makes the idea of clemency a more realist. option in the future well i think it does a certainly public opinion influences the one person who can grant an amnesty or purdon which would be the president in terms of amnesty justice department can grant a pardon i think it will influence congress people who are beholden to constituencies that are getting increasingly suspect of what they're learning about the n.s.a. and congress is more likely to act reforms that would bolster the disclosures that mr snowden made and that would be seen were politically by their constituents as someone deserving of clemency of some sort now an argument against snowden being able to reenter the u.s. as a free man is that it doesn't offer enough deterrence and it will lead to more leaks what do you make of that argument well that's the beauty of amnesty it neither

forgives nor can do nice any of the conduct at issue it simply overlooks it and that's why amnesty would be particularly appropriate in this kind of in this kind of case and moreover i don't think most people are willing to give up their entire life and their statehood to do what mr snowden did he has been publicly punished quite visibly and quite publicly more than enough and that the fact that he did what he did from somewhere else is because bradley manning and tom drake and bill binney were already a deterrent enough that he cannot go through channels absolutely just one right thank you so much for coming in and weighing in on edward snowden growing popularity here in the u.s. ok thank you the u.s. senate committee on commerce science and transportation now the hearing today to put the use of domestic unmanned aerial vehicles under the microscope the committee

debated potential economic benefits of you avi's as well as ways to update the federal aviation. administration's regulations to accommodate these vehicles but the meeting looks beyond using the drones to survey crops at the hearing senator feinstein said she's concerned about surveillance issues and particularly safety i nearly we should not allow armed drones in the united states period. it should be a crime for a private individual in the united states to arm a drone the f.a.a. should use it certification and licensing authorities to prohibit armed drones and no government state or federal should use an armed drone on american soil. drones are increasingly flying around american airspace in fact federal and local law enforcement agencies are borrowing border patrol drones more frequently for use

during their domestic surveillance operations he customs and border protection agency has the largest drone fleet outside of the d.-o. g. and now we know it flew nearly seven hundred survey once missions on behalf of other agencies between two thousand and ten and two thousand and twelve that's according to documents released by a freedom of information lawsuit filed by the electronic frontier foundation and over those two years border patrol drones were also increasingly supporting undisclosed local and state law enforcement operations as well but it's not only the sky you should keep your eyes on to spot one of these unmanned vehicles that is the u.s. navy just announced a contract worth nearly two hundred four million dollars for the tech company tele dyna bentos to develop an underwater drone that uses thermal energy from under the ocean in order to run now the hope is that this thing will be able to patrol american coasts for five years at a time

a lot of that will be doing research and observation but is just another tool the navy will have in its extensive stockpile of technology. well it's been nearly a week since a little known chemical company called freedom industries accidentally spilled seventy five hundred gallons of a chemical used in coal production into the elk river poisoning the water supply of three hundred thousand residents want to ban has been lifted on a few more neighborhoods in charleston west virginia today the places in blue a show where the water is flowing again the area in red is where the ban is still in effect authorities say that the water will still smell like licorice for a few days but it is safe to drink however keep in mind that we really don't know all that much about this chemical and its long term effects now the situation is starting to calm down a number of investigations are popping up looking to how this happened in the first place u.s. chemical safety board deployed a team to investigate and two other probes are also happening today state

environmental protection officials report that inspectors have already found five violations at a second freedom industry site the company moved its coal cleaning chemicals to that site after thursday's spill but investigators found that the new site also lacked appropriate secondary containment but west virginia isn't the only state dealing with water problems are to correspondent parian boring investigates an oil pipeline being built right next to the only water source for hundreds of thousands of americans. all over the country different municipalities and states are fighting over drinking water sometimes against one another and sometimes against a private company in mobile alabama the city's water supply company as battling a chevron contractor over the location of an oil pipeline that is already in construction in the mobile area water and sewer system or mas is concerned that it will come too close to the communities water supply the contractor plane has been

hired by chevron to build a forty one mile pipeline that will carry crude oil from ten mile terminal in mobile alabama to the chevron refinery and parts of mississippi the construction process project has an estimated cost of forty five million dollars and once completed the pipeline will be capable of carrying one hundred fifty thousand barrels of oil per day the concern is that the proposed route runs through four miles of watershed at its closest point is less than one mile from big lake which is the only source of drinking water for the two hundred fifty thousand people that live in the area according to a modest testimony if a leak were to occur in this pipe the consequences would be catastrophic because there's no backup water supply of hospitals and fire departments businesses would all be without water and thousands of people would have to evacuate additionally the cleanup process could take months or even years and they say all oil pipelines

eventually rupture so the risk is too great and this is a closer view a big creakily outlining the four miles of watershed that the pipeline will have to travel through but you can also see this pipeline will go through about two miles of property that's owned by mas which has been buying up the surrounding land of the reservoir in order to preserve and protect it to make the project even more controversial a circuit judge ruled that plain south cap has legal authority to build on the mines only and because it wasn't being utilized and the project is and. the public interest plains out cap has also successfully acquired land from other private owners via eminent domain once in the story only given to the government's eminent domain are the ability to take away land in the public interest has been granted to corporations in different states and faces backlash in the court systems mas is appealing the case and was the pipeline to be relocated is expected to go all the

way to alabama's supreme court and washington perry and boring party all right that does it for now. we will. follow and welcome the cross-talk were all things are considered peter lavelle ariel sharon has died and been given a state funeral he was called controversial and even a peace maker by mainstream media and political clout says many others strongly reject these descriptions for much of the world particular the palestinians sharon's legacy is much more about hate violence intolerance and death on this edition of crossfire we ask a simple question who.