with much stronger a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines. coming up on our capitol hill leaders from the debate your u.s. intelligence agencies are meeting to discuss global threats with congress it's no surprise they're talking terrorism but there's also concern over leakers like edward snowden is this intel fear mongering more than that in just a moment. the states of the union did the president say anything groundbreaking last night or was he upstaged by a congressman who threatened to throw a reporter off a balcony more on that coming up. and we'll take a look at the shocking number of people dying and police custody and local u.s. jails lives lost to new due to the failure of staff to administer routine critical

medicines will hear stories from the families affected later in the show. it's wednesday january twenty ninth eight pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wall and you're watching our team america. well begin tonight with efforts to earn edward snowden the nobel peace prize the former n.s.a. contractor was nominated for the nobel peace prize today his name was added by two norwegian politicians that say he has made the world a safer place one of the nominators said quote the public debate and changes in policy that have followed in the wake of snowden's whistle blowing have contributed to a more stable and peaceful world order will find out who that peace prize winner is

in october. but not everyone thinks snowden should get that prize in fact some in the intel community see him as a threat this came out today on capitol hill where senior intelligence officials met to discuss what they see as the world's top threats at least some of the lawmakers believe one of the greatest threats is leaking government secrets this problem promoted a are prompted excuse me a heated debate over snowden so what exactly are the biggest threats and how is the administration dealing with them are to correspondent perry and boring is on the hill with more. today the directors of the intelligence community testified right here in front of the senate intelligence committee to deliver their annual public a worldwide threat assessment the number one global threat on their list is cyber the first country the cia says it is likely to launch oftens of cyber attacks on the us is russia the report says quote russian intelligence services continue to

target u.s. and allied personnel with access to sensitive computer network information much of the discussions today were centered around edward snowden who seeking asylum in russia the implications of intelligence leaks and the constitutionality behind the n.s.a.'s phone data collection program senator udall and challenge the effectiveness of the n.s.a.'s surveillance program and outlined the scope of the cia i want to be able to reassure the american people especially given what's been happening. that the cia and the director understand the limits of their mission bits of stories we all are well aware we took it or twelve triple three that order prohibits the cia from engaging in domestic spying and searches of u.s. citizens within our borders another senator concerned with domestic spying is wrong why did you look for clarity and to the n.s.a.'s ability to track and of vigils using smartphone apps he asked the f.b.i. director if the f.b.i.

is required to have probable cause in order to acquire american cell side location information for intelligence purposes what he said might surprise you no i don't believe so senator we in almost all circumstances we have to obtain a court order but the showing is a reasonable basis to believe it's relevant to the investigation the intelligence director is testifying today overwhelmingly agree that edward snowden's leaks have threatened u.s. security the defense intelligence agency director said troops are in danger as a result the greatest cost that that is unknown today but we will we will likely. face is the cost in human lives on tomorrow's battlefield or in. some place where we will put or military forces you know when we ask them to go into harm's way while the n.s.a. is a phone data collection program is still a controversial topic of debate on capitol hill many of the senators today

expressed their concern with the scope of snowden's leaks snowden leaked one point seven million documents which not only expose the n.s.a. implications over the entire intelligence and defense community so were attacks atop the list of worldwide threats because more and more aspects of life including communication personal information and government functions are migrating online and washington d.c. period boring. there's a more about this and tell report on the joy in via former cia analyst very much governs welcome ray nicely here so what we heard in this meeting today one of the things that we heard is that al qaeda linked to al qaeda and associated forces that they remain a threat and we're seeing this the data that's coming out want to take a look at just iraq as one example let's take a look at iraq this report from the iraq body count shows that the number of deaths

there is raising we see it kind of at its highest in two thousand and seven and it dips down and we see that number going back up with that with the most recent year almost as high as numbers almost two thousand and eight so we're seeing that violence is on the upswing in iraq you know but last night we heard from the president saying that you know kind of touting that the war in afghanistan is coming to an and did this did this hearing kind of highlight that the threat is not really minimized today we destroy. and we. can show you and be inevitable. selfless what was seen there was seventy killed on sunday i haven't checked the figures since so it's nothing to be proud of what we did to iraq and we never did get the two sides agreeing to compromise so they could be a viable government instead what we did during the surge for example was to supervise the ethnic cleansing of baghdad from a predominantly sunni city into

a predominantly shia so we could see the lights go out in the in the sunni neighborhood so the inevitable result of that is what we're seeing civil war and afghanistan is not will be much better so why we're going to leave one hundred thousand and ten thousand people in afghanistan well we know why we want the military bases want to be able to fly these drones around and for the military base we can't do that so you know it's so cynical that that's very little to do with in poppy and in afghanistan we were told three years ago there are only one hundred left or maybe fifty well yeah there are a lot in africa and libya in the course in syria you know but that's you know the drones are not helping that they're creating more and more should insurgents their recruiting stations for them we're seeing the sectarian violence not only in iraq but in libya and elsewhere you know one thing we heard in this meeting as well

today is really russia they identified as a as a potential danger especially when it comes to cyber security i mean all we're seeing at how all these dangers in this world for from libya from iraq and the surge of terrorism that it hasn't really been quelled all these years later i mean why is a rush identified as such a threat and are these fears warranted that we hear today was a lot of money in it i mean eisenhower talked about the military industrial complex now we have a military industrial media congressional. security services complex has a lot of complex all kind it's complex all of them in meshed in a way that is not very far from the f. word. fascism. that's what mostly need to find as when the government corporations media and the security services that everybody else sort of seeing from the same sheet of music as they did today about this terrible threat it's not

and you know you know i told my grandsons you shouldn't say call people liars so we call them prevaricators ok you know it sounds nicer. you know the fact that james clapper would ask us to give him credibility when he would lie bald faced lie under oath and not later said well what i said was clearly erroneous but you know don't why should we believe in this thing these threats remind me of the ones when bradley manning chelsea manning released all those terrible things going to happen in afghanistan and iraq terrible things where troops and so forth and finally carl levin said it's a bobby gates mr secretary please give us a paper and he gave in papers here will contrary to our or worse or worst fears nobody has been so much as spat upon it and said it exactly that way but the command said the same thing later gates said the charges that this was great damage

were quote fairly significantly over russia and i think that phrase probably pertains with respect to snowden yes and james clapper today you had mentioned clapper and he brought up snowden today snowden was a was on that debate floor today some republicans as we've heard has gone as far to say that snowden works for russian intelligence clapper demanded that snowden return these documents that he said that he's that that he stole and it went as far as to call journalist that published these things their accomplices and i want to ask you because you're one of the few people that actually got to go over to russia and spent some time where snowden what's your response to these accusations calling him a spy. and all these developments we heard today and i was young enough to. i will i'm old enough to remember the mccarthy hearings ok when charges like this for flying about with no substantive basis and we know what happened then now for the

head of the house intelligence committee mike rogers who himself is a failed f.b.i. agent you know he was so eased out before you could invest and we don't know the whole story about that but the f.b.i. covers up for these things very well for him to come out and push especially when it's known without citing any evidence let's mccarthy not even though he had feinstein agreed with that you know and when when when just on radio one of. its attorneys was asked about that she said you know that if the i think she acted alone you know who have you checked that out mike rogers rogers was at a meeting run by the washington post were general michael hayden who used to have the n.s.a. was talking about a list snowden was on a list not the nobel prize list but another list ok and he's i you know a list i'm going to i like to put him on ok that's hayden now mike rogers was there

and he immediately interjected says you know i can hope we are not ok now this wasn't made you know wasn't meeting them off like this was open meeting them by the washington post there was no coverage later but what they were saying was we sent a little drone put them on the kill list right that's the list and for all drone now the supreme irony is that it snowed in not by his choice but by happenstance is in the safest possible part of the world that it could be because no drones have been those up them with a hellfire missile and those sealed team success are going to go in there and shoot him in the in the head like a piece of a song but what we're going to have to leave it off their railway is always great to have you on are a south african and i at a time that was a former cia analyst raymond govern. president obama addressed the nation last night for these annual state of the union speech after that speech the situation turned grim for one reporter covering on that covering the event and n y one news

reporter was interviewing representative michael grimm and asked him a question about an investigation into illegal fund raising for the congressman's campaign all this outraged graham who then resorted to threatening the reporter and it was all caught on camera. why. you. would know. graham defended his actions of a later apologized to that reporter he threatened that he that he there and you just saw there to talk more about the state of the union i'm joined now by r.t. correspondent ivan lopez and our t.v.

producer katie fischer welcome ladies so meghan hopefully i know you're there covering this hopefully you didn't face the wrath of graham what were some of the highlights for you all the highlight for me as you just mentioned was not being threatened but there was another highlight obviously this was a much more moderate speech that president obama delivered than any of the save the unions that we've seen this past that's marring the executive action that he's threatened in terms of his some of the highlights he promised the same things that he has an years past he promised once again that he wants one tom obey close for good in the detainee's transfer out of it he want to raise minimum wage he wants to reform the tax code reform voting rights in america and really he kind of got into very briefly immigration and gun control and also he defended the health care obviously he was playing defense in the in the wake of the n.s.a. reform scandal and in the wake of the obamacare as a failed rollout so he was really on the defensive and on in the state of the union

as never before on the defense because as we've seen he's had a hard time getting these a lot of these things done one take a look at the approval ratings the recent ratings for our elected leaders going into this take a look at congress first their disapproval rating is at eighty one point six per. said so their approval rating a very low just over twelve percent there and look at the president's ratings his disapproval rating is out forty nine percent his approval rating only at forty three percent so that forty three percent is near the lowest that we've seen in his presidency of course katie frustration over his ability to get things done last night he announced executive orders mention meghan touched upon it briefly there executive orders that he is going to take how is the climate in washington we see how low these approval ratings are led up to this i guess a last resort for him trying to do this to get anything done something that really is i mean he is viewing his lowest approval ratings of our congress not doing so

hot either worse in fact and so he's trying to get something done and to do so he feels yesterday's or to use executive powers trying to pass legislation you heard in the speech that you know when you when there is progress in places where there is progress being made in the house in gratian except for there was a lot more we being heard but when you know really start hearing things that he can't get done he was calling for these executive orders i mean this is the least productive congress and signed hundred forty seven but as we spoke with some of these congress people we saw that you know some of these democrats are ok with these executive orders but many congresspeople wait a second you're stepping into the separation of powers issue maybe you need to take a step back this is our job they're feeling a bit jealous so right right and these executive orders some see it as a last resort as some see it as taking it too far making you had mentioned earlier

some of these promises that you made one of them is closing gitmo that's a promise that many see as a promise not fulfilled and i think when you hear these speeches it kind of raises these questions of how much of it is rhetoric how much of is it just talk and how much is this going to be reale. betty well that's the state of the union historically has been more or less of a wish list that the president sets out each year one thing that is different with this state of the union address versus other ones is this one really looked back more on the accomplishments and kind of was more of a pat on the back versus looking forward the other thing that was really different about this one is it did tone down some of that rhetoric making it again one of the more moderate speeches that we've seen come out of him in recent history in terms of rhetoric versus actual accomplishments it's very hard to determine right now how any of this is going to be done obviously it's a very big let's just moving the federal minimum wage up will be a huge battle both in local governments and well as federally yes you can time

executive orders but really you know it's going to take a lot of smaller battles and then congressional battles in terms of immigration that's something that almost everybody agrees needs to happen but still it's not happening you know so there's a lot of different issues that should and yes absolutely be on the agenda and absolutely be done but we just don't know right now anyway how congress is going to react especially considering the fact that we're about to enter a twenty fourteen midterm election where all the seats could be jumbled the senate could go swing back to the republicans if they get more seats and everything could change and just kind of go back and look over the night i did put a piece together to kind of really highlight some of the things that he did talk about some of things he didn't talk about and some of the things that we're hoping to see moving forward six years ago president obama's message to congress and the nation was one of hope and change. so off work for

prosperity. yes we feel this is a term and a half later that message has transformed to this let's make this a year of action a year of action after arguably one of the least productive years in congressional history the president's speech comes during a time when the white house and national security agency are on the defense the president's own approval ratings have slipped to forty three percent piggybacking off a recent n.s.a. surveillance reform speech the president once again promised change but this time for a scandal he helped to perpetuate working with this congress i will reform our surveillance programs because the vital work of our intelligence community depends on public confidence here and abroad the privacy of ordinary people is not being violated they are reforms congress is largely on board with i think the n.s.a. needs to be reformed and i think congress is of that opinion i don't think that's

a particularly partisan issue and we want to make sure that the privacy of the american people is protected consistent with making sure that we overcome any threat we have from terrorists and i think we can achieve both goals at the same time we've got to make sure that as technology changes we also make sure that our values remain consistent but how many of those pledges actually go into effect and america's most secretive operations is still questionable at this point another issue largely glazed over drones they're only mention america must move off a permanent war footing. that's why i have imposed approval limits on the use of drones for we will not be safer if people abroad believe we strike within their countries without regard for the consequence consequences like civilian casualties according to the bureau of investigative journalism at least twenty four hundred people were killed by strikes

in pakistan yemen and somalia. in the past five years hundreds of them were believed to be civilians including children consequences like international retribution pakistani prime minister nawaz sharif has voiced strong condemnation against the drone program and demanded for its end the issue of domestic drones was not addressed despite the fact that both the u. a.v. industry and the number of drone permits issued are skyrocketing in terms of foreign policy the president mentioned afghanistan iraq and syria in brief but largely touted u.s. accomplishments instead of laying out a path moving forward continuing with his pledge to end american aggressions abroad he appealed to congress to rethink relations with iran let me be clear. if this congress sends me a new sanctions bill now that threatens to derail these talks i will veto it. for the sake of our national security. we must give diplomacy

a chance to succeed the issue of loosening sanctions hit a sore spot for many members of congress the congress is deeply concerned that iran may be building a nuclear weapon we have to deal with the threat in iran as it relates to the possibility of them acquiring a nuclear weapon no decent person in the congress in the country across the world thinks that it's a good idea for rent to acquire nuclear capability every year promises are made and every year more than a few of them are broken president obama spent the majority of the speech focusing on domestic economic issues like tax reform and raising the minimum wage in two thousand and thirteen president obama promised medicare reform tax reform and a budget medicare reform has yet to happen tax reform is nowhere closer to coming up for debate and the recent hack on target proves that america's cyber security is more vulnerable than ever congress did pass a budget but only after

a three week government shutdown despite the president's push to tie the minimum wage to the cost of living his two thousand and thirteen speech not even the ten dollar ten cent proposal the president offered for federal employees this year meets that mark this year president obama made even more promises during his state of the union address but congress has the ultimate say in how much of that wishlist really gets done and with midterm elections right around the corner it's now a race against time to see how many of those pledges will really be fulfilled before campaign season kicks into gear in washington meghan lopez r.t. . dying behind bars the latest available numbers show that eight hundred eighty five inmates died in the custody of local jails in two thousand and eleven this according to the bureau of justice statistics are they correspond to a mere david britain's e.u. the story of one woman accused of a nonviolent crime who died in a brooklyn jail. it's

a mother still in mourning distraught over her thirty seven year old daughter died after spending several agonizing hours lying on the floor of a brooklyn jail cell the day which led to kyin livingston's death this past summer stemmed from a nonviolent altercation with her grandmother but after her arrest police brought her here to brooklyn central booking where she was held waiting to be arraigned by a judge unfortunately she would never make it to a court or ever officially be charged with a crime. instead livingston would spend the remainder of her life in a jail cell suffering from severe stomach pains diarrhea and convulsions but despite her physical distress livingston son alex says a witness told him n.y.p.d.

officers ignored the pleas of his mother and others who were with her in the cell they started banging on the bars of the cells and screaming at the office to get help to get medical help and everything and there's a scene off that i walked by and said oh she's just having a seizure my grandson has seizures all thought middle path and why p.d. officials tell the family that livingston was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital but one witness and fellow inmate told the daily news that livingston had been dead for twenty minutes before the e.m.'s had even arrived the department which is now being sued by the family has declined requests to turn over key surveillance video and release the names of the officers who oversaw her care in a statement to r.t. regarding the case a spokesman for the new york city law department said this involved a tragic matter but given the pending litigation we cannot comment further but

livingston's story is not exactly unique she represents just one of hundreds of deaths that take place every year in local jails across the country according to the most recent department of justice statistics of ala. all in two thousand and eleven eight hundred eighty five inmates died while detained by local police departments deaths which have typically stemmed from a preexisting health condition it's a statistic that carrot to bash nick of cooney center on media crime and justice has called alarming it could be somebody that has a condition that has never been diagnosed before adding the stress of the situation could bring that out it could be anybody eighty percent of the people and their own guilt as the sort of medical of chronic condition and that's why to bash nick says these officers need to be aware of inmates illnesses and trained on how to react to dire medical conditions and that's what this community is demanding six months after kyin livingston's tragic death they're calling for accountability and they're

insisting on changes to the u.s. jail system that could prevent others from falling victim to the same fate in new york a mirror david r.t. . now to corporations that claim to funnel a lot of money in to giving back to the community the night the resident explores the truth behind some of these claims. corporations will tell you anything you want to hear anything at all as long as you keep buying whatever crap they're selling and because people are becoming more socially conscious now they're all telling us how socially responsible they are

through social responsibility or as the star reports of course there's an aphorism involved we're talking about corporations thius are reports detailing corporations sustainability efforts how they become more green or how they give back to the community they're all the rage in fact eighty six percent of u.s. companies now issue c.s.r. report but a new paper published in personnel psychology just came out that says the more a company pushes for a c.s.r. and talks about being socially responsible the more likely their c.e.o.'s are to be socially irresponsible as specially after committing with sponsible. it's almost as if there's a trend where they think to themselves and i just did a great campaign about helping the homeless it's totally ok if i used toxic plastic about packaging their own it explains why you see corporations like b.p.

talk for hours on end about how they're the best in the industry when it comes to safety but they're the ones who caused the deepwater horizon spill a very not safe accident indeed in the paper's conclusion the researchers state that given leaders' propensity to engage in wrongdoing after they've engaged in c.s.r. boards should be particularly care. bowl after the successful implementation of c s r strategy to ensure that leaders do not become complacent in other words if your c.e.o. has just done something wonderful it's time to keep an eye on or. not it's great that corporations are becoming more aware of the fact that their customers would like them to be more socially and environmentally responsible but the truth is these reports are often just stupid marketing tool in fact they're often created by sustainability reporting consultants who said that employees at the corporations

often don't even understand what the hell the consultants are talking about the bottom line it was if a corporation truly cared about the environment or society in general they would have to create an acronym to explain all the good they're doing they just be doing it tonight let's talk about bad by following young twitter at the rest of it. and that is going to do it for now i'm liz wall have a great night.