coming up on r t more u.k. spying a new report reveals that britain's intelligence agency intercepted and stored webcam images from millions of yahoo users with a little help of course from the n.s.a. the latest on that just ahead and another member of the cuban five group is released from u.s. custody the five men were convicted back in two thousand and one on spying charges back home they've been hailed as heroes a look at the history of the cuban five coming up. and in california kings city officers face charges of car theft six of the city's top officers have been arrested for their involvement in a car impounding scheme more on the police corruption later in the show.

it's thursday february twenty seventh four pm in washington d.c. i'm near a david and you're watching our team america. we begin today with the news that britain's intelligence agency the g.c. h.q. has been collecting images from webcam conversations conducted by yahoo users this is all according to documents released by former government contractor edward snowden and obtained by the guardian the report reveals the details of a surveillance program called optic nerve and which the g c h q was collecting and storing these images and in large quantities all with the support of the u.s. national security agency in a statement to r.t. yahoo said we were not aware or nor would we condone this reported activity this report if true represents a whole new level of violation of our users privacy that is completely unacceptable

to talk a little bit more about how this program was carried out earlier i spoke with sarah firth in london i first asked her how the g c h q was collecting this information was this was done via web cam the british intelligence agency. aided by the n.s.a. had the program code named. and they were essentially collecting still images from millions of accounts one point eight million accounts and saving them to agency databases and how was this information supposed to be used. well the system it appears busies for experiments an automated facial recognition nosies to monitor not just p.c.h. he's existing targets but also to discover new targets of interest and save the searches could be used to try to find terrorist suspects or criminals but it was

also making use of multiple anonymous user i.d.'s so skipping up a huge bulk data from what could potentially be completely innocent eases and did b g c h q distinguish between which of those users were suspected of wrongdoing and those who weren't suspected of wrongdoing. it appears not and i think that's really what's causing such outrage here is that it seems that g.c. h.q. were able to access many images completely indiscriminately the information was collected in bold largely anonymous user i.d.'s as we said details in these documents and that also means that they have been unable to filter out information between us all u.k. citizens say no distinctions made there as we said indiscriminately collecting this information and of course that's what has caused so much concern and so much anger from a lot of users already absolutely and of course also we're learning that scores of

sexually explicit material in particular was inadvertently collected after realising this did the g c h q make any attempts whatsoever to prevent the collection or storage of that kind of content. c.h.p. certainly getting a little bit more than i think they were bargaining for their rather quickly display being their discovery as they say a surprising number of people use web cam conversations to show intimate parts of their body and apparently the documents saying three to eleven percent of the images contained undesirable needed he was one social media commenting on the revelations so eloquently put it c.c.t.v. on the street g c h e in your sheets but of course not a laughing matter at school because the spite this it seems that g c h q didn't make any attempt to prevent the collection all the storage of these explicit images

they did eventually it seems come to a compromise by excluding images from this facial recognition program that didn't actually include faces so eventually they did manage to filter out some of the images coming three but it seems not much effort was made in the collection or in the storage of these very personal images now considering that both the us and the u. . they are part of the five eyes and therefore they share intelligence is it safe to assume the n.s.a. has had access to the who webcam storage and all of these images it's pretty unclear at this point exactly how much access to say it had to these yahoo web cam in images of course that is a question a lot of people including me to imagine you'll hear themselves are going to be really pushing to get the answer on that it does seem that policy documents were available to n.s.a. analysts throughout receiving information sharing and as he said this optic nerve. program. for ration but they were aided certainly by the n.s.a.

said that is going to be something that is going to be being looked at very closely right now and there are this particular program optic nerve interestingly only focused on yahoo users is there any reason why the agency used yahoo instead of say google well from the documents that have been released say for it seems that you are he is this is certainly the why the scale in the targeting that some of the documents do also appear to detail interest in the potential capabilities of the x. box three sixty's connect camera saying that generated normal web cam traffic so again it seems possible that they they were in this program looking to perhaps expand it to other areas as well as. yahoo webcam imaging all right certainly a lot of outrage over this argy correspondence era for things for your reporting. and the world's eyes have been focused on the fast political changes unfolding in

ukraine's capital of kiev in recent months but it seems now the attention is shifting to the crimean peninsula where dozens of gunmen raised the red russian flag over parliament today and it's now raising concerns over a possible separatist rebellion that's dividing the region artie's igor piskun of has the story. well i have far more grave. here in the crimea national store winds are being shouted alongside the washerwoman's they share the same went but definitely not the same political views was. there were there was a little we all came out today to show that without our approval notice the us will be mayn't we say the crimea is a part of our grades war z. is the majority of people here support russia in the u.s.s.r. the crimea belong to the russian soviet republic until may nine hundred fifty four

when the then soviet leadership decided to transfer it to the administration off so he did crane and when the u.s.s.r. collapsed in one thousand nine hundred one the crimea was left as a part of independent ukraine but for the last few centuries mainly ethnic russians have been living on these lands alongside minorities including the muslim crimean tatars built the crimea always used to be russian and was passed over to the crane unlawfully it's time for justice to prevail the square in front of the a local administration building here in secret all we had was a vision was a political changes and if that was the only thing it and so far pro russian with the russian flags there for you right away scared and the tensions i was in the boiling point. even though i knew several lesser extent only most of the crimean tartars have been siding with the ukrainian nationalists but they were never able to agree on the message i was opposing and tattles one of our own crimean tartar

government as it was on the idea was too far fetched under way at this point however nationalism is far more important than the logic of the majority here are expecting the local crimean authorities to exercise the political will and not allow a new ethnic conflict in europe to break out. you go to the school of art. reporting from the grainy. and headlines across the u.s. and europe are speculating that russia is on the brink of getting involved in crimea some are directly linking russia's snap military drills with the tense situation on the peninsula russian military officials have denied there is any connection saying the maneuvers are being held hundreds of miles away and are simply routine in an interview with m s n b c yesterday secretary of state john kerry referred to a nine hundred eighty five boxing film saying the developments in ukraine should not be seen as a continuation of the cold war take a look we do not believe there should be east west russia united states this is not

rocky for. the caf enough brings us more on how the west is responding to the situation in crimea. nato defense ministers are expressing a lot of concern over ukraine as well as their perception of the kremlin's response the nato secretary general anders fogh rasmussen called on russia not to do anything that would quote escalate tension or create a misunderstanding he told a meeting of the nato ukraine commission in brussels the latest developments in the crimea were quote dangerous and irresponsible also raising the alarm of the new german defense minister no she weighed in at her very first nato summit in brussels let's take a quick listen to the situation in the ukraine particularly in crimea fills us with great concern it is of the utmost importance that we prevent a breakup of the ukraine and that special forces in the country are strengthened so a lot of concern about whether ukraine remains in one piece or not the russian

foreign ministry meanwhile issuing a statement in response to all this saying that the nato defense ministers were sending a quote wrong signal in their statements urging all sides to refrain from making what moscow referred to as provocative statements and this alarm not just coming from the nato ministers but reflected in the western press as well the news has certainly made front page headlines with a lot of speculation that moscow's decision to hold military drills is linked somehow to the unrest that's a notion which the russian defense minister sergei sure who disputed saying that the emergency military drills were routine and largely unrelated to the developments in the ukraine he did go want to say that russia is of course closely monitoring the developments there and there as well as around the russia's black sea fleet which remember is based in the crimean. that was our team correspondent lucie county not. found a second member of the cuban five spy ring was released today from a u.s.

prison after spending more than fifteen years behind bars fifty year old for nandu gonzales known to the u.s. authorities by his alias ruben champa completed his sentence. a day in safford arizona according to u.s. attorney's office than dollars has been turned over to immigration officials for deportation to cuba the five men who make up the cuban five were convicted in two thousand and one in miami for spying the first of the cuban five to be released was rene gonzales he finished his prison sentence in two thousand and eleven but spent more than a year on probation in the u.s. until a judge allowed him to return to cuba so to discuss this a little bit more i want to bring in our tease nicholas o'donovan who has been following this story from on miami bureau for nicholas that takes us back to two thousand and one when the cuban five were first convicted what exactly were they charged with in detail. well actually that trial begun in two thousand that it was

a very long and complex process as you can imagine that went on for seven months it all happened here in miami and from the very beginning the legal teams defending the cuban five full for a change of venue because as we all know the south florida is a stronghold for the cuban exile that didn't happen and the jury found them guilty of all twenty six counts included conspiracy to commit espionage conspiracy to commit murder and acting as agents of a foreign government here in the united states and besides the trial lasted several months the very well surprise was just announced in a few minutes then in december two thousand and one all five members of the group received different sentences for gonzalez the two that already outs got nineteen and fifteen years but don't you get it oh and i'm on it i need life in prison and get out of that and then this received two life sentences to be served consecutively and what has the cuban government's response been over the years this is gone on for you know is so long what's what's their response been to this

incarceration. it's been going on since ninety ninety eight and basically the cuban government has always had a different position of very different point of view and what they've always said is that the team was an antiterrorist unit whose mission was to avoid any violent action coming from miami based groups against the castro regime so they have version is very different that the group was never targets in the u.s. military but miami cuban exile groups know in addition we have recently heard from the cuban officials that washington simply lacks the will to end this case once and for all and they directly accuse the u.s. officials of bribing journalists to inflate the story and create a negative view of the cuban five in the public eye here in the u.s. so a very strong position from love on and also a very different one from the one we hear from washington and nicholas it's not only the cuban government but also the cuban people both abroad and in the u.s.

in miami where you are they've long lobbied for the release we're now seeing the second to be released fernando gonzales. what do you think it's because of those afeard said that he's finally being released. well first of all you're absolutely right it's not only the cuban officials but the cuban people around the world a lobbying for their release and we've also heard mr international criticizing the u.s. necessarily punitive actions toward some of the cuban five to not granting visas to their relatives so that they could come and visit them here in the u.s. the united nations commission of human rights stated also that the trial did not take place in the climate of objectivity and impartiality that is required in order to confer the standards of a fair trial so there has been a lot of pressure but honestly both renee and fernando gonzalez have completed their sentences and they just got the standard reduction for good conduct so i don't think in these two cases you know the effort was was was was heard no but

activists while they insist that they're going to keep on fighting for those three members of the group still in prison we have seen some reductions in two of those cases so some efforts have definitely been heard in washington here and nicholas that is there any sentiment and the reaction to all of this that this could be a step toward better u.s. cuban relations. well better u.s. cuban relations that is a very very deep and complex probe problem no it's not only you know the many crossed interests between these two countries but because there is a such a large and strong cuban community living herein the us and specifically here in miami or south florida that many times you know one gets the sensation that this can just get in the way of any possible improvement but as i say it is such a deep problem and we do try to tendon find you know a turning point that would trigger a change but i don't really think the relations will change due to

a single issue it's more a matter of will and of compromise absolutely well ali have time for our tease nicholas o'donovan from our miami studio thank you. and two former guantanamo bay detainees have asked of french judge to subpoena of former prison commander they accuse of overseeing their alleged torture bizarre stasi and moran bench a la lee are french citizens who were both captured by u.s. authorities and khandahar of ghana stand they were held by american authorities and get most from late two thousand and one to two thousand and four when they were released back to france and a report submitted to the judge of the high court in paris the former detainees allege that major general geoffrey miller carried out a quote authorized and systematic plan of torture and ill treatment on persons deprived of their freedom without any charge and without the basic rights of any detainee miller became the commander of one tonto in late two thousand and two just

after the bush administration approved enhanced interrogation techniques those techniques included placing detainees in stress positions stripping them and exposing them to extreme heat and cold but the complaint notes that miller carried those tactics out even after then secretary of defense donald rumsfeld with group permission to use the most controversial interrogation practices now the united states has yet to issue a public response on this case one ton m o remains open more than twelve years after it began holding suspects despite president obama's efforts to close it. and more than other third of the police officers in the small california town of king city have been arrested this is all for their involvement in a scheme to steal impounded cars belonging to poor families who happen to be latino immigrants in fact one of the police officers was promised he could keep one

vehicle for every ten to fifteen vehicles he steered to a particular towing company so for more insight on all of us i want to bring in artie's ramon glendower from our l.a. studio ramon first of all tell us how this scheme really worked. romero well residents of this small town of king city had been complaining that police had been taking their cars for years but this investigation involving the monterey county district attorney's office and the f.b.i. just started about six months ago now in the criminal complaint it's alleges that a sergeant there in king city between two thousand and ten and two thousand and thirteen had towed in impounded more than two hundred vehicles and as you mentioned injured in the introduction for every ten to fifteen that he would bring to the law he would get one in return now the part of the problem is that most of the cars that he was impounded were being sent to just one tow yard nearly ninety percent of all the impounded cars were going to this one tow yard problem is that this toll

yard also happens to belong to the brother of the acting police chief there in king city so things did seem a little strange there all to mit lee the district attorney did step in ultimately arresting six officers and a civilian obviously a small conflict of interest there with that telling company to talk about what these police officers are being charged with right now sure the most serious charges are bribery and embezzlement all felony charges which carry up to four years with each count and you know this is a very bizarre seemed to try and pull off and really think they could get away with that the prosecutor in the case has even said that he's considering charging officers with hate crimes you know anything about that how this could be considered a hate crime. sure the lead prosecutor in this case is a who was considering hate crime charges against some of these officers the problem

was that a lot of the cars that were taken were taken from latino families come from disadvantaged areas there in the city at the end of the day proving racial animus in the court of law is very difficult and or similarly the d.a.'s office decided that it wasn't so much of a racial thing more of a thing where the police were just targeting the most vulnerable vulnerable people in this community many of which had very few financial resources and many of whom just didn't speak english and as i understand it of shorty. said that while they were investigating the initial initial crimes they some of the cross some other illegal activity do you know anything about that right well one of the officers which was arrested this week is being charged with possession of an assault rifle an illegal sed illegal storage of a weapon very tough gun laws here in california another officer was charged with

making criminal threats against a resident there in king city and the district attorney this week mentioned that the investigation is ongoing so we could see more arrests come in in the coming days and weeks so we'll have to wait and see but i want to you know shift attention to one particular police officer or former police officer that was arrested former police chief nick nick about d.v. as he's coming under scrutiny this is not the first time that you know he's sort of come under pressure what's his history. yeah the former chief back in two thousand and ten he was put on leave he was accused of showing up to a crime scene drug actually a murder scene and stepping in in some blood and also putting down his coffee cup they're potentially contaminating the scene now those charges he was ultimately cleared him but he received a vote of no confidence from the police union police officer saying that there that

he had a retaliated against them all to merely his trouble tenure ended last year when he retired but he's still getting paid by the city and interestingly king city is not the only california city making headlines this week at a san diego police department chief also stepped down a missed allegations of sexual misconduct by police officers and his force what's the latest on that case and we only have about thirty seconds left sure well officially william lansdown his last day is tomorrow since two thousand and eleven at least nine officers there have been accused of a range of crimes in misconduct from rape to sexual battery to dui the most serious lately was one of serve is facing several charges of sexual battery automatically. he said that this was in the cause for his resignation hiver a new police chief has been named police did not return my phone calls for comment

however she's been there it's the first female chief in the city but however she's been there for decades so it's. still a lot of questions as to whether someone who's been in the system for so long could really reform a police department that's seen quite a bit of misconduct in the last few years misconduct is becoming more and more frequent and scenes and the state of california artie's for mongul endo from our l.a. studio thank you you bet. and believe it or not the tea party is celebrating its fifth birthday today the political party is one of the largest groups of the grassroots conservative movement members gathered today in washington d.c. to celebrate its influence on the current political climate so is the tea party still on top or could it be losing it steve perry and warren has a story. the tea party is celebrating their fifth anniversary today at a rally in washington d.c. hosted by the tea party patriots they sell between seven and nine hundred tickets by what we saw the people in attendance the average age is about sixty five seventy

years old so it is an older crowd here however they do have some of the most popular voices within the tea party movement speaking here today including senators rand paul and ted cruz and michele bachmann and representative jim jordan i spoke earlier with mark and i asked him what's the biggest motivating force behind the tea party today you have millions of individuals who love their country who do not want to fundamentally transform who believe in liberty and private property rights and the rule of law and so this is why we have a tea party movement a conservative constitutional movement and that's our heritage and they're trying to protect and preserve our heritage so the tea party still has a very active voice in washington d.c. and the tea party patriots are operating on three sets of values one a constitutionally limited government fiscal responsibility and free market economics now one member of this organization has taken an individual initiative is cindy pugh and she's looking to oust a very influential voice by the end of this year two thousand and fourteen is going

to be absolutely fantastic here the tea party movement has been inspired by so many in every state from the grassroots and we have most definitely the potential to more constitutional conservatives in congress and a really exciting opportunity before us that everyone here is fired up about to replace harry reid. as majority leader it was in two thousand and nine when a group of constitutional conservatives got together to speak out against the stimulus packages and the bailouts and the cronyism that came out of washington that almost wrecks are calling me to form what's now today. it seems that five years later the tea party catalyst still hot washington d.c. area boring party. and boom bust is coming up next here on our team joins us for a quick preview hi aaron thank you now coming up on boom bust we're bringing you

part two of my interview with max kaiser the host of artie's kaiser report he spoke with me about the u.s. banking system the good the bad and the very ugly you won't want to miss my interview with him then in today's big deal edward harrison and i discussed the state of india's economy and what's around the corner for that country it's all coming up so please stay tuned well max kaiser is always entertaining although i will definitely be tuning in myself things there and thanks to mira and that does it for now for more on the stories we covered go to youtube dot com forward slash our team america check out our website r t dot com forward slash usa you can also follow me on twitter at amir and david stay tuned boom bust is next.

you know maybe those you don't know if you don't think or you know are supposed to do is. everyone in my life that i care about their goal but when it. came to skin well. i was a national champion in track and field and also i was able to go and qualify for the olympic games. you know nine hundred eighty eight i started to experiment with that the drugs i had lost all the financial means that i. was really on the street .

black market can. take a great. interest. wealthy british style. market why not. come to. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike's concert for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into kinds a report on our.

over there i marinate this is boom bust and these are the stories that we're tracking for you today. first up we'll bring you part deux of my interview with max kaiser max spoke with me about the fed and echoed mary j. blige a sentiment of no money no problem and then we have technology expert alex daily on today's show he is the senior editor at p.c. research and he gave us his insight into the comcast netflix melee you won't want to miss what he had to say about that deal and finally in today's big deal edward harrison and i are talk in india what's next for the world's largest economy we'll tell you it's all coming up but it all starts right now.