coming up on our team new leadership at the n.s.a. amid all the mass surveillance scandals we now know who will likely lead the intelligence agency this comes as one u.s. senator is planning to file a class action lawsuit against the n.s.a. more just ahead and death row boston bomber prosecutors in the case against dzhokhar started i have decided to seek the death penalty a report on this decision ahead and the fighting in syria has created extremists and not just in syria that's all according to a top u.s. intelligence official more on that in an exclusive look at a syrian city captured by islamist later in the show.

it's thursday january thirtieth five pm in washington d.c. aaron david and you are watching r.t. america we begin today with the news that the obama administration has decided on the next head of the national security agency vice admiral michael rogers will take the place of general keith alexander who are announced his retirement for later this spring this is all according to information provided to the new york times by senior u.s. officials admiral rogers will command both the n.s.a. and cyber command the new pentagon unit that directs the country's offensive cyber operations rogers is said to have more experience than his predecessor and code breaking in the design of america's new arsenal of cyber weapons however it remains to be seen how he will respond to the civil liberties issues that have been gulf the n.s.a. in the past year. and speaking of the n.s.a. tonight's episode of politicking with larry king will cover that and much more

tonight's guest is former minnesota governor jesse ventura here's a snippet of what's to come when larry and jesse talk about and as a whistleblower edward snowden to me he's a hero larry because he caught our government breaking the law in violating the constitution it took great courage to put himself on the line and make this wrong doing no one to the american people and we have every right to know it we have the right to know what our government violates our constitution and our bill of rights and that's what makes him a hero because of the courage she showed in bringing if if if snowden doesn't do that we're still all under surveillance and it's business as usual can anybody sit here and tell me that it's a good idea to have all americans put under surveillance they treat us like we're all potential terrorists and what we're forgiving larry is the main thing they work

for us were the bosche. don't forget to tune in at nine pm for that and much more if you're on our team america. and we're just learning that the national security agency carried out spying operations during the two thousand and nine united nations conference on climate change in copenhagen this is all according to new documents leaked by former government contractor edward snowden according to the documents published by the huffington post and the danish newspaper information the n.s.a. monitored the communications of other countries ahead of the conference and intended to continue those operations throughout the summit the document does not state how the n.s.a. planned to continue gathering that information but noted it would collect signals intelligence which is information gathered from intercepted communications such as phone calls and e-mails the document reveals that the n.s.a. planned to do this to gain advantage it says leaders in negotiating teams from around the world will undoubtedly be engaging in intense last minute policy

formulating and at that time they will be holding sidebar come discussions with their counterparts details of which are of great interest to our policymakers and while some are concerned about the surveillance the u.s. is conducting a broad others here in washington are focused on the n.s.a. surveillance of americans and fact senator rand paul is planning to file a class action lawsuit against the n.s.a. speaking at the state of the net conference in washington d.c. this week he says the administration's increased transparency is only the first step toward reform next step is is it constitutional to collect with a single warrant of arisan can you collect one hundred million people's records my answer is no you cannot and should name the person the fourth amendment says you name the person so what i think and i think it's also good for your business model if you're out there support going the next step which is really shutting down the collection or fighting illegal would you get into the supreme court because yes. so

to talk about everything from copenhagen to this forthcoming lawsuit i was joined earlier by wes benedict executive director of the libertarian national committee and matt bender a producer at the majority report i started out by asking less about rand paul's lawsuit and if it will carry more weight and the court i think it's too soon to tell that right now court decisions are very unpredictable we've had others on other areas like obamacare where some thought it would be struck down others not it's really hard to say one still lawsuits filed people will start analyzing it and make predictions on the legal outcomes but in the meantime i think it makes it will have an impact to help bring awareness to the public about these issues i think america is setting a terrible example for the rest of the world spine not only on foreigners but spying on americans as well we don't one other country spying on americans here in

america we don't think it's right i don't think it's right for the american government to be spying on others and the worst part about it is that businesses are being forbidden from telling the truth to the american people and to the world some of this being loosened up now thanks very much to edward snowden's revelations but yahoo facebook these companies you go to tell us we're being spied on if they're being used for that and that i'm going to go to you senator paul says he wants this lawsuit to replicate the success of the internet campaign for sopa. on line opposition to that piece affectively killed in congress in two thousand and twelve sen paul says he wants millions of people to sign this law see it do you think he may be able to go beyond just libertarians and libertarians and actually gain some support from progressive and liberal. i really do think you can with this

it's something that both his father and self have been very good at doing. certain issues these these sort of privacy issues but the thing is with with with the soap issue that makes it different from from this is that so it was sort of it was a campaign done by you when there was no sort of leader of this campaign whereas rand paul is putting himself first and foremost in this in this class action lawsuit getting people to sign up on this thing he's put together and i'm not really quite sure what his what his angle is here because because he's a congress person he can you can draft some law or go straightforward with a bill of some sort and try to make a change in. the law itself but instead he's going this public route and it makes me question whether this is really about the n.s.a. or if he's looking at twenty sixteen and last senator rand paul says he wants to go all the way to the supreme court do you think there's a chance it could. certainly there's

a chance but do you know if the lower courts rule a certain way and then it's appealed it could make it to the supreme court. i would like to see it go that high and have the court rule again on these issues but i think what are what your other guest said about it turning into a political thing that turns off a large part of the country you know he may be a presidential candidate as a republican that may lose him some pour some support from the left but we'll see i'm glad he's bringing this issue up we'd like to see someone democrat pick up on this issue and make a big deal about it as well as we get the whole country behind stopping these what certainly would be a bipartisan issue so far on that given these new revelations about the n.s.a. spying at the u.n. climate summit in copenhagen what's your sense as to why there is so much interest on the part of the u.s. government to tap the communications of these climate negotiations. well i mean the u.s. has had a history of spying on all sorts of groups i mean review and our kiss on our

visions i mean it's just it's just the us use the excuse that you know the other countries do this sort of spying where do we really want the united states of america to be on this list with the countries that actually do partake in this sort of spying i don't think so. right and matt last year we learned that the n.s.a. spied also on the g. eight and the g twenty summits and when asked about this a national security council spokeswoman caitlin hayden said in an e-mail to the huffington post that quote the u.s. government has made clear that the united states gathers foreign intelligence of the type gathered by all nations so because it's foreign according to them this is all fair game what do you make of that argument i mean i think it's just an excuse to try to make people here in america sound like oh well it's just some foreign entity being spied on americans are being spied on which we know is false it's

basically i think it's just something that said to sort of cole the response that's going on over here that was mad the producer at the majority report and was benedict the executive director of the libertarian national committee. and the justice department has notified of federal judge that it intends to seek the death penalty for dzhokhar. that will only be the case if a jury convicts for last april bomb attacks at the boston marathon the attacks which took place nine months ago left three people dead and two hundred sixty wounded hammarlund. brother who allegedly perpetrated the attack was killed in a confrontation with police in the days after the bombing i was joined earlier by artie's marina pour naya to discuss this a little bit more i asked her how the justice department decided that the death penalty was appropriate in this case. well u.s. attorney general eric holder says that the nature of the conduct at issue and the

resulting harm from the boston bombings compelled his decision for the us to seek the death penalty in the case against defendant now before making a decision mr holder did take recommendations from his own staff as well as the justice department's capital case review committee and boston's u.s. attorney carmen ortiz since the federal death penalty was reinstated in one nine hundred eighty eight the u.s. u.s. attorney generals have authorized authorized this use for an estimated five hundred defendants but of those only three have been executed including timothy mcveigh who was convicted in the one thousand nine hundred five oklahoma city bombings now. faces thirty counts in connection to the boston bombings including the use of weapons of mass destruction resulting in the death of the bombing. of a public place he is also accused of murdering a massachusetts institute of technology police officers days following the bombing

now of the seventeen charges which you've mentioned in your lead again. he could receive the death penalty for for them so he has thirty charges against him seventeen of them he could face the death penalty and the twenty year old suspect did plead not guilty on all counts back in july remains in federal custody and we're talking about the death penalty here very serious issue do you think this is going to spark any controversy amongst americans at all. well i don't know what kind of controversy we will see many did believe that this decision wouldn't come wouldn't come down that attorney general holder would actually decide the opposite way and that's because the u.s. attorney general did disclose several times has disclosed several times that he's personally opposed to the death penalty however he instead chose to seek the death penalty in this case you know some experts believe that the reason he made that

decision is because if he decided against life in prison it could have fueled republican accusations against the administration attorney general for being too soft on terrorism but if we look at a poll published in september by the boston globe it found that only thirty three percent of people in massachusetts actually supported the death penalty for certain i of the majority fifty seven percent favored a life sentence without the possibility of parole so here we have the u.s. attorney general not siding with the majority opinion of the case of actually going for the death penalty it's very interesting so when can we expect all of us to sort of commence one of the trials supposed to begin. while boston's u.s. district judge george o'toole has said he wants to get the trial rolling he is the one that actually some imposed today as the deadline for the attorney general to make his decision on the death penalty judge tool has ordered a conference with the lawyers on feb twelfth so they could all decide

a starting date of the trial so we don't know when it will start but by mid february we will have word on when the trial is expected to the highly anticipated case a lot of people will be watching. new york studio thank you. animals are in man has been executed for the fatal shooting of a jewelry store owner and in one thousand nine hundred ninety one robbery the u.s. supreme court had granted a stay late tuesday shortly before the scheduled execution but late wednesday the high court cleared numerous appeals and in part challenge the drug used in the execution herbert smalls was the sixth person executed in the united states since the beginning of the year and the third in missouri since november was pronounced dead at ten twenty pm last night at a state prison after receiving the drug in question a lethal dose of pentobarbital small did not make a final statement but he didn't ask which way he should look from the gurney to see

his witnesses and nodded to them before his death meanwhile witnesses to executions in the state of washington will now be given even more access the new witness protocol is in its final stages of approval it includes witnesses having access to television monitors to show the inmate entering the death chamber and being strapped down as well as the ability to see the insertion of the i.v.'s those had both previously been shielded from public view the change is in response to a two thousand and twelve federal appeals court ruling that said all parts of an execution must be fully open to public witnesses that ruling was sparked by a case brought by the a.p. and other news organizations who challenge idaho's policy to shield the insertion of i.v. catheters from public view they argued that it was a first amendment right to witness all aspects of an execution and they also said it would be the only way to determine whether it was being properly carried out

however the states argued that the current policy was necessary to protect the anonymity of the execution team. and syria is becoming a haven for radical extremists with aspirations to launch terrorist attacks against the u.s. that's exactly what a top intelligence official told congress yesterday here's what the director of national intelligence james clapper told the senate intelligence committee amanda's concern here for these. extremists who are attracted to. syria engage in combat get training and we're seeing no the appearance of training complexes in syria to train people to go back to their countries and and in the course of the conduct more terrorist attacks clapper says up between seventy five thousand and one hundred ten thousand rebels are battling the government and syria of those twenty six thousand are extremists and he says about seven thousand

of them are foreigners from fifty different countries including europe and the middle east u.s. intelligence officials have expressed worry that a handful of american foreign fighters and hundreds of european militants have already returned to their home countries so might all of this change the u.s. course of action in syria i was going to earlier by ahmed fati a middle east analyst with clapper saying syria is becoming a haven for radical extremists from all over the world i asked fati if that is something americans should really be concerned about. absolutely and the american government should be very concerned about what's happening in syria and on the other side this is not a surprise this is standard operating procedures for al qaeda and its affiliates we have seen it over and over again we have seen it in afghanistan we have seen is in pakistan in the fifth area the federally administered tribal areas we have seen it before in the eighty's in d.c. then when but less than when they're an established training camps and we saw it in

iraq from two thousand and three onwards so it's an ongoing it's part of their operating procedure the get the foothold on the ground and then these thoughts are developed from there so definitely u.s. intelligence community and security apparatus should be very very concerned and one i had some analysts have said that it's possible opposition militants will will tire of battling the government which is showing no signs of collapse and instead take their newly acquired skills back to europe or to the u.s. where acts of terror may be able to grab larger headlines is about actually shifting or their target or expanding their targets abroad. this is definitely a valid scenario that these terrorists are going to be going back to their countries whether they're going to be carrying out operations by themselves or they're going to be training others without the need to leave the country we have

heard in europe in many european countries in britain in germany in belgium about the jihad tourism these people were just average or working and then they take a vacation months or so and then do the flock to syria there have to be more vigilant approach and more careful screening at the countries bordering syria and i'm speaking here about turkey about jordan about iraq about who is coming in and where does he go after that i'm sure that the security apparatus in turkey or jordan for example when he sees this in plucks. young people and the old heading into the same direction to go to a border points crossing to syria this should be a red flag i am surprised that it's not been that that killed earlier on that was atmospheric middle east analyst. and it's now been more than

a month since islamist rebels seized the industrial syrian town of under a heavy fighting left thousands displaced and militants still hold large parts of the city making it impossible to go in and verify the details of any atrocities artie's maria the notion of became the first foreign journalist to get to that area since the start of the seizure and she spoke to some survivors. address is just a twenty minute drive from damascus but the highway runs through an area firmly under rebel control so instead we take a newly created pass driving through high mountains of sand and piles of old tires the army uses to shield its convoys from attacks it's maybe longer but it's a safer route pocket on my part where the first for him to be crude to get this close to our drive after the siege began a month ago it's still not clear exactly what happened in base industrial city last

december back then reports emerged of numerous killings and fallen soft arguer was attacked by militants belonging to al-qaeda linked groups and the free syrian army . they stormed into the city and they kept the civilians in their buildings using them as human shields which made our mission very difficult this is why it takes so long we want to avoid civilian losses. to reported allegations the dozens of civilians had been executed that people were beheaded and burned in over ends and one claimed the doctors and patients were killed in a clinic which revelled to address hoping to verify these reports but there is still no way of getting into the besieged areas of the town to confirm if any of that actually happened we got as close as the army can there actually to the old town are very blurred and the work is house and complex nearby a drum a lier. both are now besieged and i could all use

a lot of the old one maybe some bankers here to separate other our blog and that room earlier and to prevent the militants uniting because of. these corydoras go all around the besieged cities with the army watching the area day and night this is one of the checkpoints of the syrian army behind this wall is territory held by militants and the soldiers strategy and mission right now is just to watch this area and to shoot if they see the enemy approach aim. and this is actually all they can do for any military operation could threaten the lives of those who remain hostage and was no access inside it's impossible to tell just how many the are but luckily most of the residents managed to escape our driver will meet some of them to tell him to speak with the shelter around what used to be a large sum and factory life in this hotel's me he doesn't go to school anymore and

then my displaced because terrorist attack the seat and we had to skip the occupied and we cannot go they have their own job blocked. he says his father is a government employee this is why it is dangerous for his family to stay we ask where they live now yes mother appear from the darkness of the room barely ten square meters in the silence and everything what is happening is wrong there was no need for any of this see where we are now to what degree we have reached now it's a question that many here are asking because these children haven't seen their mother for a month already seriously ill she couldn't get her medicine due to the siege with her condition deteriorating she was sent to hospital far from her family with woman on the floor three of we were living in peace and now where are we i wish peace would come back to all of syria. a month later it's still not clear exactly what

happened another drug most of those we talked to here in this camp fled before the militants arrived but occasionally some who didn't escape so quickly. they were looking for anybody serving in the syrian army and also the vitus of the syrian soldiers the head of the sewage system. we were in a group of about twenty people they were beating us three at a time and killing us and i saw with my own eyes people stone i still see them in my nightmares. the night the shot of they cut drinking water and they prevented the bakery from working for a cigarette and young children are about to die from a lurker and they threatened us with machine guns and. once an important industrial and peaceful city has become yet another syrian battleground for weary forces with real long confrontation has left well in excess of one hundred thousand dead and millions displaced and yet it's another place where no side looks able to win and

it's the ordinary syrian people left to pay the price. the from address in syria and ukraine's parliament on wednesday passed a measure offering amnesty to the demonstrators arrested in the last two months of the protests in the embattled city of kiev however the parliament said this would be contingent on demonstrators vacating most of the buildings they currently occupy but as artie's alexy reports the move was quickly greeted with contempt. last night on wednesday the parliament stayed almost until midnight to find a solution they managed to pass and an animist a law which provided those conditions but the opposition says they are not willing to take these to meet these demands they are not willing to make concessions of their own the opposition wants all those detained in the protests to be released from prison sandy criminalised the government the ruling party says they are ready

for it only on one condition that other protesters old administrative buildings they have captured over the past several weeks and dismantle the barricade in the governmental quarter in kiev and this is the sticking point right now here is what leaders of the opposition sad regarding the new amnesty law which almost here unfortunately did dr could deal with you know it is not the best solution right here on the contrary it's good to deteriorate with the situation but tensions in society because of the result of the brickies how can we discuss negotiations today they're pursuing their own goals of us they pay no attention to the people or the people's representatives in the parliament they decided to go their own way and we'll see where it leads. so it seems that the compromised which everyone thought was almost reached between the opposition and the ruling party hasn't been achieved particularly from the side of the opposition which is not willing to make any concessions the president last night warned that if

a compromise is not reached between the sides of the parliament then the parliament may be just solved so the tension is now in the political sphere and it's really hard to say where this will all go. that was our correspondent alexy our chefs. and the california lawmakers are considering legislation that would keep police agencies and other government entities from using drones to conduct warrantless surveillance across the state the bill would establish what supporters say are some of the nation's strictest standards for the use of drone aircraft by government entities the measure passed fifty nine to five in the house on wednesday and now goes to the senate is if it's fully passed the bill would require law enforcement agencies to obtain warrants except in certain emergencies it would also require the government agencies notify the public when they intend to use drones and that the data of those drones collect is destroyed within six months the federal aviation administration estimates that more than thirty thousand drones will be flying over

the u.s. within the next two decades helping with everything from fighting criminals and wildfires to aiding farmers and perhaps delivering packages there are very few measures in place across the u.s. to restrict their use however california will be joining the state of virginia which last year put a twenty four month moratorium on new avi's in the state and that does it for now for more on the stories we covered you can go to youtube dot com slash r t america check out our website r t dot com slash usa you can also follow me on twitter at amir and david. i marinates joining me. for it seems that impartial and financial reporting commentary contributes and much much. only on the bus and.

got a quote for you. it's pretty tough. stay with substory. because this guy like you but smear that guy stead of working for the people most issues the mainstream media for each other right speech and. they did rather well. we welcome the era name abby martin to a baby to a precocious on the our t.v. network. it's going to give you the numbers not to give you one star never i'll give you the information you make the decision don't worry about breaking with the revolution of the mind it's a revolution of ideas and consciousness. let's get right to

a politician would be described as angry i think i'm a strong. under single. today got a lot of housing for only people but the government is not really funding it and then a lot of the shelter today be having people valis down the street because people begin to raid didn't shelters didn't get involved right now running ironically i'm worth more to the city of new york he told me. personally for a. moment and. when you paid regular people like someone like a lawyer or doctor or some other madison avenue it's boring and sometimes the homeless people who get into it like the island might. say because country rather than staying for the resistance in the world has never been known in this city or region city in the world like the people.