the politicians write the laws and it's. just too much. coming up on our t.v. a new report shows that the n.s.a. and the f.b.i. spied on five prominent muslim americans the latest on that with one of the men spied on just ahead. and water may be one of the world's most precious resources but drought contamination and price hikes across the u.s. this year have made water much more valuable more our water woes coming up. and the natural gas extraction extraction process known as fracking remains a hot button issue residents near fracking sides across the country are experiencing earthquakes and water contamination but what happens when a town needs it to boost the local economy more on that later in the show.

good evening it's wednesday july ninth eight pm in washington d.c. on lindsey france you're watching our team america. we now know the names and faces of five prominent muslim americans revealed by the intercept whose e-mails were covertly monitored by the national security agency and the f.b.i. they aren't the only ones documents leaked by n.s.a. whistleblower edward snowden reveal seven thousand four hundred eighty five email addresses that were allegedly monitored for six years between two thousand and two and two thousand and eight many of the addresses appear to belong to foreigners the government believes are linked to terrorist organizations but the five americans named by the intercept are all prominent in their fields and deny any involvement with terrorism they include a simca for a civil rights attorney fassel gill a pakistani born lawyer who served in the department of homeland security nihad

awad executive director of the council on islamic american relations hooshang amirahmadi an iranian american professor and political analyst and last saeed a former professor and palestinian rights activists the office of the director of national intelligence and the department of justice have released a joint statement in response to the revelations stating it is entirely false that u.s. intelligence agencies conduct electronic surveillance of political religious or activist figure solely because they disagree with public policies or criticize the government or for exercising constitutional rights i was joined earlier by one of the men on that list fassel gil i first asked him why he believes the government would want to monitor him. that is the million dollar question in my mind right now i have absolutely no idea what in my background could lead somebody to believe that i would harbor those views or have those feelings or that i'm somebody that should

be targeted i just have no idea and that's what i've been trying to figure out ever found out ok quiz quest time now according to the statement from the office of the director of national intelligence is like a court order to spy on you as they say could only have been issued if probable cause is established that you are an agent of a foreign power a terrorist a spy or someone who takes orders from a foreign power which one of those are you going to see is another one none of the above i mean that's you know and that's what it should be and i think that's what the fire as a court and if there is someone who somebody suspects of those acts or be taking you know orders from a foreign power that's when you should surveil them i have no idea what in my background would lead somebody to believe i fall into any of those categories what about talk about something more personal than professional but how much of the five people in this report are the five men are muslim americans how much do you think

your religious beliefs came into play. absent any other evidence i think they're the sole reason that we were on this list i mean the fact that we are muslim that's the only thing that i can think of that would you know cause us to be honest there's absolutely nothing in our background how did you find out you were monitored and you know tell us about the process of finding out if you were on this list receive the call from going greenwald who said he wanted to talk to me he had some information for me so we met up in new york and you know he said i have got some bad news for you some shocking news for you and then he told me that i was monitored i was just floored i had you know i think i literally was speechless i didn't know what to say and i said really nearly sure you have the right guy and he said no this year and then he told me my email address and i said yeah. and. i was just surprised but tell us about you know did you ever think or suspects before this that you the government had been looking and well you know

a prior to it there were some allegations against your work of the part of homeland security that i harbor that i had a lot of my security clearance forms that i was with you know terrorist groups or muslim groups which is absolutely laughable and the fact that i work for this group called islamic american muslim council you know which was again their mainstream group i was or spokesperson so as to how i'm not hiding anything and those allegations were all proved false but even during the time law enforcement was very nice to me and you know they interviewed me and they thought they cleared me i took a polygraph exam as part of the process and i passed it so after a pastor polygram and i was returned to work you know when i was in the clear there's nothing there where you know we spoke earlier with one of the other men on this list that a friend of yours and he had said that. it the front of the law enforcement people he knows he couldn't imagine them trying to use any sort of personal information

against him to keep him from doing his work as a as a civil rights attorney but that did enter his mind at some point because it defies a court is going to allow this sort of surveillance to to go someone's going for you right someone's trying to push your case forward. think there's somebody in the justice department or somebody somewhere at n.s.a. maybe at home and that i used to work somebody is pushing or at least at that time felt they needed to have me surveilled for whatever reason i don't know what they were i would agree with us but there are probably gunning for me at the time and you know proved out to be nothing there's absolutely nothing there it's just got to be disturbing it is very before finding out you were spied on did you follow snowden and the n.s.a. revelations at all i did i did i mean it was very interesting story it was you know all over the news so you know i followed it and never thought. part of it but i think all of you actually worked for the bush administration in the aftermath of nine eleven for the department of homeland security like you sad to have any insight into how the information the government allegedly collected on you could be

used against you. know that i would the fact that the bomb problem is that the information the government collected on me is so. nothing i mean that's the only word that comes to mind i mean during the time i went back and i looked at all the e-mails that i had during the time i don't delete e-mails and at that time i was running for office they were dealing with constituents people cry asking me about and there are a couple of e-mails that were basically saying hey my traffic lights not fix if you get elected i fix this traffic light me responding make absolutely a look at it i mean there was just nothing there there's nothing in my background so even if the government wanted to and even if they were going to use the information and there is nothing there to use pretty boring reading it's absolutely have a very boring there's nothing there how does it feel to know just from a personal perspective that so many eyes have been on your correspondents that the n.s.a. had this access to you i mean definitely not good i mean what would really troubles me more as a somebody actually thought that there was probable cause like you to stay with

what you read there was probable cause to believe i fell into one of those categories and most of the thinking what in the world that i do that could lead somebody to believe that there is probable cause that i'm going to turn in that's pretty high standard to believe that i don't fall into that category i just have no idea such a wide latitude it seems they're using that's what seems to scare people so much in a case like this what i think they're really doing is they're not applying probable cause frankly i think you'd better say probable cause of but you have a court approves ninety nine point six percent of the warner center or the applications that are presented before you out there's absolutely no way there's probable cause that many cases where your email was on a list of others that seem to have been authorized for is stop and defy that by the foreign intelligence surveillance act now you're one of the two hundred two e-mail addresses that was labeled as belonging to u.s. persons. on this on this list do you trust the government is doing its best to target actual terrorists if it's spending this time pursuing no like you not at all i mean if the government is spending this much time and again we have find out

resources this was a time when people like me an awesome and the law there's absolutely no who's you know who is not being monitored basically that's what i'd like to know all of us are very public people if you're a person who harbors terrorists views and if you want to do harm to the united states if you want to cause damage you're not going to be public you're not going to go seek a job in the bush administration you're not going to the rights attorney i mean that's just not going to happen they can't imagine that being too productive ludicrous to believe in here you could be somebody who literally hiding out not you know not calling attention to yourself that's what you're going to do until you carry out whatever you want to carry out so that just as laughable well what's next for you do you plan to address this issue with the government what i wanted to do is i hope the congress or the administration calls for an oversight or actually calls for a review of the fires itself and so are we really having probable cause what are the applications that are getting you know getting through the files of court and what have we have those yielded how many of those of you with any well you will

information because in my case there's nothing valuable that came out of my or awesomes or not or any one of our cases so i think there definitely needs to be a review of the files of court and i want to see after you know this this article is a huge revelation that's come out from the intercept today we'll have to see what happens with that and it'll be interesting to watch it will be absolutely right attorney fassel gail thank you very much for joining me thank you very much. the man who leaked the documents about the n.s.a. mass surveillance is seeking to extend his time in russia edward snowden has asked that his asylum in the country be extended for another year it's scheduled to run out on july thirty first snowden first arrived in moscow on june twenty fourth of last year via hong kong after fleeing the u.s. russia then granted him asylum on august first in an exclusive interview with n.b.c. news in may he was asked about hiding out in russia here's what he had to say. the reality is i never intended to head up in russia i had a flight booked to cuba on words to latin america and i was stopped because the united states government decided to revoke my passport and tripped me and moscow

airport snowden told n.b.c. that he would like to return to the u.s. if the option was on the table but he is wanted by the u.s. on espionage and theft of government property charges and fears conviction the decision to extend snowden's asylum will be made by russia's federal migration service. germany and the united states haven't had this new this to relationships in recent years after it was revealed that the n.s.a. had been listening in on chancellor angela merkel's cell phone well now the white house is red faced yet again after president obama was left in the dark over a rather sensitive fact before a recent phone call with markel according to an article in the new york times one day before the phone call took place in german intelligence workers worker was arrested in berlin turns out he's suspected of being a double agent working for the u.s. well president obama obviously didn't mention it during the phone call he didn't know merkel didn't address it either but just when things couldn't get more awkward between the two allies german police are reportedly also investigating yet another

new case of espionage this time involving a defense ministry employee suspected of spying for washington archies peter all of our has been following the story. on wednesday morning federal prosecutors raided the home and office of a defense ministry employee here in berlin now they were looking for evidence that this particular employee may have been passing information on to the united states now this prompted the u.s. ambassador john b. and this in to be summoned to the foreign ministry to talk more about this and there's an ongoing investigation to try and kill these allegations but it's not the first time this is happened in fact just last week an employee of the security services here in germany to be andy was arrested and being charged with passing documents to the united states on to the n.s.a. in exchange for cash no he's waiting a trial an ongoing investigation into just what happened so far the united states

hasn't denied that that particular security service employee hired given them any classified documents and it's all continuing to unfold surely over the next few months and perhaps even longer it's not just here in europe that we've seen the united states getting caught out on this new thing as artie's peter oliver reporting from berlin. the next stop for the ukrainian army are two of the largest cities in eastern ukraine and the ganske both have suffered artillery attacks and now the president has personally ordered a blockade. is in look for us. we don't leave hotel without bullet proof jackets both sides may be they will not talk to the sheriff but he says something different. shells land in the city center for guns. is the interest for life today. so now already but citizens here have little protection

against mortar rounds and those who didn't flee face constant danger. over the last three days the city's residential areas have been hate each time we civilian casualties. this is the scene of the most recent attack we saw at least two craters on the road there and there and as you can see this building was damaged well if used to be one of the city's banks and it could barely be a target of whoever is behind this attack. as we're filming we hear about another shelling locals say it was a miracle that no one got hurt the book called the fire just going out to the balcony and then i heard glass breaking and i realized we are being attacked and then i want to do where to hide where they are going to fire from the next time we

go to invite us to go to used to be his home broken glass litters the floor. or the windows and we go to these two room apartment have been shattered. i just got up and opened up the window and then it came both sides blame the other for the violence but whoever is responsible the violence is real and fear is spreading the gun the second largest city in is to ukraine it used to be home to more than four hundred thousand people these days you can see it looks like a ghost town it's not just shops bangs and restaurants that have closed their doors . post offices to have shopped so has the local police office a group of men gathers next to a bank in the center of the old workers' lining to take out cash on payday they don't trust the banks not to speak to journalists are there. they see the people do

not want to talk to angry nervous it's understandable rich notion. is to ukraine. exactly six months ago today a massive chemical spill contaminated the water supply for hundreds of thousands of residents in west virginia now freedom industries the company behind the ten thousand gallon spill of industrial chemicals is being taken to task for its negligence artes make a lopez has more on this story. six months after a massive chemical spill poison the elk river in west virginia using the water with the exception of using. the company responsible for the disaster is finally being fined the penalty for contaminating the water of three hundred thousand charleston residents i don't know but to borrow a birthday you know they turn our office up more hills we don't have we have one case where the hell are you going to the water couple days it's going to like her and other stuff and every time i get there i just miss it it's terrible and it's

scary just eleven thousand dollars regulators with the occupational safety and health administration find the now bankrupt company for failing to have a liquid type wall surrounding the tank and for whacking proper railing on an elevated platform near the tank that money however is just a drop in the bucket to the true economic and environmental damage caused by the contamination. how could the governor or anybody else of responsibility allow something like this where you bring in chemicals. and when they get away they threaten a livelihood of the people west virginia however it seems public anger has come down since the water was deemed safe only seventy eight claims have been filed against freedom industries since the spill happened long term consequences of the chemical leak are still being evaluated meanwhile the cleanup continues as freedom industries gets ready to finally tear down the troublesome tanks for good but

charleston isn't the only city dealing with a manmade water crisis. four hundred miles to the north detroit residents are facing shut off for delinquent water bill payments how am i supposed to wash my child i supposed to shower myself since march the city's water and sewer department has sent out forty six thousand notices and cut the water of some fifteen thousand residents now the department says it's going after businesses that oh thirty three point eight million dollars in past due what we hoped what would happen is that those notices would encourage people to reach out to us and make arrangements make down payments get out a payment plan get worked with so we could work with them to try to work out something equitable this week the one a department announced it has one million dollars in donated funds available for helping struggling families but the shutoffs continue if anybody can come up with a way that we can make the detroit drinking water is good as it is right now. for pennies on the dollar will we're going to listen unfortunately this is not the case

on the other side of the country instead of manmade water shortages mother nature has dried up lakes across california in one of the worst droughts in the state's history the drought here is probably going to cost our ranch in just the hard read when are we the low three to four hundred thousand dollars. because we grow about three thousand acres of wheat and will probably not harvest any of it despite concerns over this historic drought in the five months since an emergency was declared californians have cut their consumption by only five percent newly proposed regulations could find residents up to five hundred dollars for wasteful water use but until something changes federal meteorologists say the state is two years away from running out of water completely in nearby nevada the situation isn't much better lake mead water levels have hit historic lows this week the reservoir sits at thirty nine percent full and the projection for the foreseeable

future really isn't much brighter the overall price of water increased seven percent in two thousand and thirteen as compared to the previous year which is a twenty five percent raise from two thousand and ten and it looks like that number is only expected to grow in the near future so it looks like the u.s. could be a hot water in coming years if it doesn't work harder to conserve and protect this valuable resource reporting in washington i meghan lopez r.t. . hydraulic fracturing or fracking a method of drilling for natural gas beneath shale rock is blamed for increased earthquakes in a number of states with residents finding their house foundations unstable and complaining of water wells are contaminated but one town is so strapped for cash it's considering breaking out the drills to inject funds into its empty coffers so what's worse unstable bedrock or an unstable local economy you know what chad reports. fracking has been a hot button word in the media the last few years environmentalist were largely the group that most people thought of when you think of the anti fracking movement but

now in oklahoma it's the town's people who are speaking up as they may have to make a tough choice between the state's biggest industry or earthquakes many are calling the two hundred plus earthquakes the state of oklahoma has experienced in the last year manmade shakers due to the heavy fracking within the state deep marcellus shale fracking drills over a mile down into the earth and injects water and other chemicals to release precious resources like oil and gas but it's not the act of fracking itself that may be causing the nearly twenty five hundred quakes in the last five years making oklahoma surpassed california as the hotbed of seismic activity nope it's the disposal of the wastewater byproduct of fracking over eighty percent of homes in the state of oklahoma are within ten miles of a drilling site or wastewater disposal well wells that are almost as deep as the

fracking sites themselves so how does one choose between collecting a paycheck putting food on the table and having the ground beneath you literally shaking for people in the county of warren pennsylvania it's a no brainer in pennsylvania more shallow drilling around a thousand feet deep into shale rock to release natural gas is more prevalent fracking finds friends in pennsylvania a state who has remained in an economic slump fracking an oil field jobs are the biggest employers in that state as well now i was joined earlier by mike collins president of collins drilling in the town of sugar grove pennsylvania mr collins said that in his town fracking is just a way of life for the locals and has a great economic effect get warm. it's one of the weakest industries you know that we know in the logging industry it's always the majority of the you know

i was in you know the circle so if there were going to global manufacturing. once again you know the east the waters low and you would have those three little in the little meeting in the. in the lead on down the road. who are who are who are going to slow this will. relieve you of the form. that we. were. in the civil rights that oh everybody should place everybody you know the one who is slowly well the industry and there is little the whole of who thinks everybody here while mr collins told me that they weren't experiencing any tremors in his part of the country he said that the state would be harder hit if fracking went away from washington manila cham r.t. . and a letter to the united nations iraq announced insurgents have seized nuclear materials

from moscow university according to iraq's u.n. ambassador mohammad ali al hakim at least forty kilograms of uranium compounds were stored in the university of hakim said the materials obtained can be used in manufacturing weapons of mass destruction and warned they could be smuggled out of iraq however a u.s. government official told reuters the materials are not believed to be enriched uranium and what therefore be difficult to make into an actual weapon well that does it for now folks more of the stories we covered 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 and t. friends for now have a great. this was the washington well it's a miss. is a. marker so you going to actually back to me doesn't do too

much for ad revenue my own tech agriculture giant teeth on a seventy six year old american farmer in eastern india fallout do you think they are going to create the cia do you think this is what's triggering a great america is the largest economy in the world it's also the largest debtor nation in the history of the world breaking the fed is mostly about turning the status quo on made it real to the points on the working poor the american dream the next they were just trying to survive it's time for americans and lawmakers in washington to wake up and start talking about the real causes a problem for. dramas the chance to be ignored true to the. stories others lists houston noticed smoke. cigs change the world's lights never.

sold picture posts from own two sons from rooms to the. doctors. i'm. i'm i'm i'm.

with us is pretty screwed up when it comes to religion on the one hand we've got the constitutional right to practice any religion we want on the other hand we've got the p.c. the police telling us to not impose our religion on anyone else and in the middle we've got story after story about people going to court people just like polly needs polly was a bank teller in kentucky at a u.s. bank for twenty four years in two thousand and nine she heard someone say have a blessed day as a way to say goodbye and she thought that was just lovely so she started telling her customers have a blessed day as a way to say goodbye at the bank she continued to do that for a few years that was her expressing her right to religion and this is the bank's response expressing their role as the p.c. police they issued her a code of ethics violation u.s. bank claims that customers had been complaining over pollies they have a blessed day because of its christian kind of patients after she got the violation

pollies stopped telling people to have less today's that lasted for a few months but then she was like you know what screw this i'm going back to telling people to have blessed days because. i have a right to do that and for that she was fired her lawyer jeff blankenship says at the end of the day this is a clear cut case of how he being fired for exercising her constitutionally protected diligence freedom and because of that polly has filed a lawsuit against the bank a bank a place which happens to have in god we trust written all over this product. but that fun piece of irony aside polly's case illustrates beautifully how screwed up over religion in the us that is and how our constitutional rights and the p.c. police are at war this country was largely founded by christians who came to practice their religion after being persecuted for it in the old world and so it made perfect sense for them to protect that right constitutionally but in doing so

they left so much open to interpretation and because of that we still haven't figured out the boundaries of religious freedom and how it factors into the workplace government and other public spaces we still haven't figured out where your rights and and someone else's rights begin and instead of trying to work together to figure that out in a calm manner we're all screaming at each other like lunatics and we created the p.c. police that voce intolerance cultural abomination the us is a young country so maybe we'll figure it out eventually but in the meantime would it kill you to try to listen to the other side's point just a bit otherwise we're bound to keep giving our of p.c. police more power until we're all too afraid to express any religious sentiment and we.